Omelas Theme

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Recommended: Analysis of an ethical dilemma

“The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” written by Le Guin revolves around the central theme of right and wrong. The people of Omelas are given two choices, they can live in a beautiful city where the only rule is to always feel happy, and to never feel guilty, or to feel guilty and leave the city of Omelas. The crutch on their happiness is the unhappiness and even cruel treatment of a young child named It living in a dark room. Once in their life their life they go down and see whom they call It, some feel sad and fall silent for a short while then go back to being happy living in Omelas. While others take one look at It then turn around and walk straight out of the “beautiful gates” of Omelas (600). Ursula K. Le Guin 's short story "The Ones …show more content…

They are told of the child at a young age and are told they can visit him if they wish, but they must never show any kindness to the child. Le Guin makes the thinking patterns of Omelas black and white. You do this and get this in exchange, when in reality life is nowhere near this simple. There are always more choices available to us as long as we change our perspective. As readers we are normalized to categorize characters as good or bad, Batman or Joker, Luke or Darth Vader. But what if there really is no good left in the world? “Often the young people go home in tears, or in a tearless rage, when they have seen the child and faced this terrible paradox” (599). All people even the young people know it 's wrong, they know leaving a small child starved in a basement is morally wrong, yet no one does anything to help It. And the ones that stray from the normality, the ones felt provoked to action, the ones who can 't handle the guilt that comes with the intentional harming of others; leave. They leave in a seemingly heroic way walking away from the terrible injustice of the city, yet are they really any less selfish than the ones who stay? They just leave, they turn around and walk straight out of the gates. They don 't try to help It, they don 't feed clean or comfort It, they leave. At least the ones who stay have to acknowledge the suffering It goes through to make them happy, the ones who leave also

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