The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas

The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas
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The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas
Ursula K. Le Guin published a short fiction titled The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas in 1973. I believe the term "allegory" applies appropriately to the short story based on the literacy terms I learned in the course. According to the definition of the term, an allegory is a tale that aims to support its thesis by having its characters stand in for specific traits and concepts. This explanation, in my opinion, perfectly captures the essence of the short story, which has a more profound significance than its surface-level depiction of a village where everyone was living in great comfort at the expense of the misery of one child (LeGuin, 1973). In terms of deeper meaning, I believe the story was making a societal remark on how society's wealth is generated at the expense of numerous sufferings. Many people are thus denied their joys and forced to live as enslaved people.
Christian concepts of right and wrong perfectly align with the moral tale The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas. According to how I read the short story, the suffering infant is utilized as a metaphor for the moral conundrum since it appears to be testing several ethical ideas, including hypothetical and categorical imperatives and utilitarianism. The moral law compels people to act morally regardless of the results and falls under the categorical imperative. This would hold if someone chose to assist the hurt child in preventing them from fleeing the broom closet (LeGuin, 1973). On the other hand, the narrator claims that there would be many adverse effects of savi...