The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas

The narrator never reveals specific information about the individual characters of the people who decide to walk away from Omelas—only that they are all ages and genders. What unites them is their decision to reject the terms of their society. By choosing to reject this city and its structure (which requires a child’s perpetual torture), they must reject all the benefits of Omelas by leaving the city, permanently. They must walk away in silence, alone, into the darkness that lies beyond Omelas. Le Guin never reveals any views about the ones who walk away—whether they are “better” or more morally upstanding than the other citizens of Omelas—nor does she reveal what, exactly, lies beyond Omelas. The narrator notes that such a place is difficult (if not impossible) to imagine. And yet, the ones who walk away seem to leave Omelas with a sense of purpose. They seem to know where they are going. Thus, the ones who walk away symbolize those who reject the idea that the oppression of others is the necessary precondition of their own happiness, and in doing so turn their backs on the very project of organized society—at least in any of the forms it has taken in human history to date.