The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas

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The underlying theme in “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” by Ursula Leguin is happiness and suffering. The story posits that happiness can never exist without suffering. Even in an imaginary city of perfect happiness, LeGuin believes that for other citizens to know joy, one child must go through torture and neglect. The fundamental basis of life in Omelas is that children must suffer without reprieve for society to be happy. LeGuin asserts that suffering is the price of happiness, and one cannot exist without the other. The story suggests that attaining happiness needs an intimate understanding about grief and only joy enables suffering. While children suffering are the main ingredient for happiness, and those secondary conditions are at play. The author achieves the theme of happiness by painting happiness as a precarious and complex emotion. The author also does this by recognizing that other secondary conditions rather than suffering are at play when it comes to happiness. I would walk away from the Omelas because I am for morality. I strongly feel that nobody should have to suffer that way just to enable other people to lead happy lives. I believe that children suffering is a vice that we should not tolerate in society. Happiness does not to be linked to the suffering of other people and especially not children. Children are far too precious to be used in providing other people happiness. It is hard to get used to the idea that suffering, moreso for children, can be a source of happiness. Nobody should have to suffer at the expense of the other.