The Story: The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas, Essay Example

Although the story “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” is fiction, it is based on how people really act and make decisions in real life. The author uses the story to make comments on how people are and how human nature is naturally terrible. Most of the people who live in the town of Omelas decide to give in to their evil nature, but others notice terrible acts and decide to walk away from town. Because of this, the people that walk away from the town can be said to be good, while the people that don’t walk away from the town are evil. To tell the story, the author uses many features that are used in dystopian literature. The most important element that is focused on is the discussion of utilitarian ethics. Utilitarian ethics typically defines morality in dystopian literature, and this is an important way that “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” argues against utilitarianism as a justifiable way to decide about what is right and what is wrong.

The author describes the town of Omelas to make it seem perfect. But, the reader is thrown for a surprise when they read about a coming of age exercise that the town uses on its citizens. When the citizens come of age, they are told about a child that must be kept in a disgusting condition and be sad for all of the other people town to be happy. Being told about this child is symbolic of the character of the person. Many of the people in the town hear about the child and decide to go on living without caring about what they had seen. Other people are upset by this and leave the town. The author says, “At times one of the adolescent girls or boys who go to see the child does not go home to weep or rage, does not, in fact, go home at all.” They are so bothered by the child’s treatment that they are not able to stay in Omelas and live a perfect life. The people who stay in the town are evil because they care more about themselves than the child, while the people who leave the town are good because they know that it isn’t right to be happy if it means one other person being not happy.

Although this story seems to be unique, the author, Le Guin, uses elements that many other dystopian stories use. The most important element that fits into this category is the use of the concept of utilitarianism as justification for the way that people make decisions. Utilitarianism is a philosophy that states that ethical decisions are the ones that benefit the greatest amount of people. This is a way of balancing good against evil and deciding what decisions should be made because of this. In the story, more people are experiencing good than bad because only one child needs to be abused in order for everyone to be happy. Specifically, the townspeople are aware that, “Some of them understand why, and some do not, but they all understand that their happiness, the beauty of their city, the tenderness of their friendships, the health of their children, the wisdom of their scholars, the skill of their makers, even the abundance of their harvest and the kindly weathers of their skies, depend wholly on this child’s abominable misery.” So they are willing to let the child suffer for them to be happy. Therefore, this requirement of a dystopian story is met and it is an important point in the plot.

A way that this story is not dystopian is that the moral of the story is that it is necessary to compare good and evil in more ways than just one. In most dystopian stories, utilitarian ethics is the decision that is always right. In this story, we are reminded by the people that walk away from Omelas that just because a decision helps the most people doesn’t mean that it is the moral one. It raises the question as to whether any suffering is moral and whether the people in Omelas would be happy, but less happy, without the child being hurt. This is an important separation from dystopian stories because it is the main point of the story. Morality can be decided in many different ways. In this story, more people decide that utilitarianism is best because it will make them happy. However, the people that walk away from the town do so knowing that it is not right to hurt the child and they are not willing to take part in it. It seems that right and wrong is black and white in this story. “They keep walking, and walk straight out of the city of Omelas, through the beautiful gates”. These people were so against the terrible care of the child that they decided to take action. Therefore, they believe that if something that people do actively hurt another person is wrong, and they would rather face the uncertainty of leaving the perfect town than being a part of it.

There is no morality in allowing a child to suffer for other people to benefit, especially if the child did nothing to deserve that kind of treatment. The child did nothing bad so it should not be punished as if it had done something bad. Even though some of the townspeople that see the child think that it is wrong to keep the child like that, they decide to stay in the town because they are happy there. This is typical of a dystopian society because the aspects of the society that are perfect are because of the pain of another. Because the people living in the town are used to living a happy and perfect live, they do not know what will happen if they decide to help the child or to walk away from the town. This is an example of human nature that is bad because people allow other people to encourage how they act. Since most people in the town decide to stay in the town, a majority of the people that are coming of age decided to as well. Also, the child in pain is a weird concept to them because in this perfect town they are never hurt. Because of this, they are not able to truly understand pain. The people who leave the town are ones with compassion and are able to understand the pain even though they have never experience pain themselves.

In conclusion “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” is mainly about how humans act and make decisions in real life. It is about good versus evil and the good people choose to leave the town because they can’t stand to see the child in pain while the good stay because they are happy in the town. The author uses factors that are common in dystopian stories but she also uses some that are not. The common factors are the use of utilitarianism to justify action and the pain of one person to make other people happy. The uncommon ones are that there are other ways to judge morality. This story teaches a good lesson to people because it is important to think about what is moral carefully before taking action.

The primary criticism and commentary I received on this essay is that I focused too much on discussing the ideas in the story, and on the way they reflected the concept of utilitarian ethics. The first draft was heavier on this than the final draft, but I can see now that I did not meet the requirements of the prompt. As I discussed in more detail in my cover letter, this is an example of how I had some difficulty understanding the nature of the assignment, and the concept of analyzing or discussing rhetorical styles and techniques. Like many students, I have been taught how to analyze written works in terms of the ideas they contain. In a sense, that requires looking past the rhetoric to get to the ideas. In a project of this nature it is necessary to almost do the complete opposite, and to consider how the author expresses ideas, instead of considering what those ideas are. If the task had been to analyze this story in terms of ethics, the essay would probably be fine, but I can see now that I simply did not understand the purpose of what I was expected to do. It is really only now, as I look back over all of the assignments, that I am finally beginning to understand the concept of rhetorical analysis.