Ursula LeGuin’s
“The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”
HMXP 102
Dr. Fike
Video
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwhJHleF
hMU
Allegory
• It is possible to read “Omelas” as an allegory.
In that spirit, what do the following details
represent?
– Sea
– Omelas
– The festival
– Basement/closet
– Child in the basement
– Walking away from Omelas
Like Plato or Not?
• Do you see “Omelas” as a version of Plato’s
“Allegory”? In other words, is leaving the cave
like leaving Omelas?
• Do you see similarities and differences
between the two tales?
Psychological Themes
• LeGuin's "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" is a
version of "The Allegory of the Cave," but it adds
various psychological themes: the unconscious, the
shadow, the role of scapegoats, fertility ritual, guilt,
the transition from innocence to experience,
happiness, individuation, etc. The story also has sex,
drugs, and alcohol! In what way are YOU like (or unlike)
those who walk away from Omelas or those who stay
behind or the child in the basement? What does
walking away from Omelas represent? Which is the
better option--staying put or walking away from
Omelas?
Narrator
• Do you get the impression that the narrator is
just fantasizing? For example, look at the
language in par. 5: “miracle,” “fairy tale,” verb
tense (conditional: “would be”).
• If so, what are the psychological implications?
Is what the story says is happening in Omelas
really occurring in the narrator’s mind and in
our own? Is this a little parable about
acknowledging the “shadow”?
Happiness, par. 5
• “Happiness is based on a just discrimination of
what is necessary, what is neither necessary nor
destructive, and what is destructive.”
– Necessary
– Neutral
– Destructive
• What do you make of this statement? Are these
the only categories that relate to happiness?
• Par. 4 suggests, “Only pain is intellectual, only evil
interesting.”
Our Society
• Is it possible to be a good, happy intellectual?
Is it possible for us to be wiser AND happier, or does
wisdom/knowledge bring sadness? (Ecclesiastes 1:18:
“For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that
increases knowledge increases sorrow.”)
• Cf. William Blake’s “Organized Innocence”:
– Innocence: ignorance of evil and being happy despite life’s
ills
– Experience: awareness of evil and letting it get to you
– Organized innocence: awareness of evil but not letting it
get to you
Scapegoats and Ritual
• Scapegoat = a person who carries a community’s
collective guilt.
• Ritual = an activity that has been severed from its
original meaning.
• Is keeping a child in a hole an example of a
scapegoat ritual? Has it continued even though it
is divorced from its original meaning or purpose?
A Binary Universe
• The idyllic situation in Omelas, says the narrator,
depends on "the existence of the child" (par. 17).
For example, how can we be rich if we do not
make somebody poor? LeGuin's story gets at this
difficulty. We live in a binary, predatorial universe.
• Is the hidden child the Third World or the poor
in our own country (or whatever we seek to
hide, whatever would contradict our superficial
respectability)? What do you think? Do we have
scapegoats in the United States?
Final Question
• What would happen if the “degraded and
imbecile” child mentioned in par. 17 were
welcomed into the community of Omelas?
What would be gained or lost? Might we
actually be better off? Can you think of reallife analogies? (Tell students about David F’s
adopted daughter and her effect on the
family.)
END