The Story Archive

The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas

Ursula K. Le Guin · 1973 CE · Short Story · Modern / American · Contemporary

The narrator describes a summer festival in a city with no king, no soldiers and no guilt, and keeps pressing the reader to believe such a place could exist. Then the terms are given: the happiness of Omelas depends on one child kept in a cellar, and every citizen is shown it on coming of age. A thought experiment that puts the reader inside the bargain.

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