How Does Ursula Le Guin Use Imagery In The Ones Who Walk Away

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, a depiction of Utopic in “The Ones Who Walk Away”
There is a thin line between good and bad and we all have to make choices in our lives. “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” by Ursula Le Guin, uses imagery throughout the story to display the consequences that are made when the people of Omelas decided to settle on a tradition that they deem necessary for their town’s happiness, for the sake of the people and offers up a scapegoat that some cannot digest.
The town of Omelas just might be the type of town so far removed from reality that it just as well be in Taiwan. On the first beautiful day of summer, Omelas celebrates by having a grand procession throughout the town. Music is playing while the citizens of

all ages are laughing, singing and dancing, making their way to the annual horse race. There is an unbelievable happiness as though they had some type of guarantee that they will never know or feel pain. The citizens carry a very blissful characteristic about themselves. Omelas is a place with few, if any, laws, military units, churches, and any modern technology. For them, “happiness is based on just discrimination of what is necessary, what is neither necessary nor destructive, and what is destructive” (2). In this city, people are thought of to be free to do as they please. The citizens are not simple people, but rather intelligent and passionate and live a very blissful life. In fact, it is believed they stay in such an immense high they some feel free to experiment with sex and drugs taking them to a land of ecstasy. One may see the inhibitors of Omelas as a colony or a cult, for they know that their happiness solely depends on a scapegoat or sacrifice of a child to maintain the culture in which they live. The people of Omelas feel they have no other choice, they know that the child has to be there in order to keep all that is good about the place they have grown to love.
Locked away somewhere beneath the city of Omelas in a basement in one of the buildings or a cellar in someone’s private home is a small damp room with one locked door.

A room that smells and is full of cobwebs as though it has been forgotten. “The floor is dirt, a little damp to the touch, as cellar dirt usually is” (4). Inside the room is a young child of ten years old, although it looks to be much younger, that has completely lost its mind from being in the dark and little food and water. This child sits all day and all night in its own filth, all along, not having a sole to talk to or play with for no one comes close to it. The child can remember the warmth of the sunlight and its mother’s voice and feels that it is being punished, although it is innocent. At times, the child can be heard asking to be let go, promising to be good. As the other children in the city become of the age understanding which is around twelve, they are lead to that nasty place to see the child. While there, someone kicks the child to stand and treat it like an animal, gawking in disbelief. It is not clear how this child came to be chosen to live under such disgusting conditions and the family in which it came from, making that family providing the greatest sacrifice of all. After the children of the town have succeeded their time, they leave the child that is locked away and some go back to their lives. They realize that the child carries all the emotional darkness and pain of the city and

understand it has to be there, even though they are shocked and sickened at the sight. They learn to accept it would not only help the city of Omelas but the child would not get much joy being introduced back into the world. “To exchange all the goodness and grace of every life in Omelas for that single, small improvement: to throw away the happiness of thousands for the chance of the happiness of one: that would be to let guilt within the walls indeed” (6). The people of Omelas accepted that they much live with the bad for the sake of the town.
The tradition of the town has been explained to all and most lock away and go about their day.

However, there are others in Omelas that under no certain way can understand or accept what they know to be the truth. They do not accept the personal gratification of the terms of the city. Their eyes, soul, body, and mind are awakened with the moral dilemma of the situation. Those are the one that “feel anger, outrage, impotence, despite all the explanations” (5). Knowing this horrible injustice weighs heavily on their heart and mind. Some get angry; some goes numb and know they cannot live in a place that prospers on the gruesome treatment of another person. Once this repulsive thought settles in the deep part of their soul, they get up in a zombie state start walking. They walk and walk and walk, not knowing where they would end up for the only thing in their mind it is not where they were, leaving the ugliest of Omelas behind

them.
Could Omelas be a town far removed from reality? Could it be just a make-believe place in Taiwan? Everyone knows a place like Omelas, even if it only exists within the confinements of where you live. Omelas represent the idea that there is no gain without the pain, no joy without the sadness and no freedom without bondage. Injustice and selfishness are everywhere. Discussions are made daily that questions our moral values. We walk away from unfairness, a violation of one’s rights and just plain wrong. As a child, you do not know so much. Children follow the examples of their parents and others in the community. Then, one day, there is some type of awakened by truth and knowledge and learn the good, the bad and the ugly about the world.