The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin Analysis

In many science fiction stories, the reader is left to fill in gaps in the stories themselves. Sometimes we have to use our imagination combined with context from the story to form conclusions. In “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas”, we are left with many unanswered questions that we can either leave a mystery or speculate what we think the answers could be. One question in particular that is not fully answered is “why do some people choose to walk away from Omelas”? Though this could have several explanations, I personally think it could be because they have an intolerable sense of guilt that they cannot move past.

During the beginning of the story, Le Guin describes the quaint city of Omelas as their summer festival begins. “With a clamor of bells that set the swallows soaring, the Festival of Summer came to the city of Omelas, bright-towered by the sea. The rigging of the boats in the harbor sparkled with flags. In the streets between houses with red roofs and painted walls, between old moss-grown gardens and under avenues of trees, past great parks and public buildings, processions moved.” (pg. 329) Immediately, the reader is teleported into a timeless fairytale-like era, filled with joy and innocence, so it seems. Le Guin begins describing the citizens into further detail, originally making them out to be full of happiness, but quickly redirects the reader to ensure that they are not too happy and they are certainly not “simple” people. She goes on to discuss some imperfections within the city and its citizens, saying that “all smiles have become archaic” (pg. 330), which can be interpreted several ways, and goes on to say “only pain is intellectual, only evil is interesting… to praise despair is to condemn delight,” which is one of our first clues that something sinister is going on in the seemingly perfect city of Omelas. 

Later in the story, Le Guin asks the reader, “Do you believe? Do you accept the festival, the city, the joy? No? Then let me describe one more thing.” (pg. 333), to which she goes on to introduce the readers to the child. In a musty basement underneath the city of Omelas, a child lives in the dark. Le Guin describes the dark, damp room as being the size of a broom closet. She says, “In the room a child is sitting. It could be a boy or a girl. It looks about six, but actually is nearly ten. It is feeble-minded. Perhaps it was born defective, or perhaps it has become imbecile through fear, malnutrition, and neglect. It picks its nose and occasionally fumbles vaguely with its toes or genitals…” (pg. 333). Sometimes people come to see the child, but they do not wish to help it. Everyone in the city knows the child is there, even the other children, but they do not help the child. “They all know that it has to be there. Some of them understand why, and some do not, but they all understand that their happiness, the beauty of their city, the tenderness of their friendships, the health of their children, the wisdom of their scholars, the skill of their makers, even the abundance of their harvest and the Kindly weathers of their skies, depend wholly on this child’s abominable misery” (pg. 334). Le Guin states that when children see this children for the first time, they often feel shocked and disgusted, even angry, but she strongly emphasizes that no one, including the children, feels guilt. The citizens seem to rationalize the child's suffering by saying that the child could no longer know happiness. Because it has lived this way for so long, they might be able to make it more comfortable, but the child will never know what it is to be truly happy. The citizens also feel like helping the child would be selfish because they risk taking away everything good in their entire city just to make one single child slightly more comfortable. 

Though Le Guin emphasizes that no one in the city feels guilt, I believe that they feel so guilty that they must leave the city. It seems that most people who leave the city of Omelas do so after seeing the child for the first time. Some leave immediately, and some sit with their thoughts for a few days before leaving in the night. I think that after seeing the child, they have an intense moral dilemma in which they want to do what they feel is right and free the child, but this goes against everything they are told is right, which is that the child must suffer so that everyone else may be happy. They know that they cannot free the child, but the guilt of knowing it is there and it is suffering and they are unable to help is too much for them to bear, so their only choice is to walk away. Though this story leaves many questions unanswered, the question of “why?” is one that can be discussed deeply. Though this is only speculation, it gives one explanation as to why the people walk away from Omelas.