The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas Story Analysis Essay

Societies are made up of vastly different people. Most people have different views on issues, and might not see eye to eye on these things. In some societies, their issues are so major their society is relying on them. During the story “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”, by Ursula K. Le Guin, the Omela society is relying on the agonizing child locked away in a basement. In comparison to the Omela society, humanity has a suffering adolescent, the environment.

Within the Omela world, they have the kid in the basement. The child “only makes a kind of whining, ‘eh-haa, eh-haa.’” The adolescent is also “so thin there are no calves to its legs; its belly protrudes; it leaves on a half-bowl of corn meal and grease a day. It is naked. Its buttocks and thighs are a mass of festered sores, as it sits in its own excrement continually.” The child is very neglected. It lives by itself in a dark basement. Mankind’s issue is the environment. Temperatures are rising and more and more species are going extinct each year. Both the world and the kid are suffering equally, and each society chooses to ignore them. 

One of the other similarities between each society is who the Omelas are. In the society in the story, the Omelas are most of the people. All of the Omelas have seen the child, so they are aware it is there and suffering. They believe “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.” If the kid was let out, they say that “in that day and hour all the prosperity and beauty and delight of Omelas would wither and be destroyed.” The Omela society believes that without this adolescent, their society would not be happy. This is similar to mankind. If we were to fix or improve the environment, it would throw everybody’s routine off and they would not be happy anymore. People in our society are more than happy to increase greenhouse gases without giving it a second thought, and some people’s everyday routines ruin the environment more but are not worried about it. However, in both worlds, there are some people who are worried enough that they want to make a change.

The ones who walk away in the Omela’s world do so because they believe they may be able to find a better society to live in. As these people go, “they keep walking, and walk straight out of the city of Omelas, through the beautiful gates…They leave Omelas, they walk ahead into the darkness, and they do not come back.” These people are hoping to find a new society, but it may not even be better than the place they are now, “the city of happiness”. The Omela society may be the happiest place around them, but they are hopeful for somewhere else. The ones who walk away in our society don’t exactly walk away. Instead, they try to change their lifestyles for the better of the environment. Someone who wants to make a change may try to bike more places or walk rather than driving a car. It is easier to drive somewhere, but they are willing to inconvenience themselves for the better of the environment. They don’t like the way the world is now and want to change it for the better.

Both societies have an underlying issue that they are dependent on. This issue is the kid in the Omela world and the environment in mankind. The majority of people in the Omela world are aware of the child’s suffering and contendely living their lives. The majority of people on Earth are fine with the way the environment is now, most contributing to the problems. There are few in the Omelas who literally walk away from their society to find somewhere else. In mankind's case, the ones who walk away don’t necessarily walk away, but they change their lifestyles to help the planet.