The Condemnation of a City
The story of the people of Omelas tells of a place where beauty and tranquility comes at a 

price. The author, Ursula K Le Guin, describes a land of peace and tranquility yet the people 

who reside seem quiet and somber. In this town, there is a child, a prisoner whose only crime is 

being simple. Like a figurehead that stands guard over the people of the city from behind a lock 

door. He is held against his will to keep the balance. He is a goldfish in a bowl. Fed and 

observed. Are the people keeping him captive because of a higher power or a belief that has been 

passed down for so long that it is now unquestioned? His being captive serves a noble purposed 

but condemns the people who do not walk away from Omelas. “The ones who walk away from Omelas” do so for reasons unknown but instead felt they 

do so not because they have to and not because they want to, they just do because they know 

they must. Something in them does not fit once they have seen “the child” in the toolshed. It 

changes something in them fundamentally. They can no longer live in the knowledge that he is 

there; captive and alone. They cannot go on with their life in Omelas, knowing that it comes at 

such a cost. They do not say goodbye. They do not take anything with them. They seem to 

simply know that they must go and so they do. It must take a huge amount of courage to just 

leave everything you have and everything you know behind. Just walk out into the unknown. 

The feelings that they foster must be very strong to cause them to walk away. Why then do the 

other villagers stay? How can they not feel the same? How can they live with themselves 

knowing that that poor child no longer screams and cries, but only whimpers? The people of the town seem to believe that keeping the boy in captivity has a profound 

power over them all. The story does not describe any form of magic or forces controlling their 

fate. Rather it seems almost as if the elders or perhaps the founders of Omelas have put him there 

to teach the rest a lesson. He stands captive as a reminder to the people. The knowledge that he is 

there keeps them humble. “if the child were to be up into the sunlight….., in that day and hour all 

the prosperity and beauty and delight of Omelas would wither and be destroyed.” The author 

doesn’t say how “the delight of Omelas” would be destroyed nor does she reveal the source of 

the power that holds their grace intact. It would seem that these are just deep seated beliefs. “One thing I know is there is none of