“The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” by Ursula LeGuin
The stark contrast between the idyllic city of Omelas and the anguish of a lone kid in Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas is trying to teach us about what needs to be done, as in a cost of happiness and morality. Le Guin challenges us to know the actual justice and our beliefs in addition to telling us a story of a utopian city. As it is said, omelas is supposed to be like a dream, a paradise. Peace and harmony are everywhere, the city is flourishing, and the people are happy to the fullest. Until the time when Le Guin lets out its dark secret, it was like a utopia. Omelas’s entire pleasure depends on the unending suffering of a single child who is imprisoned in a dirty, dark cellar. This unexpected turns of events makes us wonder if Happiness like that can ever be right. If civilization is based on the suffering of others, can it still be good? Le Guin also shows how the residents of Omelas deals with this terrible reality. A lot of people accept it. They influence themselves that releasing the child would destroy their society and that the child’s suffering is required. This is troubling to read because it shows how we repeatedly defend the unfair systems in the actual world if they meet our interests. But some take a different path. they choose to leave Omelas in silence instead of remaining and accepting this evil path. They refuse to live in a society that is covered in such cruelty, but they also don’t try to change the system or provide any solution. Their choice is both unexplained and thoughtful —it asks us what we would do if we were in their place. Through Omelas, Le Guin asks us to see what’s inside ourselves: Are we okay benefiting from systems that harm others? And if not, what are we willing to do about it?