But it could be also noble as they don’t impose their beliefs on everyone else so that all those adhering to the terms will not suffer. It may be a cowardly choice as those who leave desert the child and let the monstrosity go on. Walking away is surely an option and a step toward that direction. Perhaps we are directed to see merit in people who reject what they deem monstrous and savage. The title of Le Guin’s plotless story draws our attention to those who choose to leave, those who refuse to compromise or to accept that total happiness comes at a great cost. A handful of citizens leave Omelas because of these, while the rest still stay. If the child were freed or comforted, the citizens’ happiness, “the beauty of their city, the tenderness of their friendships, the health of their children…even the abundance of their harvest” will vanish. No one can identify the child’s sex, so much so the narrator settles for “it.” It is afraid of the mops. The room is dirty, damp, and cold, and the child starves and sits on his or her own excrement away from the mops. This child is locked up in a broom-closet-sized basement or cellar. We later find, though, that the city’s perfection and happiness depend on the suffering of one child. Regardless of how we imagine the nitty-gritty of the city-its technology, religion, and vices (“As you like it,” the narrator says.)-Omelas, the narrator concludes, is peaceful its people are happy and they feel no guilt. As we see how the citizens of Omelas prepare for the Festival of Summer, the narrator tells us that the setting itself is a utopia. Ursula Le Guin’s short story “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” (1973) gives the readers an idyllic view of the city Omelas: snow-capped mountains to the north and the west, boys and girls playing together and riding their horses in the green meadows, birds soaring above fluttering banners, people dancing to lively music.
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