Short Story Review: "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" has become a celebrated short story and ethics 101 exercise, even appearing in The Penguin Book of the Modern American Short Story (2021). At once both one of the most misunderstood and least subtle stories ever written, as we learn that no one walks away from Omelas despite our best intentions. The story echoes sentiments from Dostoyevsky and Henry James and is similar in theme to the Friedrich Dürrenmatt play, Der Besuch der alten Dame (1956). Very much and deliberately an allegory, seemingly a repositioning of Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" (1948). But where that piece drew the reader into depths of literary and intellectual ambiguity, "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" aims aslant, satisfied to be as obvious and pointed as a high school newspaper. Most simply, the piece is an inquiry into whether it's acceptable for the many to benefit from the suffering of the few, or even the one. In our time that question has been definitively resolved with a resounding: "Yes, it is." The story is easily extrapolated to address income and social inequality, that the wealth of the few depends on the exploitation of the masses. More broadly, that the greed of many is paid for by many more -- here presented as the population of Omelas benefiting from the suffering of one. The secret is we're all living in Omelas and we're not the one. "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" is a product of its time. Le Guin wrote the story amidst the counterculture and hippies, Woodstock and communes, when some people tried to drop out and live outside the prevailing norms. We still see pale reflections of that today, perhaps the Occupy movement, or when people live within the dominant culture, but attempt to mitigate their footprint through fair trade, recycling, carbon free, electric vehicles, solar panels, products that benefit former prisoners. But Le Guin was thinking of something more extreme. Those walking away would not have a cell phone or wear fast fashion. They would make their own clothes and live outside the dominant paradigm. Musician Richard Thompson recently wrote of his friends in the late Sixties who were "more about escaping society than confronting it head-on ... dropped out ... sought alternative lifestyles, lived in hippie communes ... carved out a life selling food or leather goods ... and broadly rejected the path of normality." In this story Le Guin wouldn't have us accept the compromises that we make to live with our consciences. Obviously this is a political story, but can we balance the message and the medium. Does the quality of a work of literature addressing an important issue rest more on the art or the issue. With Fahrenheit 451, which I think clunkily written, I leaned more toward the importance of the message. With "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas," which I also consider clunkily written, I lean more toward the lack of art presented here, especially as the author is capable of creating whole civilizations with numerous layers of social nuance. Here she leaves much unexamined with "I don't know" and "I can't explain." Just an observation of the times. On the other hand, the story has the power to raise valuable questions and create meaningful discussion. But Le Guin didn't intend readers to get a cheap and easy "feel good" moment accompanied by dramatic virtue signaling when they brag: "I would walk away." Because we're all continuing to live here in Omelas, consuming the products of slave and exploited labor, and none of us are walking away. She knew we all make that child suffer. [4★]
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