With only a few words, this incredibly powerful and complex short story delivers some of the most fundamental questions in our society. Happiness is, after all, not stupid, nor simple. That is exactly what Le Guin presents to us in her mesmerizing, yet chilling story. For this city, in order for it to remain perfectly happy and prosperous, it needs only one imperfection, only one atrocity to balance everything else, and it’s the child.ĭoes the benefit of many outweigh the suffering of few? Should perfection be achieved at the expense of someone else? Is the happiness of thousands of people worth the suffering of a child? Some of them choose to leave, as they cannot live with this on their mind.
Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting.Īs you can deduce from the title and the synopsis, once the citizens of Omelas are made aware of the misery of this particular child, some of them choose to accept this sacrifice and stay in their ideal life, for they cannot fix it without destroying everything else. The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. I’m constantly thinking about it, its meaning, its consequences. Its influence is still rattling in my head. In less than 10 pages, it managed to pave a path to my mind, to my heart, to my soul. (Ok now I have the urge to publish a whole article on BTS). Go take a look although you probably won’t understand a word of what they’re saying, the song’s melody is upbeat and melancholic at the same time, the rap/singing is on point, the cinematography is actually quite beautiful, and the video has tremendous depth and meaning. It was just a passion reading, encouraged by the music video of a K-Pop band that I love in which Omelas is mentioned ( “Spring Day” by BTS).
Initially, I didn’t plan on reviewing it. The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas (TOWWAFO) is a short story of about 10 pages. With deliberately both vague and vivid descriptions, the narrator depicts a summer festival in the utopian city of Omelas, whose prosperity depends on the perpetual misery of a single child.
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