3rd-Year Student at Willamette University
Psychology, Data Science, & Japanese Studies
Response to "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas"
The town of Omelas is one described as purely joyous, without guilt and without any of the troubles of our modern society. As an audience, we must assume the narrator is providing us with accurate information; otherwise, all information about the town must be assumed to be questionable. By this point, it is true that the suffering of one necessarily is equal to the possibility of joy for however many others exist within the town. It is explicitly stated that the freedom of the child would lead to the withering of Omelas. Thus, by the utilitarian ethical code, the child should remain in the basement so that everyone else may have joy.
It is important that we consider how this story is or is not transferable to the reality of our world. Omelas in the story is an allegory for Salem, Oregon and any number of similar cities. There is no debate that the intended philosophical question is pointed at societies that allow the suffering of a few in order to cater to the greater happiness or convenience of the many. While this question is not irrelevant, and the theme of the short story is certainly against the morality upon which Omelas has settled, I would argue it is not a well-made allegory as it is presented. As was previously discussed and as is repeatedly stated by the omnipotent narrator, the town would not be happy if the town were to be released. The evidence as to whether the child could be happy after freedom is speculative and has no clear answer. However, the worldly truth of Omelas, as it was imagined, is that the suffering of one does unequivocally allow the prosperity and existence of Omelas as the utopia it is. On the other hand, the suffering in most cities on Earth is not the only cause allowing true happiness to exist for the others. Moreover, there is not a utopian existence for those who are not in the “suffering” group. Thus, if the audience takes the story of Omelas as it is factually presented by the narrator, it is the true ethical choice for the suffering of one child to equal the utopian existence of all others in perpetuity, especially as it is unclear whether the freedom for the one child would lead to its own happiness. Furthermore, the ethical lesson that is drawn from this short story is not a comparable tale for the world and cannot be considered as potent of a philosophical question as it is often thought to be.
Instead, I will pose a separate interpretation of this short story that answers a different philosophical question and is more inline with the short story. Of the four and a half pages this story has, a little less than two of the pages are used to introduce the dilemma with the child. Even of these two pages, about one page is spent on the responses to the child, rather than focusing on the child’s situation itself. Rather, a good portion of the story is about the town as a utopia, with the narrator choosing to insert themselves to comment on the credibility of a utopian town’s existence. The author makes a point to describe how an audience cannot believe joy exists without suffering. In this way, the story is less a commentary on the suffering itself and more a commentary on how the author must create suffering in the world because it is unimaginable to us as readers that a true utopian would exist. This belief in a necessary evil to allow for joy can be seen in the modern day, with no longer liking fully good heroes and generally writing more dystopian stories than utopian stories. As a noted science fiction author, it would make sense that Le Guin is using the twist of needing to add suffering to a utopia half-way through the story as commentary in itself. This interpretation of the story is more in line with the actual text of the story and more consistent with how the themes could be transferred to the real world.