When approaching Ursula Le Guin’s short story “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas,” readers can interpret the story in several different ways. Some critics view the story as a rejection of the moral pragmatism supported by William James, alluded to in the subtitle of the story (Povinelli 510). Others view it as Le Guin’s indictment of first world countries’ financial exploitation of third world countries (Collins 525). Still others view it as Le Guin’s attempt to explain the workings of human nature and religion (Collins 525). However, to an average reader, the story resonates as a cautionary tale about the consequences of valuing the good of one community, such as a developed country, over the welfare of an individual, such as a worker in a third world country. Even though the story has powerful images, it does not seem to have had the author’s desired effect of transforming the American conscience. The primary reason the story failed to transform American conscience as a whole may be precisely because Le Guin did not anticipate how easy it is for humans to ignore ideas and concepts, expressed in words alone, that produce moral discomfort.
In the first few paragraphs of the story, Le Guin describes the community of Omelas in a way that closely parallels a typical community in a developed country. Le Guin provides details of how the city looks as a festival begins, when she says, “The rigging of the boats in harbor sparkled with flags. In the streets between houses with red roofs and painted walls, between old moss-grown gardens and under avenues of trees, past great parks and public buildings, processions moved” (1). The city seems to be prosperous, clean, and safe, as described here:
The air of morning was so clear that the snow still crowning the Eighteen Peaks burned with white-gold fire across the miles of sunlit air, under the dark blue of the sky. There was just enough wind to make the banners that marked the racecourse snap and flutter now and then. In the silence of the broad green meadows one could hear the music winding through the city streets, farther and nearer and ever approaching, a cheerful faint sweetness of the air that from time to time trembled and gathered together and broke out into the great joyous clanging of the bells. (1)
Le Guin gives only positive characteristics to the physical description of the city. There are apparently no poor sections with run-down houses; there are no factories spewing pollution into the air; there are no businesses that have shut down because of a recession. The way Le Guin describes Omelas, it sounds like a village in Disneyworld, where everything is clean, almost saccharinely pretty, and neat.
Le Guin also provides a cross-section of the population of Omelas:
Some were decorous: old people in long stiff robes of mauve and grey, grave master workmen, quiet, merry women carrying their babies and chatting as they walked. In other streets the music beat faster, a shimmering of gong and tambourine, and the people went dancing, the procession was a dance. Children dodged in and out, their high calls rising like the swallows’ crossing flights over the music and the singing. (1)
All of these residents would fit into the population of any city in a developed country. Le Guin uses the same narrative technique with the people as she does with the physical descriptions of the city; there are only positive characteristics presented in the first part of the story. There are no gang members selling drugs on street corners; there are no homeless people at street intersections asking for handouts; there are no injured or ill people who need assistance or medical care.
When reading the story the first time through, these initial descriptions seem very normal and ordinary; the city and its residents could in fact be real. But as Le Guin provides additional information about the city, it becomes apparent that the city is an idealized version of a city in a developed country. When she reveals that the city had gotten along without a monarchy or slavery, that it exists “without the stock exchange, the advertisement, the secret police, and the bomb” (2), then obviously this is not a real city or even a fictional city set in our world. Le Guin goes on to emphasize the fictional nature of this city; she discusses how happy the citizens there are and then says, “Omelas sounds in my words like a city in a fairy tale, long ago and far away, once upon a time” (2). That statement confirms for the reader that we are not to take Omelas as completely real, but as a city that might exist if we eliminated all the annoying and destructive elements of modern existence. A life without advertisements that annoy us and without bombs that can destroy us sounds idyllic.
. Having established the fictional nature of the city, Le Guin then uses an unusual narrative technique. She begins to address the reader directly, asking the reader to fill in details as needed or wanted. She tells readers to imagine it as best they can. She also provides some comic relief when she remarks that maybe the city sounds too “goody-goody” and then says to the reader, “If so, please add an orgy. If an orgy would help, don’t hesitate” (2). She continues the idealization of the city by specifying that there is a drug with wonderful effects that is not habit-forming, religion without any actual clergy, and no soldiers because in a city without strife or conflict, there would be no need for a military at all. Again, all these characteristics that Le Guin provides, or asks the reader to provide, contribute to create a picture of a truly idyllic city. Omelas appears to have all the advantages of a real city in a developed country, with none of the disadvantages.
At this point in the story, as a reader, it is necessary to ask why Le Guin goes to such lengths to create an idealized version of a city. Is it to challenge the readers to transform their own cities into places without bombs, military, clergy, poor people, and so forth? Does she think that we as individuals simply need to make up our minds that we will not settle for our current reality and instead should determine to create a better reality for ourselves? Is she asking us to create the kind of utopia that Adams (36) describes, one without violence? So, just when Le Guin has provoked the reader into asking why we don’t live in this wonderful place instead of where we do live, she then drops a figurative bomb.
She asks if readers can believe in the city she has described thus far, assumes that they will not actually believe in its authenticity, and says she will add one thing. That one thing is the first negative characteristic of Omelas. The room she describes is not a nice room with plenty of space and sunshine; it is essentially a small, dingy broom closet or utility room. The description of this room is the first clue that not everything in Omelas is wonderful, bright and shiny. Within that room, aside from the requisite mops and brooms, is a child living in horrific conditions. Because up until this paragraph, everything in Omelas has been described in such glowing terms, the description of the child shocks and horrifies the reader:
[The child] looks about six, but actually is nearly ten. It is feeble-minded. Perhaps it was born defective, or perhaps it has become imbecile through fear, malnutrition, and neglect It is afraid of the mopsIt shuts its eyes, but it knows the mops are still standing there; and the door is locked; and nobody will comeOne of them may come in and kick the child to make it stand upThe people at the door never say anything, but the child, who has not always lived in the tool room, and can remember sunlight and its mother’s voice, sometimes speaks. “I will be good,” it says. “Please let me out. I will be good” They never answer. (4)
When reading this description, the reader cannot help but wonder how the citizens of Omelas let this situation continue. But if there is any doubt in the reader’s mind that maybe only a few residents know about the child, that doubt is removed in the paragraphs that follow the description. Le Guin makes it explicitly clear that everyone in Omelas knows about the child, that all residents must know about it. This child’s misery is what enables them to maintain their lifestyle. This gut-wrenching description of the child serves to negate the positive characteristics of Omelas, so that the reader is left wondering how these people can sleep at night.
This contrast forces the reader into at least some introspection, and also gets the reader to ask what Le Guin was trying to accomplish by contrasting the happy existence of the residents of Omelas with the abject misery of this one child. It is easy to make the assumption that she wants people to think about how morally compromised a society becomes when they devalue the life of the most helpless citizen so that everyone else can live a happy life. From that reflection, it is not a huge leap to consider that maybe Le Guin is in fact drawing a parallel between Omelas and our own first world lives, and between the child in the broom closet and the exploited workers in third world countries. To me, this seems to be the most obvious interpretation of the story, even though as with all good fiction, the story could work on multiple levels of meaning.
If we make the assumption that Le Guin is deliberately comparing the Omelas situation to the way developed countries rely on third world labor to support our lifestyles, then we also have to ask what Le Guin is urging the readers to do in response to this comparison. This is where the remainder of the story comes into play. While most citizens of Omelas accept this situation, a few apparently find it ethically disturbing enough to leave Omelas for an uncertain destination. Those who walk away do not adopt a “wait and see” attitude toward their ethical dilemma; they actively decide that the wellbeing of most people does not outweigh the misery of the one child. Le Guin herself seems to support this small group; in the title itself, she focuses not on the ordinary citizens of Omelas but on the ones who make the tough moral choice.
If we take what seems to be Le Guin’s intended purpose here, and reflect on how this story applies to our own lives, we have to face some very ugly truths. Simply put, Americans (and residents of other first world countries) seem to rely on the cheap labor available in third world countries to provide us with inexpensive goods, enabling us to live comfortable lives without making too much of a sacrifice. When we go to large retail stores and buy cheap clothing, for example, we are able to do so because these large retailers import the clothes from countries where millions of uneducated people work for wages we would find laughable. If we approach the story this way, then the child represents those exploited workers. And in parallel with the story, most of American society may be marginally aware of the working conditions in third world sweatshops, but the average shopper accepts the situation as just part of how the world works. There are some residents who heed Le Guin’s exhortation and choose not to purchase goods from retailers known to rely on third world sweatshops, but this group seems small thus far and has had minimal effect on the relationship between the average consumer and the large retail stores.
Interestingly enough, though, if the story is altered slightly, then the reaction of the citizens of Omelas would likely be quite different. In a discussion of child injury cases, Bittakis offers an alternate version of the story in which each year a child would be injured to attain the same level of happiness for the other residents, and concludes that if people were afraid that their own child might be the next victim, the residents would stop the practice (254). The risk of the miserable child being our own child would deter most people from placing more value on the happiness of the group over the suffering of an individual.
There is a difference, though, in considering the fate of a fictional child and considering the possible fate of our own child. That difference may be part of why this story has not transformed the American conscience. Another contributing factor can be the limitations of the written word as a medium, especially to an American society accustomed to visual images. Quite simply, it is easy for readers to dismiss Le Guin’s story, because it is only words and fictional at that. If the purpose is to shock the audience into recognizing just how much workers in third world countries are exploited to provide us with cheap goods, then something much more visual, such as the documentary China Blue, produces a much more visceral reaction. But another factor also seems to be simple human nature. As humans, we have an infinite capacity for self-delusion and cognitive dissonance. We can firmly believe that it is morally wrong for the U.S. to rely on cheap foreign labor to produce goods for us to consume, while we also firmly believe that we are entitled to the cheapest possible prices, no matter how much exploitation the workers suffer who produce our goods. Ultimately, the story fails because we as humans value our own comfort above the discomfort of people we do not know and whose lives we cannot imagine.
Works Cited
Adams, Rebecca. "Narrative Voice And Unimaginability of the Utopian 'Feminine' in Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness and 'The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.'." Utopian Studies 2.1/2 (1991): 35. Academic Search Complete. Web. 30 Nov. 2012.
Bittakis, Megan. "Walking Away from Omelas: Why Parental Preinjury Releases for Children Engaging In Commercial Recreational Activities Should Be Unenforceable." Kansas Journal Of Law & Public Policy 21.2 (2012): 254-279. Academic Search Complete. Web. 30 Nov. 2012.
China Blue. Dir. Peled, Micha X. Teddy Bear Films. 2005. Film.
Collins, Jerre. "Leaving Omelas: Questions of Faith and Understanding." Studies in Short Fiction 27.4 (1990): 525. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 30 Nov. 2012.
Le Guin, Ursula K. "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas (Variations on a Theme by William James)." Utopian Studies 2.1/2 (1991): 1. Academic Search Complete. Web. 30 Nov. 2012.
Povinelli, Elizabeth A. "The Child in the Broom Closet: States of Killing and Letting Die." South Atlantic Quarterly 107.3 (2008): 509-530. Academic Search Complete. Web. 30 Nov. 2012.
