Social Issue in Dystopian and Utopian Society

A Short Essay Based on a Short Story:

The One Who Walked Away From Omelas

By Ursula Le Guin

Selected from

The Wind's Twelve Quarters: Short Stories

Social Issue in Dystopian and Utopian Society

Jacky Lok Ka Chai (2012569175)

I) Introduction

Ursula Le Guin firstly published “The One Who Walked Away From Omelas” in the magazine New Directions in 1973. One year later, this science fiction won Hugo Award for best short story. The main idea of this story is “Greatest goods for greatest number” In fact, there are people suffering from starving, living in poor condition and even earning small amount of money by doing dehumanized work in order to sustain the majority enjoying the luxury life. Is this social philosophy fair? Is the Omelas really a utopia? This essay will analyze some scenes of the fiction by highlighting the problems and comparing those scenes to the current situations in the world.

II) Plot Summary

The story “The One Who Walked Away From Omelas” is divided into three parts. In the first part, Omelas is described as a utopian city and the city is celebrating the Festival of Summer. “In other streets the music beat faster, a shimmering of gong and tambourine, and the people went dancing, the procession was a dance.” It seems that Omelas is a utopia and all the citizens are joyful and enjoy during the festival.

In the second part, an aside describes the structure of Omelas. It said that there was no king, they did not use swords and the citizens were not barbarians. Moreover, the story has written that “As they did without monarchy and slavery, so they also got on without the stock exchange, the advertisement, the secret police, and the bomb.” Those descriptions make the city looks perfect. Suddenly, the aside raises a bad habit of the residents, which is the pedants and sophisticates encouraged them to consider happiness as “something rather stupid” and “only pain is intellectual evil is interesting”...