Robin Marchant / Getty Images By Catherine Sustana Updated on Octo'The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas' is a short story by American writer Ursula K. The narrator is attempting to highlight the happiness of the people of Omelas through trying to predict our responses to it and contend that our own preference in our world for suffering and pain shouldn’t aid us in underrating the happiness of the citizens of Omelas or believe that they are by some means less sophisticated or dissimilar from ourselves. Le Guin at the 2014 National Book Awards. Those who leave Omelas after finding out the truth have to be the people who don’t actually find the misery of one child boring or banal. For the duration of the story, the narrator is attempting to persuade the reader that Omelas is the ideal place even by referring to it’s “bad habit.” The narrator states that pain and evil are boring because even though one child is forced into everlasting unhappiness to guarantee the happiness of the general society, the remainder of the society is a captivating utopian place. Le Guin, creates some complex symbols in the city of Omelas itself, the ones who walk away, the child in the basement, the child who never stops playing the flute, and the ones who stay in Omelas. Our defiance to them, why and how we refuse to accept them, takes over our creative power as we compellingly contemplate over these basic components of our lives. The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, symbolism is used throughout the entire story. For that reason, they resume their treason regarding evil and pain as more appealing over happiness and as something worth analyzing in life. Le Guin’s short story, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, isshe has writtenbased on the psychomyth of the scapegoat she says she was inspired by William James’ statement that one could not accept a happiness shared with millions if the condition of that happiness were the suffering of one lonely soul. They see society as a place that shouldn’t contain pain and evil. They are both fairly normal to our society and to our state in society.Ĭonsequently, the treason of the artist is to reject to view evil in this mindset. Music is playing, parades and processions are underway, and all the residents of the town seem happy and excited as they converge on the Green Fields. The narrator argues that there is nothing unusual about evil or pain. Summary: The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas The narrator describes the setting of the story: a seaside city called Omelas, where the 'Festival of Summer' has just begun.