She states that the natives of Omelas are well-educated, warm-hearted people. Le Guin proves her point by explaining that if the child were to be freed, all the prosperity and beauty of Omelas would disappear. To help this one tormented child would result in the suffering of the entire city. Everything is given to them by a miserable child who lives in a locked room in a basement. The life of the people who live in Omelas was described as joyous but in fact is one of mindless happiness. The child finds joy in it anyways, although this optimistic scene has something darker to reveal. The child never stops playing the flute is symbolic because the flute is a simple primitive instrument with nothing to offer except a simple melody.
He keeps playing as though there is nothing else in the world can make him feel any happier.Ĭhildren are the symbol of purity and carefree happiness. Furthermore, the city of Omelas is portrayed as a utopian society by using symbol of “a child of nine or ten sits at the edge of the crowd, alone, playing on a wooden flute… for he never ceases playing and never see them, his dark eyes wholly rapt in the sweet, thin magic of the tune”. However, there is an exception for the one child that lives in the basement under a public building who is malnourished, mistreated, and confined.
Omelas is a city with frequent celebrations and other festivities. Omelas is described by the narrator as the story begins as “In the silence of the broad green meadows one could hear the music winding through the city streets, farther and nearer and ever approaching, a cheerful faint sweetness of the air…and broke out into the great joyous clanging of the bells.” The narrator shows that the citizens of Omelas are healthy, happy by describing the city of Omelas through many senses like the sounds, the visual, the smells. Le Guin uses symbols such as the city of Omelas, the child who never stops playing the flute, the child in the basement, and the ones who walk away to expose the moral weaknesses within modern society, and to suggest the fact that no society is perfect. Would you be able to live happily knowing that there is a child suffering for your happiness? In “The One Who Walk Away From Omelas,” Le Guin describes a scenario in which an entire city’s population can experience a pure form of happiness as long as one child suffers as a sacrifice.
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