A text wrestling analysis of “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” by Ursula K. Le Guin

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A text wrestling analysis of “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” by Ursula K. Le Guin

A small child, alone, playing his new video game. A stay-at-home dad collapsing into his office chair at his computer after a long day at work. A successful businesswoman starting her day on the treadmill, sweat trickling down her temples. How many would be considered happy: all of them, perhaps none of them? The short story “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” by Ursula Le Guin describes a fictional town during its summer festival and the processions. The story is populated with contrasts and comparisons about the idea of happiness between Le Guin’s fictional society and ours, and it suggests reasons as to why both societies fall short of experiencing true joy.

A thought-provoking question arises early in Le Guin’s fairytale: “How is one to tell about joy?” (Le Guin 2), as if she is troubled by the idea of trying to describe joy to the reader. Perhaps she knows the reader will not understand happiness. For how can one understand happiness if they have never experienced it before? “We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe a happy man, nor make any celebration of joy” (Le Guin 2). With the increase in technology and the rise in power of corporations, we have been receding from happiness. Every big event or holiday celebration is exploding with advertisements, informing us on more “stuff” we could have. Few of these advertisements, almost none, predict an enlightened future, free from overbearing material things. Instead, our celebrations should more similarly follow that of the summer festival of Omelas.

Le Guin begins her story describing the fictional town during its summer festival. This festival consists of different processions—one of them being dance— where citizens of the town celebrate in the streets. “In other streets the music beat faster, the shimmering of gong and tambourine, and the people went dancing” (Le Guin 1). The people of Omelas crowd in the streets to play music and dance, enjoying in the company of their neighbors. One of the factors in this society’s happiness is dance. Later in the passage Le Guin goes on to describe a procession of nudes offering rituals of sex to members of society. “Surely the beautiful nudes can just wander about, offering themselves like divine soufflés to the hunger of the needy and the rapture of the flesh. Let them join the processions” (Le Guin 3). The joyful stimulation of lust: nothing brings more joy than a lover’s touch. But what else does a society need to be happy beside loving and dancing with others? How about children in the Omelas? Le Guin describes that children are raised communally in this fictional society: “Let the offspring of these rituals [processions of sex] be beloved and looked after by all” (Le Guin 3). In Omelas the infants and children are taken care of by the entire town. This symbolizes the unity in the town and the fact that everyone cares for one another. This may seem like a hard for people of today to grasp, because our society teaches us to only look out for ourselves and things that will stave off our never-ending hunger for joy. Although there are multiple endorphin producers that curb the appetite of reasonable happiness, there are many that set our society’s joy apart from this fictional town’s.

One of the main differences between Le Guin’s society and ours is the share we place in material items. Our society is caught up on material items, using them to assess personal happiness levels. This is a place of discord between the people in the fictional town and people today: “I think that there would be no cars or helicopters in and above the streets; this follows from the fact that the people of Omelas are happy people” (Le Guin 3). The citizens of Omelas don’t take the same pride or comfort in objects as we do. The author is hinting to another reason our society is not happy. Le Guin feels that machines are no means of measuring happiness: the residents of Omelas “could perfectly well have central heating, subway trains, washing machines… Or they could have none of it” (Le Guin 3). This follows from the idea that material items are not what makes these people happy. One of the biggest contrasts between our society and Omelas is the investment we put towards material possessions; people in Omelas thrive on a different kind of happiness.

The author then goes on to contrast the types of happiness and joy experienced by both groups of people: “The trouble is that we have a bad habit… of considering happiness as something rather stupid” (Le Guin 2). Le Guin is conveying the idea that when a society such as ours deems happiness as unimportant, we will start to lose all sense of the word. This is perhaps the reason our society values power, wealth, and weapons over happiness. When a culture condemns knowledge and praises violence, their reality of happiness becomes skewed.

The author continues the juxtaposition between her fictional society and ours: “The joy built upon the successful slaughter is not the right kind of joy” (Le Guin 4). Happiness is not something that can be bought, stolen, or won in battle, and joy isn’t found by means of power and pain for the people of Omelas. They don’t focus on violence and wealth: “But there is no king. They did not use swords or keep slaves…. [They] also got on without the stock exchange, the advertisement, the secret police, and the bomb” (Le Guin 2). She contrasts our society from theirs by highlighting these differences. The other main difference between the societies being the value we place on the harm and hurt of others.

However, Le Guin’s society may more closely resemble our society than first thought. The child, found in the basement tool closet of one of the town’s buildings, is described by the author as “feeble-minded” or “born defective” (Le Guin 5). It is kept there solely for the sake of the town’s happiness, enabling citizens in the streets above to reap joy from the festival. This compares to today’s society in the sense that people rush through life paying no attention to the needy or homeless, only seldom stealing a glance to reassure themselves that they do indeed have it better. This is where our society generates happiness; to know that we have it better than someone else somehow brings us joy. However, it is wrong for a population to remain happy based on the suffering of a single person or persons. The story goes on to describe that everyone in the town goes to see the child at least once, not one person offering a single shred of help to the poor, withering child. The people of Omelas know if they extended any means of help or gratitude to the child, the entire town will be stripped of all the joy and happiness they experience. This is a conscious choice the citizens must make daily: to idly stand by knowing of the suffering child.

Moreover, I infer that the author intended the child in the tool closet to have a much greater meaning. The child is an allusion to the idiom of “having skeletons in the closet.” It symbolizes the very thing that keeps everyone from experiencing true joy—“the right kind of joy” (Le Guin 4). As mentioned, Le Guin points out that the child is what holds this fictional town together, “They would like to do something for this child. But there is nothing they can do…. [If] it were cleaned and fed and comforted…, in that day and hour all the prosperity and beauty and delight of Omelas would wither and be destroyed” (Le Guin 4). Much like the people of the town, we rely on past mistakes or haunting memories to sprout into the people we are today. In the story, there are members of society that can’t handle the guilt festering from knowing of the broken-down child, so they leave behind the “joyous” town. The ones who walk away from Omelas are searching for something more profound—the true meaning of happiness.

The biggest problem with our society is that we are too focused on individual gain and not enough on the happiness and well-being of everyone. We do not need video games, treadmills, or even cars and helicopters to be happy. Nor is happiness determined by account balances, high scores, and followers. While our society feels like we have a sense of joy and happiness it is truly a mask for selfish desires. This clouded iteration of happiness is what keeps us from experiencing true joy. While the fictional town might fall into similar shortcomings as we do, they are far closer to discovering what true joy exactly means. As Le Guin reiterates, what makes the fictional town joyous is a “boundless and generous contentment, a magnanimous triumph felt not against some outer enemy but in communion with the finest and fairest souls of all men” (Le Guin 4). While this might be close, the true meaning of happiness is the coming together of all individuals to take solace purely in the company of others while eradicating the suffering of all.

Works Cited

Le Guin, Ursula. “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.” The Unreal and the Real, Volume 2: Outer Space, Inner Lands. Small Beer Press, 2012, pp. 1-7.