The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas

The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas Summary | Detailed Summary

With the clamoring of bells, a summer festival begins in Omelas. The city is surrounded by mountains on one side and a bay on the other side. The air is crisp and clean and everything is beautiful. Music drifts through the city and the bells periodically ring with joy. The streets, boats and houses are littered with decorations. Groups of dignified, quiet processions and rowdy, partying processions parade toward the north side of the city. Boys and girls are getting their unbridled horses ready for a big race. The horses seem as excited as the people do because of the impending excitement.

After a description of the town, the narrator begins to speak in first person. The people of Omelas are full of joy but they are not simple people. They have no king, keep no slaves and are plainly not barbarians. The narrator admits to not knowing their laws and rules as she does not know many things about the city.

However, the narrator insists that although the people are happy, they are complex. She comments that sophisticated folks tend to think those who are happy are stupid. The narrator apologizes for not being able to better describe the lives of these people who are not wretched.

The narrator invites the reader to imagine his own version of what the city must be like. She thinks that although the city would not have an abundance of technology, it would have the necessities, such as washers and dryers. The train station is the loveliest building, and it is the first sight visitors see. The city also boasts a beautiful farmers' market. The city also has drugs—a drug called drooz--and beer. The citizens have a sense of victory, but there are no clergymen and no soldiers. The narrator fears that, although she is trying to paint an accurate picture of the city, the reader will think Omelas to be goody-goody. She asks the reader to throw in an orgy, but not the type of orgy that originates in a temple, but rather one where people please each other, and the children born of the orgy are celebrated.

At the meadow on the north side of town, there is the smell of sweet food, and the children run around sticky. A young child sits playing the flute, and many people stop to admire him. As he ends his song, the trumpets' sound officially begins the festival. The narrator then asks the reader whether he believes the joy and the festival, and she offers to describe one more thing.

In a cellar across town, there is a dingy room where the door is locked and there is no window. There are dirty mops leaning against a wall, and the room is no bigger than a broom closet or discarded tool room. In the room, sits a naked, feeble-minded child who sits in his own excrement. The child is afraid of the mops, and no one ever rescues the child. Occasionally someone comes and kicks the child or comes to stare in horror. The people never say anything, but the child remembers its mother.

Sometimes the child yells, "I will be good. Please let me out. I will be good," but no one ever answers his calls. Everyone in the town knows the child is there, because everyone is told about the child when they are only children, between eight and ten years old. Only some of the people truly grasp the child's purpose.

The people who come to look at the child are always shocked and sickened—something they did not know they had in them. After a while, the people rationalize that even if the child were rescued, it would not have a full life. They cannot imagine sacrificing the happiness of the thousands for the potential happiness of one. They think that it is because of the child that they have such lovely architecture, beautiful music, a kindness toward children, and profundity of science. Every so often, one of the young people or occasionally an adult goes to see the child and never comes back. They leave town in the night and seem to know where they are going.