Le Guin Blog Topic: 1) If you were a citizen of Omelas, would you stay or would you walk?

     When it comes to the situation, or perhaps situations, presented in “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” to say that I would walk away is not such as simple answer as it may first appear to be. The point of this question is not just in the literal sense of walking away from this city called Omelas, yes walking away would involve the traditional movement of placing one foot in front of the other, but the movement carries more meaning than a mere migration from point “A” to point “B”.

            When Le Guin introduces the idea of a utopian society, even that of my own form of utopia, I am immediately repelled from this city of Omelas. Utopia is in league with “perfect” and if “perfect “were to exist then why should I exist? I am human. Humans are imperfect, growing beings. If I were to be perfect I could no longer develop because I would have no need to adapt to adversary. There is a certain pride in knowing that I am an imperfect being in an imperfect world. When I manage to overcome the “impossible” I have grown stronger and defied what “should be”. I am not willing to give up my independence as a person just to have a Utopia.

            The idea of keeping my independence is also a relation to keeping myself as the person I am. I am a rational, thinking human being. By possessing this rationality I am acknowledging that I am a “self” and not just a piece of a conformed body (Le Guin, 1973). This idea of knowing your own freedom is a basic concept we, as Canadians, are lucky enough to experience at a much greater level than that of some areas in our world. Through the use of a child’s plea to be released with the words “I will be good” (Le Guin, p.2) a shock of reality is thrown out. Do you want to be the one begging to be conformed? Begging to follow the rules? Or do you want to be on equal ground? Is it not our right as an individual to not need to feel inferior to one another?

            By walking away from Omelas I am acknowledging that I am an individual. I am a human being. I have accepted that there is guilt. And with the acceptance of guilt, I too know that I am “not free. [For] I know compassion” (Le Guin, p.4). I may be able to walk away from this “Utopia”. I would not be walking away in the form of running from a problem, of leaving a struggling individual to the predators of conformity.  I would be acknowledging that I too am an individual and my “self” matters. In my leaving I am “walking ahead into the darkness” (LeGuin, 1973,p.4) and I too “do not come back” (LeGuin, p.4). I have abandoned the need to bend to the will of another. I have accepted my freedom of being an individual, along with the consequence of knowing what guilt is. The consequence of acknowledging the imperfections of being a imperfect human in an imperfect world. But, at least I can say that I am a human.

Works Cited:

1)Rodney Walters. “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula Le Guin”.

Majipoor.com:  The Works of Robert Silverberg, Jon Davis owner of “Robert Silverberg Web

Ring or Quasi-Official Robert Silverberg Site”.n.d. ,Saturday Sept.17,2011. Web.

2)Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”. New Dimensions Volume . Ed.

Robert Silverberg. USA: Signet,1973.Print.