"The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" Video

“The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” is an allegorical short story written by Ursula Le Guin and published in a science fiction anthology in 1973. Inspired by William James’ essay on “The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life,” Le Guin centers the story on the proverbial scapegoat, or one who suffers to spare others from pain. It is one of Le Guin’s most beloved works of fiction and won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story upon its publication.

The story opens on its narrator describing the utopian city of Omelas as it prepares for the Festival of Summer. While the seaside city is characterized by its joyful atmosphere and charming beauty all year round, the atmosphere is particularly cheerful during the festival; boats are decked out in flags, and processionals move through the city. Children on “the great water-meadow called the Green Fields” exercise their horses in preparation for a festival race. Bells clang, and people sing and dance so that the city seems alive with music.

“How can I tell you about the people of Omelas?” the narrator asks and tries to answer. Here, the people have precisely what they need and have managed to trim away the destructive excesses of life. The people of Omelas are not simple, however happy they might be. They are “mature, intelligent, passionate adults whose lives are not wretched,” the narrator assures us, noting that, too often, people assume that “only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting.” On the contrary, the people in Omelas are as complex as the rest of us.

On the subject of governance, the narrator states only that there is no military presence within the city, and that the people are not governed by a king, nor by religious leaders, as the city lacks any priests or oligarchical elements. “They did not use swords, or keep slaves,” the narrator writes. “They were not barbarians.” The narrator even suspects that there are few laws. “I wish I could describe it better” and “convince you,” the narrator laments, admitting that such an existence is hard to imagine.

“Perhaps,” the narrator goes on, “it would be best if you imagined it as your own fancy bids,” inviting us to envision the technology that might power the city, like “floating light-sources, fuelless power, [and] a cure for the common cold.” In directly addressing the reader, the narrator half-invites us to participate in the creation of Omelas ourselves. “As you like it,” the narrator writes.

Eventually, the narrator expresses concern that Omelas might strike some readers as “goody-goody,” but invites us to “add an orgy” if we like. The narrator clarifies that, without guilt, the people of Omelas are free to walk around, or even join the processionals, naked, and to explore each other’s bodies without shame. The narrator envisions a drug called drooz, which creates pleasure but is non-addictive.

This is, however, just a picture of life above ground in Omelas. The narrator goes on to share a detail that will help the reader believe the rest: beneath the city lives a nameless child who knows only darkness and squalor. This child, whose gender is unspecified, is chosen from the population to exist as a living sacrifice, allowing the rest of the city to live in peace and happiness.

The child lives without comfort or social interaction except the occasional people who come to gawk at the tiny, windowless room in which they live, in the basement of one of the city’s most beautiful buildings. “It,” as the narrator refers to the child, “is feeble-minded,” perhaps out of fear, malnutrition, and neglect, and once begged to be let out, for it didn’t always live in the basement. But now, it “only makes a kind of whining, ‘eh-haa, eh-haa.”

Each person in the city learns of the child’s existence at some point in their lives, usually between ages eight and 12, and many come to peer at the child at least once. “No matter how well the matter has been explained to them, these young spectators are always shocked and sickened at the sight,” the narrator says. “They would like to do something for the child.” But they understand that the happy existence of everyone in Omelas depends upon the child’s miserable condition.

This knowledge creates a conflict in the minds of some who live in Omelas, but most citizens eventually overcome their guilt and continue to live happily. Directly above the child’s locked room, people go about their daily business, ignoring the child’s suffering by accepting it as a mere fact of life. To most, the beauty and richness of their lives justifies the sacrifice of the child. “Now do you believe them?” the narrator asks, adding: “But there is one more thing to tell, and this is quite incredible.”

There are some who cannot reconcile the child’s wretched existence with the comforts of their lives. These people leave Omelas. Some leave when they first learn of the child’s existence, whereas others leave after months or years of wrestling with their guilt. Whatever their age, they simply slip out of the city and embark on solitary journeys into the unknown. Still, the narrator says, “they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.”