Learn To Craft Essays On The One Who Walk Away From Omelas With This Example

Ursula Le Guin begins her story by depicting the beauty of Omelas. Omelas is a town located somewhere on the coast – it is a happy and prosperous city. Everything is good there – the crops always have sufficient yields, it is neither hot nor cold there. The science and arts are developing in this city; it is some kind of how many imagine paradise but real. Happiness is everywhere in the city, the smiles of kids and adults are everywhere. Omelas is full of light and shines with glory. The people, however, in this city are not different from us, regular people. They work, they raise kids, and live their happy lives.
What is different about Omelas from any other city is that all this happiness and prosperity depends on a misery of a single child. In the basement under one of the buildings, there is a small room with brooms where a small child resides. This child is naked, it is sitting in its own excrements and has only a bowl where from time to time water and food are put. The child is afraid and perhaps degraded because of fear. It looks about six but it ten. This child was ordinary earlier, knew the light of the sun and the warm words of its mother. Sometimes it begs to let it out or screams, but it is impossible. Every resident of Omelas knows about the child and its misery. Some have seen it and others did not, but every child and adult in the city knows that the prosperity and happiness of the whole city depends on the misery of this child. They would want to let it out and help it but the terms are straight – and if it would be let out the happiness of other residents of Omelas would be abolished. Sometimes after seeing this child, a citizen or a traveler would silently proceed by the road leading elsewhere from Omelas and never return again.