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In an allegory, many symbols and images are used in an attempt to illustrate universal truths about life. Le Guin’s allegorical tale about a Utopian society in which Omelas’ happiness is made possible by the sacrifice of one child for the sake of the group. This is why those who walk away from Omelas ‘seem to know where they are going’, despite the darkness into which they are heading.“The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” is Ursula K. But the end of the story implies there is, and that all it takes is people with the drive and the will to realise this. They can envision no other way to have a happy society. This is probably one reason why so many of the people who remain in Omelas can turn a blind eye to the child’s suffering. Le Guin is suggesting that, when we are living within a particular culture or political system, it is often difficult to imagine another way of doing things. If darkness represents the unknown, then the darkness into which these ‘ones who walk away from Omelas’ purposefully walk is a symbol for the unknown alternatives to the society of Omelas which lie beyond. On one level, this darkness is literal: the narrator describes them leaving Omelas as night falls, and continuing their journey thereafter.īut the darkness is also, we might say, metaphorical.

Those who refuse to be complicit in the child’s suffering and who actually leave Omelas walk ‘ahead into the darkness’, the narrator tells us. The darkness mentioned at the end of ‘Omelas’ is the story’s final important symbol. Light is often symbolically linked to joy and happiness, and darkness with misery and the unknown (or the conveniently forgotten). Many of these festivals are linked to ideas of fertility. In the northern hemisphere at least, summer is a time of brightness, warm weather, sunshine, crops and flowers and trees flourishing and growing, and many joy-filled summer festivals such as maypole dancing. Similarly, the Summer Festival which provides the backdrop to ‘The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas’ is laden with symbolism.