Le Guin, Ursula. “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas”

The five-page short story “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” is a 1973 work of philosophical fiction. It starts with a depiction of the first day of summer in Omelas, which seems a practically perfect city in an unknown, fictional location. The people of Omelas are “not less complex” than us, the third person narrator argues, yet for some reason they are truly happy. The narrator underscores that they do not know every particularity of the city and its workings, yet tells the reader some important details; the people of Omelas do not use swords, nor do they keep slaves. They maintain order without soldiers, they have religion but no clergy, and they are passionate people who feel no guilt. In Omelas, music and children’s laughter float through the streets of a community that is intelligent, cultured and sophisticated. Halfway through the story, however, the tone changes, as the narrator introduces the one aspect of Omelas that is not pleasant, yet, so it seems, necessary to its community. The city’s permanent state of happiness and splendor depends on the one condition that a single child is kept in a dirty basement, in a perpetual state of misery and neglect. All the people in Omelas know of this child and its suffering. They have all seen it, so the narrator tells the reader, but they know that this one atrocity is necessary. Most citizens accept this injustice. However, every now and then a citizen, unable to acquiesce to the atrocity, silently walks away from Omelas. No one knows where they go; it is an unimaginable place, that might not even exist. 

The story discusses the willingness of a society to go along with injustices in order to secure its own happiness and stability, which is aptly portrayed through the allegory of the suffering child. It thus serves as a valuable basis for discussions on questions of responsibility, guilt, and complicity in the face of collectively perpetrated violence. Particularly the portrayal of the two choices – staying or leaving – functions as a useful reflection on various forms of complicity; neither choice is without serious consequences, for even those who walk away from Omelas cannot escape responsibility. It thus showcases that in a context of collective violence there is no “outside” position, reflecting on the multiple ways in which citizens are implicated in such violence. The story lends itself well for teaching, as a discussion of the story can be a productive way to introduce the notions of and pressing questions regarding complicity, implication and collective violence.

Author of this entry: Marit van de Warenburg

Le Guin, Ursula K. “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas.” 1973