Analysis of “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”

Ursula Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” is a short story of an
imagined city whose inhabitants live a life of unimaginable happiness and freedom. However,
this happiness is predicated on the suffering of an unfortunate child. The child is kept in dirt and
misery in a basement. When inhabitants of Omelas come of age, they are required to observe the
child whose suffering is necessary to keep them happy. Some of the inhabitants feel bad about
the child’s situation but they believe that changing the child’s circumstances will negatively
affect their own happy existence. They, therefore, accept the situation as it is and continue
enjoying Omelas’ good life. Others, however, refuse to continue living in a city whose happiness
is predicated on the suffering of another person. They decide to walk away from the city because
they refuse to continue living a life of happiness and freedom if such life comes at the expense of
the suffering of the child. As a political allegory, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” are
those who give up their privileges to protest the poor living conditions of poorly paid and long
working laborers.
“The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” is, therefore, a story about compassion, and
lack of it, among the privileged classes. It is also a story about the actions that privileged groups
in society take when they get to understand that their privileges come at the expense of suffering

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others. All the inhabitants of Omelas, except the child, are privileged. Both men and women live
very happy lives because they have access to the things that make life joyful. They also have the
freedom to engage in all things that bring them pleasure. They engage in sex and drugs for
pleasure without any law limiting their behaviors (Le Guin 1). They also have festivals full of
music and dance. The narrator describes one such festival when he/she says “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” (Le Guin 1). The city itself has an exceedingly pleasant
environment and scenery. The narrator talks of this environment when he/she describes it as
having “broad green meadows” (Le Guin 1). Set on the shores of an ocean, the city is clearly a
pleasant one to live in. Living in such a beautiful city that affords them all manner of pleasures
makes the inhabitants a very privileged group. They are privileged because living among them is
a person who is denied the happiness and freedom that others enjoy. That person is the child.
The conditions in which the child lives in are truly horrendous. The child is kept in a
basement where he/she cannot leave. The narrator describes the thighs and buttocks of the child
as being a mass of “festered sores” (Le Guin 5). To make it worse, the child’s living conditions
are also extremely unhygienic. The narrator describes the child as one “who sits in its own
excrement continually” (Le Guin 5). It is in these terrible conditions that the inhabitants of
Omulas come to see the child when they come of age.
Naturally, many are repulsed by what they see. Some feel sympathy for the child and
rage at the way he/she is treated. As the narrator explains, however, “they all understand their
happiness, the beauty of their city, the tenderness of their friendships, the health of their children,

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the wisdom of their scholars, the skill of their maker, even abundance of their harvest and the
kindly weather of their skies, depend wholly on this child’s abominable misery” (Le Guin 5).
With the knowledge that the extremely terrible conditions of the child’s life are what it
takes to keep their city prosperous and their life happy, some of the residents choose to stay.
Others, however, choose to leave the city out of guilt. For those who choose to leave, their act is
a supreme example of compassion for the suffering child. It shows that they are willing to
sacrifice their own happiness so that the child may not suffer any more.
Those who choose to remain in the city may be grouped into two. The first group consists
of those with compassion for the child but are unwilling to sacrifice their happiness for the sake
of the child. The second group is composed of those who have no compassion of the child at all.
People in this second group do not care much about what happens to the child as long they keep
enjoying their happiness and the joyous life that Omelas provides them.
The story of “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” can be interpreted as a political
allegory. Interpreted in this way, the residents of Omelas are the wealthy, powerful, and
privileged class. The child represents the poorly paid and overworked laborers and the
underclass. They work very hard and long to produce goods and services whose sell provides the
privileged class with a lot of wealth. Their pay is, however, too little to meet their basic needs.
As a result, they suffer from poverty, hunger, and disease just the same way the child suffers in
the basement. It is their suffering such as having to work for extremely long hours and perform
very difficult work that allows the wealthy class to make a lot of money and live a lifestyle of
opulence and happiness.

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When this wealthy and privileged group is made to understand that their happiness and
wealth comes at the expense of the suffering and poor workers, they react differently. Their
reaction mirrors that of Omelas’ residents. Some accept that that is the reality of capitalism and
let the situation remain unchanged. They understand that seeking to improve the condition of
poor and suffering workers through measures such as significantly increasing their wages would
mean having their wealth reduced. They will, therefore, be unable to continue living their
previous lives of opulence and luxury. This group of the privileged class is represented by the
inhabitants of the Omelas who continue living in the city even after knowing that their happiness
is predicated on the child’s suffering.
Another group of the privileged class takes sympathy at the overworked and poorly paid
workers. This sympathy drives them to take action that demonstrates their opposition to the
unfair system that allows them to live a life of extreme happiness and opulence at the expense of
a suffering class. Their opposition to the unfair system is so strong that they voluntarily give up
their privileges and begin taking steps that they believe can end the unfair system. Thus, “The
Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” are ones who voluntarily give up their privileges in protest
at the unfair conditions that those who produce their wealth live in.

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Works Cited

Le Guin, Ursula. “The ones who walk away from Omelas.” New Dimensions 3 (1973).