An Analysis of Guilt as the Source of Prosperity in the City of Omelas
Prompt: Pick a brief passage from one of the three short stories we’ve read in class. Describe how the formal elements of the story reveal something about the text’s treatment of a specific theme.
Passage: Highlighted Text
Ursula Le Guin’s The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas provokes question about the derivatives of the city’s prosperity. The audience is at first lead to believe that the happiness and splendor of Omelas is pure, driven by genuine contentment and people that are filled with good intentions and love. However, after learning that Omelas must lock up a child and keep it miserable throughout its short lifespan to achieve this prosperity, one must question the true derivatives of the city’s success. Though the narrator claims that Omelas is a “city of happiness,” (284) the true force behind the city’s prosperity is guilt. This is made especially clear when the text explains the process of citizens phasing through introduction to the child to eventual acceptance of it. After being manipulated at a young age to accept the circumstance as truth, guilt grows in the people, all of whom believe that there is nothing they can do to help the wretched child buried in their city. This guilt that is created becomes motivation for the citizens to pour positivity into their surroundings because they know the child will never experience good. Guilt fuels Omelas’ beauty, happiness, and growth, and though the narrator initially denies the existence of guilt in Omelas, it is an untrustworthy source as demonstrated by contradictions and questionable language it uses throughout the text.
To understand that guilt is what allows Omelas to prosper so greatly, one must first understand how this guilt is formed. In Omelas, people are introduced to the wretched child at a very young age: “This is usually explained to children when they are between eight and twelve, whenever they seem capable of understanding…” (282). The text explains that at that age, children are old enough to understand the necessity of the child’s pain for the continuation of Omelas’ prosperity. However, at this age children are also young enough that they are likely to accept what they are told without much question. Though the text mentions that the children are, “always shocked and sickened at the sight,”(282) they are also quick to accept that, “there is nothing they can do” (282). Children are immature and unlikely to question what they are told by their elders. Introducing Omelas’ citizens to the wretched child at such young ages manipulates them into accepting its fate at the benefit of their city. However, this does not prevent the children from feeling guilt. The text states that the children “would like to do something for the child,” (282) and are upset when they realize they are unable to. However, as time passes, the children grow to accept the circumstances and justify them to ease this guilt.
After realizing that they must accept the circumstances of Omelas, the citizens attempt to justify it: “Their tears at the bitter injustice dry when they begin to perceive the terrible injustice of reality, and to accept it” (283). Eventually, the children who were once disgusted at the sight of the child train themselves to see the child simply as a part of bitter reality. They justify the reasons of keeping the child locked up: “But as time goes on they begin to realize that even if the child could be released, it would not get much good of its freedom… … Indeed, after so long it would probably be wretched without walls about it to protect it, and darkness for its eyes, and its own excrement to sit in” (282-283). This passage illustrates the people’s irrational justification that the child could never know true happiness. It also highlights the illogical argument that the walls confining the child serve as “protection,” and that its darkness and excrement give it comfort. Because this rationalization is so forced, it illustrates the guilt that lies underneath each citizen.
The success of Omelas is entirely driven by the people’s guilt: “Yet it is their tears and anger, the trying of their generosity and the acceptance of their helplessness, which are perhaps the true source of the splendor of their lives” (283). This excerpt from the text states that it is the conflict between the people’s anger and their acceptance of the situation that fuels the city’s splendor. The people of Omelas ease their guilt by investing kindness, creativity, and love into each other and the city, causing Omelas to thrive. What they know they cannot do for the child, they do for others around them. “It is because of the child that they are so gentle with children” (283). Here, the text parallelizes the wretched child to other children in Omelas. The people in the city wish they could help the wretched child, but know that they cannot, so ease their guilt by being extremely gentle with the city’s children. It is not only kind interactions between people that the guilt fuels. Guilt also motivates “…the nobility of their architecture, the poignancy of their music, the profundity of their science.” (283). No creative thought or insight is made about this child, nor does it contribute any. Because the people know this, they ease their guilt by compensating and investing their creativity into the city. Guilt is the primary emotion that exists in the city of Omelas, and is what drives its prosperity, for it motivates the citizens to contribute to their society what they cannot give to the child.
Though the narrator denies the existence of guilt in Omelas, it is wrong and an unreliable source. The narrator demonstrates its unreliability by posing contradictions in the text and using vague descriptions of Omelas that disprove its knowledge. A statement that the narrator makes in the beginning of the story is contradicted later in the text: “But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe a happy man, nor make any celebration of joy” (278). Here, the narrator criticizes the audience, “we,” and indicates that the people of Omelas are set apart from “us” because they rise above the appraisal of despair and embracement of violence. However, the entirety of Omelas’ wealth and growth is dependent on the violence directed toward the wretched child. The child’s despair is praised through every small success the city achieves. The people of Omelas are clearly guilty of what the narrator claims them to be innocent. Its statement is contradictory, proving itself unreliable.
In addition to contradictions in the text, the narrator proves itself an unreliable source because it is not confident in its knowledge of Omelas. Its descriptions are often vague: “I do not know the rules and laws of their society, but I suspect that they were singularly few” (278). Here, the narrator seems to be guessing the traits of the city instead of listing them with assurance. It also assumes characteristics of the city; “I really don’t think many of them need to take drooz” (280). It does not use words that indicate confidence, but those that indicate self-opinion and guessing, such as “think” and “suspect.” This presents the narrator as a voice that is not knowledgeable; therefore it is difficult to trust the statements it makes about the city. Though the narrator states: “One thing I know there is none of in Omelas is guilt” (279), it is incorrect. Through contradictions and language that implies lack of knowledge, the narrator proves itself to be an unreliable source. Therefore, its statements cannot be trusted and it cannot disprove the argument that guilt fuels all of Omelas’ splendor and prosperity.
Omelas is not the “city of happiness” (284) as the narrator describes. It is a place that thrives due to the extreme guilt felt by its citizens. What they cannot do for the miserable child, the people of Omelas compensate for by doing for each other and the city. The lack of splendor, creativity, and kindness in the child’s life only strengthens those characteristics in Omelas. Though the narrator disagrees with this by stating that Omelas is free of guilt, it is an unreliable source, illustrated by the contradictions and unknowledgeable language it uses throughout the text. The text in The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas that describes the phases of citizens’ gradual acceptance of the wretched child not only highlights the foundation of the guilt in Omelas, but also affirms that guilt is the driving force behind the city’s prosperity.
Work Cited
Le Guin, Ursula K. The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas. N.p.: New Directions,1973. Print.
