“The Ones Who Walk Away from the Omelas” by Ursula K. Guin describes a utopian city that is characterized by a child suffering for the good of the entire society.  On the surface, anyone would want to live in Omelas.  The citizens live with luxuries, without wars, or competition. The children are happy and the adults are intelligent and passionate. Then the caveat comes when it is learned that the basis for the city is the maintenance of a suffering child.

The theme of the story arises from the psychological term “scapegoat.”  The term means that a person or group is made to bear the blame or to suffer in their place.  This is true for Omelas. Life will go on in the utopia as long as one child lives in agonized loneliness.

The story emphasizes the individual versus society. In Omelas, the child is sacrificied for the good of everyone.  When society discovers the child, the people handle the knowledge in different ways:

• Ignore the child
• Go to see the child
• Think about the child but do nothing
• Save the child and live as other people live
• Walk away from Omelas never to be heard from again.

The question becomes can people enjoy their lives once they know that their happiness comes from the suffering of the child.

Life is wonderful in Omelas except for the city’s secret.  The wondrous life in Omelas necessitates that a individual child be kept in a dark, lonely place.  The child will communicate with no one; in addition, the child should be starved, filthy, and entirely miserable.  When a citizen shows signs of maturity, he will be told the story of the suffering child. 

After encountering the secret, a  person is shocked and saddened.  When given the choice of ending the child’s suffering or living on with their mother, most of the citizens continue on with their happy lives in Omelas. 

On the other hand, a small fraction of people cannot live under the knowledge of the tortured child.  The story ends with "The place they go towards is a place even less imaginable to us than the city of happiness. I cannot describe it at all. It is possible it does not exist. But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away."

They walk away from Omelas, never to be heard or seen again.

Part of the thought process of reading the story engages this train of thought:  privilege  has its price.  This has been proven historically.  The upper class usually achieves its wealth on the backs of those who work for them. 

Furthermore, in today’s society in which each family now owns and uses eight to ten phones and three or more televisions, it is appalling that over twenty percent of America’s children live in dire poverty with few efforts to alleviate their suffering.

With that knowledge, is it so strange that Omelas survives only by the anguished soul of a child!

In "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" by Ursula Le Guin, what dilemma do the citizens of Omelas face?

The citizens of Omelas face the following dilemma: they can continue to have the prosperous lives they lead in a wondrously beautiful city, or they can give love and nurture to the one child whose misery and abuse makes the joy possible. As the narrator put it, the choice is stark:

If the child were brought up into the sunlight out of that vile place, if it were cleaned and fed and comforted, that would be a good thing indeed; but if it were done, in that day and hour all the prosperity and beauty and delight of Omelas would wither and be destroyed. Those are the terms. To exchange all the goodness and grace of every life in Omelas for that single, small improvement: to throw away the happiness of thousands for the chance of the happiness of one.

Most of the people of Omelas rationalize away their discomfort and dismay at the existence of the abused child. They say the child will get used to misery or that the trade-off makes sense: would it really be worth it to save one child at the expense of so much else?

Through the story, LeGuin is critiquing utilitarianism, a philosophy that argues happiness can be defined as the greatest good for the greatest number of people.

Some of the citizens of Omelas won't accept the compromise and walk away rather than have their happiness predicated on the suffering of another person.

In no case, however, does anyone seem to try to save the child and see what would happen if they did treat it well: that might be material for another story!

In "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" by Ursula Le Guin, what dilemma do the citizens of Omelas face?

In Le Guin's "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas," the society presented is a Utopia built upon the back of one miserable, abused, neglected, and caged child.  So the choice is to maintain the Utopia or give it up to rescue its sacrificial victim, this child. 

Most of the people of Omelas are shown this victim when they are between the ages of eight and twelve, and it is explained to them what purpose this poor, wretched being serves, the happiness and prosperity of all.  The child must remain neglected and caged, and "there may not be even a kind word spoken to the child" (Le Guin 4).  People are trouble by this, but they rationalize.  The damage is already done, and it would thus be pointless to rescue this child.  It's too late to save him or her, so they enjoy the perfect weather, the dances, the parades, and all the pleasures life in Omelas brings. 

A very few find this unbearable and they are the ones whom the title refers to. They walk away.  They never return.  But they "seem to know where they are going" (4).  They are more ethical, certainly, than those who remain, declining to enjoy happiness at the cost of even one child in misery. 

There is a theory of ethics called utilitarianism, which posits that given a choice between competing harms, one should choose to save the person or people who will do the most good for the most people.  This story takes utilitarianism to a whole new level, one never contemplated, I would guess, by John Stuart Mill. 

This story always makes for an interesting thought experiment.  You might want to ask yourself what you would do in these circumstances.  You might remain. Or you might be one of the ones who walks away.

Discuss the themes in "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" by Ursula K. Le Guin. 

 “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” by Ursula Le Guin presents an unusual utopian type of city. Everything is beautiful and well done in the city.  The people seem happy in this world. The children laugh and play. 

The narration is third person point of view with an involved narrator.  The narrator tells the story of the city of Omelas, the city by the sea.  Focusing on the parallel of Omelas and the present society, the narrator offers the reader the opportunity to suggest how he thinks that the world would be run.  Then, she adds her own version of what should be placed in the society.

THEMES

There are basically three themes that are developed in the story.   The first motif that is clearly a part of the story is morality. If the utopian city’s survival is based on one condition and that involves the suffering of a child, what moral decision should be made?  Everyone else wins, and the child loses; or everyone loses, and the child wins.  In Omelas the decision is made, the child loses.  That is the rule.  There are no other conditions. A child must be kept in a small, locked, filthy room with no light.  No one can speak or touch the child to take care of its sores.  The child must be in this place in these conditions, or Omelas will no longer survive.

Hopefully, morality would swing to the side of the child.  A society who chooses to ignore the presence of a suffering child cannot call itself civilized. This is the situation over which the author wants the reader to ponder. 

The second thematic issue is guilt versus innocence.  Every child in Omelas between the ages of eight and twelve is told about the child.  Some want to see him. Many adults choose to look at him. Once the person has actually witnessed the child, what then does he do? Many cry and grieve and then return to their lives.  Some go on without the showing of emotion.  There are some both young and old who walk away from Omelas and are never seen again.  No one knows what happens to them. 

There are two things to consider.  If a person has seen the child, he is not guilty of immorality if he does nothing.  Secondly, if a person leaves Omelas, he is leaving the child behind and also becomes guilty of the child’s abuse as well.  There are no innocent people in Omelas if everyone knows about the child and does nothing.

The third theme regards the idea of ideal happiness. Is there such a thing as perfect happiness? Does happiness come with a price tag? These are the questions that the author asks to be discussed.  In the story, obviously, there is a price tag for this Utopian happiness: a child must suffer. 

If a person knows about the child, there should be no way for complete happiness to occur because of the guilt that is brought by the knowledge of the child’s suffering. Some philosophers believe that there is no society in which pure happiness can happen as long as there are people who envy others, who refuse to accept authority, or take things that do not belong to them. 

How does "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" by Ursula K. LeGuin speak to the theme of the individual and how he/she relates to society?

The story develops some profound, timeless questions about human nature, human society, and the individual's relationship to society.

The child who is imprisoned and abused beneath the streets of the city (and who dies there, to be replaced by another innocent) is a scapegoat. He has been singled out through no fault of his own and isolated from society to suffer so that their collective well being will be assurred. As in real societies that have made scapegoats of certain citizens, the people of Omelas choose the most powerless among them (in the story, disabled children) to be their scapegoats, one after another.

The individual's relationship to society as explored in the story is shown in those who walk away from Omelas--and those who don't. After witnessing the child's misery and after understanding that personal happiness in Omelas comes only from his suffering, some citizens (young and old) choose to leave the town. It is a moral choice. Those who walk away from Omelas reject evil, and they refuse to condone it by remaining in a society that promotes it. They reject happiness purchased by another's suffering. Some make this moral choice immediately upon first seeing the child. Some struggle with it for years, remembering the horror they once had seen, before they can endure it no longer and must walk away. Those who leave Omelas don't know where they are going or what their subsequent lives will be; they only know their own humanity tells them they cannot live as they are expected to live in their society.

The individuals in the story relate to their society in one of two ways. Some choose to live with the evil they see--embracing it, rationalizing it perhaps, or trying to ignore it. Others are deeply affected and walk away from it. In their reactions, we examine our own relationship to society. When presented with "a child," would we make the moral choice? Human history is filled with examples of those who made such difficult moral choices, and these are the people we admire for their courage and integrity.