The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas

In "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" author Ursula K. Le Guin uses the utopian society of Omelas to symbolically highlight the ugly and unsavory state of the human condition. This story delves into this idea of ethics and morality and concocts a set of solutions that one can consider when contemplating ethics and morality. People and societies often struggle with morality while facing dilemmas with what is right or wrong. Within this, a moral dilemma exists as the story depicts a utopian perfect happy place where everyone is in a state of euphoria. People were described in this story as a cheerful community celebrating a summer festival. This insinuates how Omelas is very much like a utopian place where everyone relishes in infinite happiness. Nevertheless, all these comforts are made permissible in exchange for an unfortunate condition: that a child shall endure isolation and suffering, locked up in what appears to be a cupboard in an unspecified room within Omelas. The salient descriptions used to express the child’s predicament gives an image of a deprived, unloved, and underfed being. Le Guin embodies a society which follows consequential ethics where the majority of the people assume that the treatment of the child is correct, equitable, and ethical since it garners the benefits of happiness to the rest of the city. Moreover, only one is adversely affected while the majority gains the greatest share of happiness. Therefore Omelas is the quintessential of utilitarianism. According to this doctrine, all people endeavor to be happy and strive to satiate themselves. The problem lies in the fact that the bulk of the society are habituated to comply to the social norms. Such a case is elucidate in Omelas through “the misery of the child is good…everybody tolerates it…it was tolerated ever since” for they are influenced by culture and tradition. After some time, they tend to move on and “their tears at the bitter injustice dry when they begin to perceive the