"But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas."
I'd like to start off talking about the tone used in the narration of this piece. It's told in third person, very removed and almost coldly descriptive. The narrator describes without truly expressing emotion, although they occasionally seem to know more than they let on.
The people of Omelas live life happily at the expense of one small child who lives in misery in a basement. They are all aware of its mistreatment, and go to see it at least once in their lives. It becomes the object of their emotions. In their lives, they have general peace. Things are good, there is no war, everyone seems to have just what they need. In a life like that, emotion grows scarce. When there is nothing to want and nothing to need, the people have nothing to make them feel true emotion. This is where the child comes in. It is there so that the people of Omelas may feel sad for it, or angry for it. Then, as they are told that there is nothing they can do about it, they convince themselves that that is true. On pages 81-82, the narrator says, "But as time goes on they begin to realize that even if the child could be released, it would not get much good out of its freedom... Their tears at the bitter injustice dry when they begin to perceive the terrible justice of reality, and to accept it."
Most of the people can convince themselves that it's okay for the child to live like this, because they assume that that's just how things are. The world is a certain way, and it would affect their standard of living to change the child's life, so why not let it be? They even convince themselves that the child is happier this way.
But then there are the ones who walk away. These are the people who realize that they aren't okay with a place that works like this. They don't do anything directly to help the child, probably because they know people would fight back, but they remove themselves from this society. They "seem to know where they are going" because they do know -- they are going away from there, to find someplace better.
This piece is reminiscent of the idea of helping the poor. Our society stands in a certain way, and if we were to bring the poor to a level equal to that of the rich, it would upset the established order, and that causes discomfort. However, people are perfectly willing to use the suffering of the poor as an inspiration to them in their lives, much as the people of Omelas used the child's suffering to motivate their art, their kindness. The poor people and the child are there as an example of what not to be, and the people who walk away from Omelas are the people who aren't okay with using another human life solely to inspire your own emotional ends.
I'd like to see you come back to these ideas after class discussion. This doesn't take into account some of the facts of the story--the narrator says clearly that Omelas is a place of joy--that's a pretty strong emotion. Also, in the world of the text, saving the child would absolutely ruin the world. I'm not sure it maps so neatly onto our own society, which is less magical...
ReplyDeleteOmelas is a place of joy, but they all know that that joy comes at a price -- the suffering of this child. Similarly, those of us who are fortunate enough to be considered upper-class know that while they are successful, others are not. It's true that the situation of Omelas does not correlate directly to our society. People in our society can be well-off without it necessarily hurting other people, but people in Omelas will not have their joyful life without the suffering of the child. It's a much more direct trade-off in Omelas. But while it is a sort of "magical" situation, the connection is still there. The question in the story is whether or not the child's suffering is worthwhile for the greater good, which makes the reader question how much she thinks a person should give up for others. If she would so choose, she can "walk away from Omelas" by changing her way of thinking. The story isn't so much a direct allegory for how things are as it is something to chew on for people living in a society with a significant class structure.
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