The Festival of Summer descends upon the city of Omelas. The procession is filled with joyous music. Children are laughing. The horses are free and roaming. The city of Omelas is happy, but it is not the naive kind of happiness. Its citizens are mature and intelligent. Whatever you think would make this city better, add it. Do you think there’s some monarchy, some king that abuses his power? Well, there is no king in this city. The citizens do not know strife or war; they possess no swords and have no soldiers.
But, as a reader, you do not believe in this city. Ursula K. Le Guin knows that.
Le Guin asks you, “Do you believe? Do you accept the festival, the city, the joy? No? Then let me describe one more thing.”
Somewhere in Omelas, in a basement perhaps, there exists a child. This child is deprived of love and joy. It is miserable. It is barely fed. Never washed. It is never greeted or talked to. Yet, the child remembers sunlight and its mother’s love. The child suffers everyday and the citizens of Omelas know.
The citizens know their happiness comes at the cost of this child’s suffering. It is the greatest dilemma. The greatest good at the expense of one being’s misery.
Some citizens see the child and go home to sob and be angry at its condition. Some citizens choose to never see the child. No one can provide it love or care, they must only view. Except, there are a few citizens that see the child and never go home. They choose to walk away from Omelas. We do not know where they are going, but they seem to.
Ursula K. Le Guin’s short story “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” questions human and societal morals and ethics in just a fifteen minute read.
A common reading of this short story is about utilitarianism: whether or not we can accept the child’s suffering for the greatest good of the Omelas citizens. Utilitarianism is an ethical framework that carries the greatest happiness principle which is where we derive this idea of “the greatest good.” The utilitarian interpretation is more common because the story ends with the people who walk away. They cannot accept a single person’s suffering for the happiness of many. Yes this is a great moral question but when I read this story, I read about suffering at the core of happiness. Le Guin makes it a point to recognize what kind of happiness exists in Omelas.
At the beginning when describing the Festival of Summer, Le Guin remarks, “the trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid.” She is attempting to describe the Omelas citizens’ joy but believes she cannot. She continues, “They were not naive and happy children—though their children were, in fact, happy. They were mature, intelligent, passionate adults whose lives were not wretched. O miracle! But I wish I could describe it better. I wish I could convince you.”
This author’s short story is a work of metafiction in which she interrupts the story, recognizes that a story is being written and acknowledges that there exists an audience consuming it. When Le Guin says she wishes she could convince us or asks if we believe in the city of Omelas, she not only recognizes that she is writing this short story, but she draws damning attention to our morality. I believe this story is not about the question, “would you walk away from Omelas?” but rather “why couldn’t you believe in the city even before you knew about the child’s suffering?”
Le Guin declares that it is through knowing of the child’s existence and suffering that the citizens take better care of their children. Through awareness and not ignorance, the citizens are happy. Le Guin says their happiness is not vapid or irresponsible. This is where I believe Le Guin contradicts herself. In the beginning she claims, “This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain.” But at the end of the story she says it’s through accepting the child’s suffering that they can truly enjoy their lives and be happy. Is this not accepting pain in order to achieve happiness?
Le Guin herself now commits the treason. She writes that happiness is only found when the citizens accept the child’s pain in order to enjoy their lives, yet she does not acknowledge the “terrible boredom” of this pain.
I disagree with Le Guin. We do not need to accept pain to achieve happiness. Instead, we can choose happiness in spite of pain. Let happiness be stupid. Let it be frivolous and joyous without awareness. And let pain live without the need to accept it. If we accept suffering at every level to achieve happiness, we will never change our conditions. I don’t believe this story is just asking if you would walk away from Omelas. If you couldn’t accept the child’s suffering and needed to leave. This story is asking, “could you ever believe in a utopia?” Or will there always be suffering in our world?
Le Guin does not offer an answer, or even a critique of your choice. Walk away from Omelas or don’t. It doesn’t matter. Instead read the story and ask, “did you only believe in the joyous city when you knew at the core there was suffering?”
I know I did.
Sophia Romanov Imber is a freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences. She can be reached at [email protected].