Theme of the Individual and Society in "The Ones Who Walks Away from Omelas"

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The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, by Ursula Le Guin: The theme of Individual and the Society
The society and the individual theme runs throughout the short story. The setting of this narrative is in a dystopian society. It begins in the middle of the Festival of the Summer and ultimately becomes a dark anecdote that shows the high cost of abundance, peace as well as the luxury of happiness.This is a tale of society's debt to the individual - how an individual has to decide between a civilized society and a society which condones and overlooks torture. When should a person draw the line between continuing to hold onto his/her culture and choosing to step away from this culture so as to remove oneself from a society's actions?
The narrative features a beautiful city in which every citizen is happy. Nonetheless, Omelas is not an ideal society. For everyone else in this society to live as they are actually living, happily, one child has been made a scapegoat in Omelas, and undergoes a horrible existence locked inside a small room. The child is despised and abused.Everyone in this society knows this, and they all believe their happiness in Omela is dependent exclusively on the misery of this child. The people validate the anguish and agony of this child and regardless of it, or possibly because of it, they are contented, although it is a conscientious, appalling contentment. Nonetheless, there are those people who have refused living within a society such as this one; these are the people who are walking away from Omelas. Their decision exemplifies the choice of each individual between living in a society that is based on ideals which are immoral, or refusing that society in favor of "darkness, a lack of social order or uncertainty" (Guin Le 506).
As seen from the outside, Omelas is an ideal, model society. However, underneath the perfect exterio...