The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas Summary “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” is a short story by Ursula K. Le Guin. The place they go towards is a place even less imaginable to most of us than the city of happiness. It is possible that it does not exist. In 1. The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas is an unforgettable short story. “They leave Omelas, they walk ahead into the darkness, and they do not come back. The story’s narrator describes the seemingly utopian city of Omelas … “With a clamor of bells that set the swallows soaring, the Festival of Summer came to the city Omelas, bright-towered by the sea. In the short story “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” (Variations on a Theme by William James), Ursula Le Guin presents us with a utopia that turns out to include an imperfect, even nightmarish dystopia.. There isn't a traditional plot to "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas," except in the sense that it explains a set of actions that are repeated over and over. But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.” The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas", 2. Ursula Le Guin’s short story “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas,” subtitled “Variations on a Theme by William James,” is a critique of American moral life. To exchange all the goodness and grace of every life in Omelas for that single, small improvement: to throw away the happiness of thousands for the chance of the happiness of one: that would be to let guilt within the walls indeed. The rigging of the boats in harbor sparkled with flags.” (Paragraph 1, Lines 1–3) The narrator of “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” truly wants her readers to “believe” in … The story opens with a description of the idyllic city of Omelas, "bright-towered by the sea," as its citizens celebrate their annual Festival of Summer. The tension between these two heaven-and-hell extremes could be summed up in a pull between the impulse to leave in the title and the joyous arrival of the festival that sets the stage. This does not necessarily mean it is enjoyable, or even good, (although it is!) Le Guin criticizes the idea that to make characters seem complex, writers must make them suffer. She does this to introduce the idea that the people of Omelas are not simpletons but rather fully formed individuals, despite their pleasant lives. The rigging of the boats in harbor sparkled with flags. The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas From The Wind's Twelve Quarters: Short Stories by Ursula Le Guin With a clamor of bells that set the swallows soaring, the Festival of Summer came to the city Omelas, bright-towered by the sea. In the following essay, Collins analyzes “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas ” as an allegory of modern American morality. I cannot describe it at all. In this case it is a story which stays with the reader because it poses an ethical quandary - even a conundrum.