Introduction
The term ‘Utopia’ can be described as a place or community that possesses perfection and all desired qualities. The world is invented by Thomas More in year 1516 while writing a book on utopia. In his book he referred utopia as an island situated in Atlantic Ocean. There on the term utopia started using for an ideal community or a good place; a place where all things are in order, rules and regulations are being followed and harmony is persisting. Utopia is a place where all creatures of god live together in peace and without damaging or harming each others.
Thesis Statement:
The objective of this paper is to describe the concept of Utopia and how Ursula K. LeGuin utilizes this concept in the book “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas”.
Discussion
Plato in his book ‘The Republic’ made utopian proposal by emphasizing on categorizing citizens in socioeconomic classes i.e. gold, silver, bronze and iron. Further he describes education of gold class in order to eliminate poverty from the society (Starnes). Plato describes a society where very few laws exist but do not have any attorney or judge. People do not get involved into war and finish people who promote war so that society remains in peace.
Utopia depicts a vague way to describe any process, place or state that is unrealistic and unrealizable. Utopia is something that cannot be achieved and is beyond excellence. Socialists and philosophers consider it as a real blueprint for countries to follow in order to eliminate problems from the society. On the other hand some people consider it as a hypothetical state that is impossible to achieve.
Thomas More who invented the word utopia mentioned in his book that it is difficult to achieve utopia when people have private properties, where people take all things in terms of money, where wealth is distributed among few people who are still not satisfied and other people are dying in poverty. All these encourage writer to talk about a place where wealth is commonly shared, only few laws exists to ensure good of all people of the society, people share all things and live in manner that it does not harm others (More).
Utopia is like a mind's eye that observes what it wants to observe. People draw their own imaginations about any place or situation that is almost perfect and there is no flaw in the imagined place or situation. Nothing in this world can be so perfect that the same is literally free of flaws. Human dominated world will always carry flaws in it as to err is one most common characteristic of humans. If this world is human dominated and run by humans, it can not be free of flaws.
Utopia and “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”
“The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” is an award winning book written by Ursula K. LeGuin in 1973. The book tells a philosophical fable based on meager plot with minimum description of major characters (Guin). Omelas city is the core focus of the story. In this story, Omelas is reflected as a utopian city where happiness is everywhere and people are delighted.
Citizens of the city are very intelligent and well behaved. Everyone who is residing in Omelas, is happy and satisfied. Ursula portrayed Omelas as a utopia; a place where all things are going well and no one is living in scarcity. Author portrays a place and situation where everyone is happy which is merely an imaginary situation. Whole city was living in a world where everybody was in access of fundamental facilities of life.
During the story author portrays the hallucinations of people and how they used to believe in something that is beyond imagination. When truth was revealed to them, they vowed to accommodate with sufferings of the child but some of them decided to leave the city without knowing where they will go. The author gives a concluding direction to the story and story ends with an indication that people were leaving for a place that is perhaps less ideal than their current city, Omelas.
We imagine of Omelas, but do not want to talk about the situation of the child. When something like that comes before us, we start escaping from that because that is not according to our imagination. These things disturb humans because of human’s double standards. Human’s demand special things ad happier satiations for themselves but they do not imagine the same treatment for everybody in the society (Guin).
Utopia; Creation of Human Mind
The idea of utopia is the produce of human mind. Humans are so dissatisfied with their current state of affairs that their mind designs a place where there is no sorrow, problem and dissatisfactions. People’s mind imagines a place where everything is beautiful and no one is hungry, poor, weak, sick or ugly (More). It takes nothing in designing such beautiful things so what is the problem in designing. At least it gives the pleasure to the human minds that is aware of hardships that humans face in their real life.
The term utopia is used by some people but the idea of utopia is utilized by countless scholars while portraying the social conditions. A number of authors and thinkers have portrayed places or situations that are ideal and free of all flaws. The common reason is the same as stated above that people are escapist and fed up with the problems of real world. This dissatisfaction drives them towards something ideal where things are not disturbing and people can boast of being perfect and flawless. Socialist looks forward to a place i.e. utopia where things or wealth are equally distributed among people and society is free from any type of discriminations.
Rampantly growing problems in our real life force us to escape from the real situation and imagine a place that is free of all problems. Humans failed to design a society where every person is fed, rich, and happy. The reality is very contradictory and there are millions of people who are hungry, sick and are living in very sporadic state of affairs. One of some common things, which we observe in this world, is that humans think about their own interests and do not think about what problems others are effacing (More). People have become self-centered and money minded.
Conclusion
After having observed the above mentioned short and snappy analysis of the subject, it can be concluded that utopia is only creation of human mind that is not real. Any such imagination which talks about a situation or a place where there is no flaw is merely a thought and not the reality. Escapism is something that humans practice and talk very often. When we failed to make a flawless society in real world, our minds started portraying an imaginary place where there is no flaw and everything is so perfect. People imagine a place where there is no suffering, no pain, no hunger and harmony. This imagined place or similar situation is popularly known as utopia.
Works Cited
Guin, Ursula K. Le. The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas. USA: Creative Education, 1993.
More, Sir Thomas. Utopia. USA: Primedia E-launch LLC, 1956.
Starnes, Colin. The New Republic. Ontario, Canada: Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press, 1990.
