The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas Irony

The warm, balmy rays of sunshine bathe you and the subtle but mighty ring of church bells circulate across the city while you saunter on the sidewalk toward the promised land, the city of your dreams. In “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas”, a short story by Ursula Le Guin, this land of milk and honey is the city of Omelas, a seemingly impeccable city with a dreadful revelation, a neglected child amidst filth in a basement. The people who visit this child feel anger since the child can’t be liberated or else the city’s happiness and the city itself will crumble, so most people come back to their residence upset and in rage, while others simply walk away from the city and never return. In this story, Le Guin signifies that evil is the source of all good through the use of situational irony, foil, and characterization. Initially, Le Guin misleads the reader with situational irony to believe that the city of Omelas is perfect to convey that evil lies in all prosperity. In describing the town, the narrator explains that not even joy can describe the superior posture of the citizens of Omelas (1). The narrator adds that the city

The child is described as “...feeble-minded. Perhaps it was born defective or perhaps it has become imbecile through fear, malnutrition, and neglect” (3). Unlike the depiction of the citizens, the reader is given a cryptic depiction that comments on the child’s delinquency without giving a definite origin, a very divergent portrayal from the citizens. The narrator also goes on to describe the child’s starvation, including that “it lives on half a bowl of cornmeal and grease a day” (3). This quote paints a picture of a brutalized, starving child and offers the polar opposite to the citizens of Omelas. Ultimately, by providing the contradicting citizens of Omelas and child, Le Guin renders that malevolence is the source of all