What is the theme of The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas?

Answer 1

The theme is the value and responsibility of the individual.

It is a story set in the far future in a Utopian (or Dystopian depending on how you look at it) society. Despite its setting, it is a simple ethical tale. We ask similar questions in our society? It is okay to kill one innocent person through our death penalty in order to be certain that we kill more of the guilty ones? Or is it better to let one guilty person go free in order to make sure we don't put any innocents to death? Different people have different answers to that question... just as some of the people in this story understand what their enjoyment and freedom is based on, and accept it, while others walk away, preferring disappointment and pain to the idea of contributing to someone else's suffering.

Obviously, the story doesn't deal with all of the philosophical complexities, and the possible symbolic meanings, but it is definitely a story of responsibility and humanity... how do you gauge the value of one versus many? Is the one right to accept suffering? Is the other right to walk away? Are the many right to accept the sacrifice... or the choice of those who walk away? :)

Answer 2

The main theme is morals and morality. Why do people avoid moral responsibility and walk away without doing anything to help the innocent, the suffering, and the underprivileged? Here we see the lack of moral accountability and responsibility in a society where the happiness of the majority rests on the misery of a powerless minority. Everything that is good and wonderful about Omelas depends entirely on one child's abominable misery. If the child were cleaned, fed, comforted, and loved, that would be the right, moral thing to do. In exchange, Omelas' prosperity, beauty, and delight would be destroyed. Those are the terms the people of Omelas must live with: Exchanging all the goodness and grace of every life in Omelas for the improvement of one child; to throw away the happiness of thousands for the chance of happiness for one. Some choose to simply walk away because they cannot accept the situation on which the society rests.

Answer 3

There is none

clinical yet with both approval and disapproval at times.

Answer 4

The irony is that the child's misery generates the towns happiness

Answer 5

Sacrifice. For any privileged enjoyed there is a burden that must be endured.

Answer 6

Sacrifice is required for paradise yet the required sacrifice may be more than some are willing to pay.

Answer 7

A serious attempt to remain indifferent on a subject that is often difficult to remain indifferent to.

Answer 8

omniscient

Answer 9

fiction