William Cody Deaton 2008 AN EXAMINATION OF THE THEME OF URSULA K. LE GUINS THE ONES WHO WALK AWAY FROM OMELAS by William Deaton Anything that is worth something is, by definition, not free, and the cost at which one is willing to obtain a thing is the gauge of that things importance to that one. There is no escaping this; even happinessrealhappinesscomesatapricesufferingandtheonlychoiceonehasinthematteris whetheronewillletanotherpaythatprice,ortaketheresponsibilityoneselfasUrsulaK.LeGuinsshort storyTheOnesWhoWalkAwayfromOmelasillustrates. Consider, to begin with, those who tenant the city of happiness and its surrounding suburbs. They are, by the narrators own testimony, happy: this is explicitly stated in the first sentence of paragraph three, on page 733. Moreover, the reader is assured of the sincerity of said happiness, that the state of those living in Omelas is not one to brook protest or pity: further along in the same paragraph, on the same page, the narrator notes that the citizens of Omelas were not nave and happy children ....Theyweremature, intelligent,passionateadultswhoseliveswerenotwretched;andagain,inparagraphtwelve,onpage736, itisassertedthatthishappinesswasnovapid,irresponsiblehappiness.Inshort,dontworryaboutthe peopleofOmelas;theyarenotshelteredinnocents,noraretheybrainwashedlotuseaters;theyarenotless complexthanus(733).Herethereaderwoulddowelltonotethenarratorsdefinitionofhappinessas beingbasedonajustdiscriminationofwhatisnecessary,whatisneithernecessarynordestructive,and whatisdestructive(73334).AsthereaderwillobservethatthepeopleofOmelasdidwithoutsuchthings asslavery,carsandthebomb,yetwereallowedsuchnicetiesastramsandwashingmachines,hemayinfer fromallthisthatthenarratorsassertionisthathappinessinvolvesacceptingwhatmustbe,embracingwhat maybe,andrefusingwhatoughtnotbe. But at what cost? If the happy citizens of Omelas have indeed achieved a real happiness, and the highest grade of such, with what have they paid for this treasure? Or put another way: what have they sacrificed for it? The answer, it appears, is happiness. At paragraph eight, the narrator begins to describe a less obvious element in the existence of the city of happiness: not everyone there is happy. In particular, there is a child, nearly ten (735), of indeterminate sex, imprisoned and abused in a tool room hidden away in a casement under one of the beautiful public buildings of Omelas, or perhaps in the cellar of one of its spacious private homes . . . The state of this child is outrageous: it sits in the darkness of the room, a darkness relieved only rarely and briefly by what might be euphemistically referred to as its feeding time; it is naked, malnourished to the point of emaciation; its legs are covered with sores, probably infected, due to its being compelled by imbecilic fear to huddle in one of the rooms dark, damp corners, sitting in its own bodily wastes. And what is more, the child is made a spectacle of at each feeding time itsdietbeingahalfbowlofcornmeal andgreaseadayitsattendantbeingalwaysfollowedbyagroupofthosehappypeople,nowsuccumbing insteadtoasenseofhorroranddisgust.Tomakemattersstillworse,thechild,whohashadenoughhuman exposuretoknowoftheexistenceofbetterlotsthanitsown,willoccasionallypleadwithitsattendantand spectators:Iwillbegood,itsays.Pleaseletmeout.Iwillbegood!Butnooneheeds,andforthis reason:...theyallunderstandthattheirhappiness,thebeautyoftheircity,thetendernessoftheir friendships,thehealthoftheirchildren,thewisdomoftheirscholars,theskilloftheirmakers,eventhe abundance of their harvest and the kindly weathers of their skies, depend wholly upon this childs abominablemisery. Which is all just a long way of reiterating what was asserted at the outset of this paper: that happiness is bought only with suffering. But those of Omelas are not hypocrites; they adhere to the narrators idea of happiness, and part of that happiness is acceptance of what must be. The reader is made to know with certainty that the fire of one childs hell is the one thing that keeps the heaven of Omelas going; such a thing must be. And so, though the ones who bear witness to the horrible lot of the child in the tool room often go home in tears, or in a tearless rage, they eventually come to accept the terrible justice

of realityand what is more, it is this very angst, and their subsequent acceptance of it, which allows them to achieve the true happiness which is the hallmark of Omelas and its people, as is made explicit in paragraph twelve. The reader is made to understand that, in spite of the outrageousness of the situation in Omelas, neither it nor its people are at fault; if the torment of one for many is an injustice, how much more could the helping of one at the cost of hurting so many be an injustice? Such is the way of things in Omelas. Yet, in the final paragraph, the reader discovers one more facet of this horrible beauty: that there is more dissatisfaction in Omelas that that of a mere child in a cellar. There are those who, upon discovering the hideous axis upon which beautiful Omelas turns, no longer desire the happiness it offers; they resolve to leave it, to exchange it for another place, a place the evidence for whose existence, so far as can be determined from any reading of the story, exists only in the hopes of those who leave Omelas to seek it; there is no indication that anyone has ever, or will ever find it. The interesting thing is, neither are these emigrants hypocrites; it is just that they have different ideas about what must be and what ought not be. Looked at from this perspective, the emigrants could be said to be at least as happy as those who return home from the tool room weeping, later to dry their eyes and leap with relish into their happiness that the child might not suffer in vain; but instead of living under the patronage of the child, they opt to buy their happiness with their own suffering, by leaving the city of happiness for a world which is certain to be less happy. The happinessrealhappinessmaybelegitimatelyachievedeitherwaybutnotthroughanyother; thisisasignificantpointofTheOnesWhoWalkAwayfromOmelasandonewhich,tobesure,it illustratesquiteeffectively. Works Cited Le Guin, Ursula K. The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas. The Bedford Introduction to English Literature, 8th Ed. Bedford; Boston. 2008