'The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas' is a famous short story from 1973 by Ursula LeGuin. It is, apparently, a fable often used in schools 'to upset students'. So say the panel who discussed it in a recent episode of Free Thinking at the BBC...

The panel, chaired by Matthew Sweet, included authors Una McCormack, Naomi Alderman, Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson and Kevan Manwaring, and political philosopher Sophie Scott-Brown.

I discovered LeGuin's brilliant Earthsea series at Teachers College when we did Children's Literature, and I subsequently read a collection of short stories called Searoad (1991) but I'd never come across this story, and I was fascinated by the panel's discussion about its philosophical and political underpinnings.

It was easy to find a copy to read online here.

The fable asks the question, can there be a Utopia without somebody suffering? The story is framed to lure the reader into an melodramatic sunlit setting where everyone enjoys a good life. There is anticipation about the Festival of Summer and the joy that pervades this society, which could be anywhere, probably on earth — but maybe not. The place is not a sterile monoculture like the planet Camazotz in Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time (1962) where people act like robots because they are denied all choice by a despot. On Omelas, people have choice and agency.

And yet there is a sense of unease because the narrator's tone suggests it.

They were not simple folk, you see, though they were happy. But we do not say the words of cheer much any more. All smiles have become archaic. Given a description such as this one tends to make certain assumptions. Given a description such as this one tends to look next for the King, mounted on a splendid stallion and surrounded by his noble knights, or perhaps in a golden litter borne by great-muscled slaves. But there was no king. They did not use swords, or keep slaves. They were not barbarians, I do not know the rules and laws of their society, but I suspect that they were singularly few. As they did without monarchy and slavery, so they also got on without the stock exchange, the advertisement, the secret police, and the bomb. Yet I repeat that these were not simple folk, not dulcet shepherds, noble savages, bland utopians. There were not less complex than us.

Having subtly created suspicion, the narrator then asks

Do you believe? Do you accept the festival, the city, the joy? No? Then let me describe one more thing.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2023/11/30/the-ones-who-walk-away-from-omelas-1973-in-t... ( )

I first read this short story years ago and have re-read it a couple of times since. The re-reads don't carry the same impact of the revelation of what lies behind the perfect happiness of the citizens of Omelas and their ideal existence, but it still remains a haunting tale nonetheless. ( )

This is one of the stories given us to read in Goodreads’ Short Story Club. Several of these stories are horrific and this is one of those stories.

Omelas is a city containing happy people. “They were not barbarians.”

It is the Festival of Summer.

In the basement of one of the beautiful public buildings of Omelas or one of its private homes there is a room with one locked door and no window.

In the room a feeble-minded child is sitting. It may have been born defective or has become so through fear, malnutrition and neglect. It looks about six but is in fact nearly ten.

The door is locked and nobody will come. But sometimes the door opens, someone comes in and kicks the child, and the food bowl and the water jug are hastily filled.

The people never say anything but the child sometimes says “Please let me out. I will be good.” They never answer.

The child is naked. Its buttocks and thighs are a mess of festered sores as it sits in its own excrement continually.”

The people of Omelas all know it is there. They all know that it has to be there. They all understand that their happiness, the beauty of their city, the health of their children, everything good about their city “depend wholly on this child’s abominable misery.”

They all believe that if the child were taken into the sunlight, if it were cleaned and fed and comforted, then ”all the prosperity and beauty and delight of Omelas would wither and be destroyed”.

No kind word could ever be spoken to the child.

The reason for the necessity of the child being kept in misery and suffering is not explained.

It seems to be a fact of life. It’s just the way it is. The child has to suffer for all the others to be happy.

We’re told that some of the adolescent girls and boys who go to see the child leave home. Sometimes it is older men or women who leave. They walk out of the city of Omelas. They go alone. They do not come back,

Again no explanation is given for where those people are going, or why. It is up to the reader to understand. Perhaps they just can’t bear to live in a city like this where everyone’s well-being depends on the abject suffering of a pitiful child.

Instead of perhaps discussing with each other and with the authorities whether the child’s suffering is really necessary and whether it should not be rescued, these people choose just to leave.

Perhaps the meaning of the story relates to how we humans tackle other such wrongdoings; instead of trying to do something about those things, we shut our eyes to them by departing from the situations in question.

We feel we cannot do anything and ignore these evil things. ( )

What starts out to be a description of a Utopian society morphs into a question on morality and the appropriateness of the suffering of one to insure the pleasure of the many. What a complicated story this turns out to be! I could not help thinking of, and comparing, this tale to Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery.

Does every society need a scapegoat? Can we know pleasure without experiencing pain, satiety without hunger, happiness without sorrow? Why do we select from amongst us martyrs or even classes of people to carry the burden of our guilt? And, who are the people who walk away? The ones who cannot enjoy their good fortune at the expense of even one suffering soul? And why are there so few of them, and their convictions so puzzling to the masses?

This short story will require very little of your time to read, but it might occupy your thoughts for quite a while after you have finished.
( )

The story opens with a festival for the coming of age for the youth, called the Festival of Summer. Perhaps the season of summer is chosen as the introduction setting as it is a precursor to autumn. In summer everything is ripe and in bloom, though weighted with the knowledge of the coming decline into winter, through a withering fall. A metaphor for the fall of man.

The colors used to describe the city and set the scene of the festival are lush and hearty; green field, blue sky, red roofs. The citizens travel to the site of the celebration, some in a decorous procession, some with a jubilant crowd. Given it is a coming of age festival, this could be indicative of how people process coming to adulthood in a variety of ways, taking different paths and paces to arrive.

'How is one to tell about joy?' The author insists that the citizens' joy is not simple, that 'they were not less complex than us.' This does prompt the reader to consider their own joy. If the citizens’ joy is not simple, and is not less complex than the readers, the readers must consider the complexity of their own joy. The phrasing breaks the fourth wall, the author now communicating directly with the reader, and invites us as readers to compare ourselves and our experience to that presented in the story. 'We have a bad habit ... of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil is interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain.'

Unlike the previous paragraphs, this is an assertion of the author’s, an insight that she will now attempt to convince us of, in particular, that happiness is not something stupid. That only evil is intersteresting and intellectual pain is set up here as something false to be disproven along with the stupidity of happiness, but considering the remainder of the story, this seems to be rather something the author ends up proving as being true. Or rather, instead of proving both these statements false, the author goes ahead to prove happiness to also be intellectual and interesting, in addition to pain and evil, rather than only pain and evil being intellectual and interesting, or pain and evil to not be intellectual and interesting.

The rest feels a bit like an aside. Which is interesting in itself - the author is strengthening their voice and presence, and perhaps doing some minor self-reflection? In that an author also an artist?

'Perhaps it would be best if you imagined it as your own'. The author presents the city as a utopia, stating that 'I do not know the rules and laws of their society, but I suspect that they were singularly few.' This seems to open up the story to be viewed as more than just presented fiction, but as something that the reader needs to interact with, filling the gaps left by the author with our own speculation and consideration. This is alluding to the single, seemingly arbitrary rule imposed by the author later.

After spending sufficient time convincing us as readers to personally invest in this fantastical paradise, we are brought back to the festival, where the youth are going to race on bare-backed horses. The attending youth are naked, uninhibited. This contrasts strongly with the later description of the child later, who too is naked.

A curious statement I have no understanding of is in the first paragraph; 'the horse being the only animal who has adopted our ceremonies as his own'. I wonder if this is a reference to some of the author's other writing, or if this is in reference to domestication?

'Do you believe?' What if we do believe? Must we continue reading if we are convinced? Can we stop here? Does the author not believe in our belief? The implication seems to be that if we are incapable of believing such a place could exist, that reveals something unfortunate about our own expectations of our own societies. Or there is some psychology at play, perhaps by challenging our belief, the author is inciting us to commit to this setting.

The city must be perfect so that we the readers can understand the cost. The author goes on to demand that knowledge of happiness requires context, and requires suffering. The price of prosperity is all that knowledge of pain being shouldered by a single child. Happiness is a calculation.

A single mistreated child is kept in isolation, locked in a tint bleak cellar room. The child must be kept miserable in all aspects of its existence; physical, emotion, mental. The child is shown no kindness, is malnourished, developmental stunted, physically sick, and lives in filth. Noticeable, this necessary suffering is the burden of a child, rather than an adult. Perhaps this has to do with a child being unable to understand complex motivations, and being unable to consent to such a calculus. The child is denied its own coming of age, is unable to consent to the responsibility of the happiness of the city.

Upon reaching an age capable of understanding, often eight to ten, every citizen is introduced to the necessity of this horrible secret and must find a way to personally justify this atrocity. Often the justification takes the form that the child would be unable to comprehend a better existence. They accept it. This child must exist in squalor for the rest of the citizens' happiness. Some understand and some do not. The child does not understand its condition, cries out 'I will be good', remembering distantly its life before. All citizens must be complicit. They often go through a series of emotions, disgust, anger, outrage, impotence. This process of justification within the story is the rite of adulthood - complicit acceptance. This potentially parallels our own societies. Our happiness seems shadowed by the knowledge of the disparity of experience.

The age of eight to ten seems to be explicitly stated. According to Swiss developmental psychologist Jean Piaget, it is the ‘concrete operational period’, the stage where children begin to apply logic and reasoning to concrete events. Children at this age begin to be able to question logical incongruities, understand identity - where certain properties remain the same while outward qualities change, and consider multiple perspectives. They do tend to still struggle with understanding abstract or hypothetical situations. What does it mean for children just beginning to grasp these concepts to be confronted with such a question? What would happen if the age of introduction for this subject were delayed or advanced? Perhaps this would be even more poignet for this age group - as they grasp the logic but cannot conceive it as abstract?

Though in our world, we too have disparities, this world forces us to confront this cruel and complex calculus of happiness, as unlike the seemingly justifiable rules governing suffering within the hierarchy of our societies, the rules in this city are starkly arbitrary. Are we too justifying the pain of others offsetting our happiness with faulty rationalization?

The citizens attend their lives with the responsibility of this happiness, treating their own, naive, happy children with care, grateful the burden is not on their shoulders. Some citizens refuse to accept this reality.

'Now do you believe in them?' the author asks, after exposing the price of the city's prosperity. Would you be willing to live in such a world?

The citizens, even should they disagree, are unable to change the city. And should they choose to free the child, which is never presented as an option, they would be condemning their entire city instead. Perhaps they should be condemned. Instead, they leave. They refuse to be a part of such a system. They reject comfort and embrace their own morality. They walk out the city, 'ahead into the darkness ... the place they go towards is a place even less imaginable to most of us than the city of happiness ... it is possible it does not exist.'

They may not know what the alternative is, what is ahead, but they know what is behind. Does this mean they are rejecting adulthood? What parallel would that have in our own society?

This philosophical quandary is asked in other works as well, notably in the psychomyth of the scapegoat by William James. The happiness of many conditional on the devastation of one.

The story does however avoid one possible reaction - those that might choose to actively, rather than passively resist. Leaving is a passive action. They are rejecting the system in which they are required to leave a child in pain, but are refusing to condemn the vitality of the city by releasing the child. But perhaps that is a generous description of their actions - another read would be for this decision to still be in complicity. They are unwilling to act on their moral stance. Of course, if they acted, the city would fall, but does such a city deserve to persist? ( )