The Flawed Utopia: Omelas
“The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” is an interesting short story by Ursula K. LeGuin which tells the story of a small town with a terrible secret. Le Guin, using an amazing strategy, has written this story in such a way that it’s interpretation depends on the reader and not the text. It is the reader’s perspective in life and the world that shapes the image he perceives while reading this story.
The citizens of Omelas are referred to as “they” while everyone who does not live in Omelas is referred to as “we” to show that “they” are separate from “us”. The author does this early in the story to show the reader that the people in Omelas are not like the reader. They are very different. Le Guin continues with this strategy when she plays with the minds of the readers by suggesting ideas into the heads of the readers then shortly afterwards she retracts these ideas. A great example of this is when she suggests there is a King who is on a stallion and surrounded by knights, but in the next line tells us that there is no King. This procedure has the reader picturing an image then later having to dismiss this image time and time again. This style is very clever because it keeps the reader interested and guessing for the next clue.
Le Guin uses a line which makes one think about the way society thinks. Le Guin states, “Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting”(889). This statement is very evident in society. When one watches the news he will see all the horrible events that happened in the world that day because we, as a society, only find horrible events interesting. For instance, recently at the world trade center bombing there was so much televised that it was hard to find a station that was not covering the event. This was because we found this event of terror interesting and amazing. We use pain and horror in the world to compare to our lives so that we may find happiness. Without finding some sort of pain how could one ever find happiness. We need pain to find happiness in our lives, and all too often we use other people’s pain for our benefit. Sometimes it seems as though society enjoys to see others in pain because they are able to...