The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas: What is Happiness?
Summary:
This is a study of The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin. The essay discusses the story's views on the nature of happiness, utopia, and the importance of building a joyful community.
Everybody should feel free toward happiness. If one is forced to have happiness, the harmony will fall apart. The story "Ones who walked away from Omelas" focuses on the utopia splitting because of ones sacrifice and neglect. For the theme of "Ones who walked away from Omelas" is that to achieve happiness, one should not be sacrificed for being neglected by others. This is shown in the plot by showing that the citizens are happy until they see the girl, leaving the city, and walking away from the utopia, "Omelas." Wanting to achieve happiness, without any disadvantages can cause a wrecked society and raise conflicts.
In "Ones who walked away from Omelas", all the citizens in the town are happy dancing around and having festivals. In the utopia, there is a girl who is trapped in a cellar by herself without any lights and food barely enough for her to stay alive. Some people leave Omelas after finding about the situation the girl is in. This shows that it takes a lot of courage to step up for one that is being sacrificed and mistreated. By steeping up to the malicious society, people can achieve happiness. Are the peoples of Omelas that cruel to make an individual suffer while they are having festivals and living in utopia"
After the citizens find out about the girl, the conflict begins to rise. A citizen says "Do you believe? Do you accept the festival", the city, the joy? NO? Then let me describe one more thing." He then describes the characteristics of the girl who is trapped in the cellar and the terrible surroundings which is the cellar. It has no lights, only sunlight coming through a crack of a wall, and describes how the girl is afraid of the mops, which are in the cellar. Some people saw the child and that was when the conflict explodes. The people who saw her decide to leave Omelas into the darkness. This whole conflict setting condition shows that whenever a crime or misconduct is found, they will get the consequences. The people neglected the girl, so they got the consequence by those people who heard about the girl and saw the actual thing, leave Omelas and break up their harmony. Is it necessary for the people in Omelas to neglect someone just for the reason to attain happiness"
The resolution happens by the people who heard and saw the girl being neglected and being sacrificed for their own happiness, they decided to leave Omelas into the darkness. The most important of all, the society was wrong making the girl suffer, but them enjoying their lives and not caring about the girl and not some of them knowing what was going on. From the beginning of the story to the end, humanity comes in and links to the end. In the beginning, the story relates to humanity by the people in Omelas making the girl suffer without anyone knowing what was going on which lacks kindness. When the conflict starts, some of the citizens start to realize the importance of humanity and leaves Omelas. The society flawed because of the misdeed they showed towards the girl. A society doesn't flaw easily unless there is a very serious situation going on. Omelas fell apart very rapidly right after the citizens finding about the girl and leaving Omelas to another place, the darkness. Them leaving resolves the whole conflict by them just walking away from the society that they think the society is cruel and unjust. This shows the courage of the people walking away from the cruel society. Leaving Omelas will result in a two-way happiness because it makes the people who left happy but also Omelas happy because they were pleased even before the people left; and now that they are gone, they must be euphoric. The people who walked away can now attain happiness since they realized the importance of humanism and not be unfair.
Everyone wanting to achieve happiness connects to people not ignoring or disregarding one. In "Ones who walk away from Omelas", we can see that whoever does something wrong, they will get consequences for their wrongdoing. In life, there are no lies that cannot be revealed. The people who left Omelas realized that and left the city and walked away from the fake utopia. Omelas was never a utopia even though it looked like one. Ignoring and neglecting people are bad, but if at least some people have courage to step up for those people who are getting ignored and neglected, it will form a healthy society. In our society right now, there is no such thing as a utopia, but people try hard to attain that. The most important thing to create happiness in the world is to try the hardest to build a joyful community.
This is the complete article, containing 803 words
(approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page).
