In the story "Those Who Walk Away From Omelas", we talk about a society of people where everything revolves around happiness and contentment. This fictional society is so perfect but yet everything is based on the torment of a child who is seen as ugly by their society. Without his presence, these people of Omelas can experience days of infinite happiness. The child in the story is used as a symbol with a strong message to make us understand that in today's society people care more about their own happiness, even if this includes the misfortunes of others. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Throughout the story, the symbolic use of the scapegoat serves to make the reader understand what society is like today. The fact that children are sacrificed to maintain the happiness of the community shows the terrible reality of the society we are part of. Le Quin was inspired by the statement “One could not accept happiness shared with millions if the condition of that happiness were the suffering of a solitary soul” (James). How can people be happy while others suffer? In our society, this would be regarded as the old “survival of the fittest” philosophy. Most of the time we become aware of injustice, but there is little we can do about it. We could probably just think about it and feel bad, but very little action has been taken to change the situation. Those who try to make a change are removed from their society. Le Guin wrote that her story states “the dilemma of the American conscience,” probably thinking specifically about the real situation within the American economic system. When it comes to rich people, they are the ones who get the best profit within this economic system. For example, the rich earn about a million times more than most of their employees. This may lead to the conclusion that the less wealthy are those who often share less of America's wealth, as well as attend poorer schools than the average upper-class Americans due to the economic structure established for the rich and the poor. The message contained in the story demonstrates that Omelas' society is no different from the one we currently live in. Le Guin's mission in this tale was “less to imagine alien cultures than to explore humanity” (Gioia 208). This means that he has created a fictitious society that shares the cruel rationality of ours. Even though they don't have many resources, they still manage to maintain a bad attitude towards this "mission" of creating a perfect, stress-free and happy society, at the cost of enslaving a child in a dark room. Le Guin's message is clear and simple: no matter how far we go to create a perfect society, it will always have an ugly side. As a white woman writing in the modern United States, she may have been seriously aware of the racial discrimination that surrounded her. African Americans, however, left in totally opposite conditions. Black Americans have often been discriminated against throughout American history. Poverty and imprisonment for African Americans were extremely higher than for white Americans. “While America has been a utopian land of plenty for many wealthy whites, it has been a world of pain for many African Americans who have been murdered, lynched, discriminated against, or excluded from the American middle class.” (Hill). This is a real situation in our society where “the moral responsibility of a society for which the happiness of the majority is based on miseryabject of a powerless few” (Sobeloff). This is how our society works. There are many people who will simply accept society as it is, with injustice, it doesn't matter to them as long as they are happy. In the story we have a clear example of how selfish and cruel those within society can be when it comes to their own fortunes. They would not want to change their situation because that would mean the end of their own happiness. As we continue the journey in this story, we begin to realize that if this miserable child is receiving such horrible treatment from Omelas, then that would mean that all the other children could face the same fate. It's as if this child is a black sheep in a family created to be perfect, without any flaws. You can look at this child in the story, look in the mirror and wonder what society is trying to get out of him. Some of us may be more successful in life or follow the wrong path to our self-destruction. In the end, it won't matter because if society thinks you are poison to them, then you might as well join that little boy in that dark room to spend your days just fulfilling certain needs of society. If this is what it boils down to, then for some of us who feel ugly and useless in a brutal society you will simply end up in a dark room in your own world. The purpose of the story is not only to show how society has become so brutalized in its attempt to be perfect, but to show us that achieving perfection is not necessary for society to be stable. From the moment we are born, we think we live in a perfect world filled with joy from our parents. As we grow up, however, that joy our parents created for this “perfect” world we supposedly live in is suddenly crushed when society's true colors begin to show. This would be confusing for the girl/boy who thought this world was a perfect place to live in, which is no longer the case. After a long time of being revealed to the reality we live in, these young boys and girls begin to accept society on their own and go with the flow. As hard as it is to believe, when you really look at it, perhaps a sense of corruption is necessary to balance the good and bad in life. If this world were so perfect, then it would be as destructive as a society full of corruption. The reason I say this is because it would become a bigger problem to prevent any flaw from entering this world. The boy in this story is a prime example of what we would sacrifice to maintain a pure and perfect society. Le Guin describes the boy as “…feeble-minded. Maybe he was born defective, or maybe he became imbecile due to fear, malnutrition and abandonment” (Joy 211). A place like Omelas that would sacrifice children and lock them away to never see the outdoors just to maintain a “happy and pure” atmosphere is a place that should never exist. This sense of urgency to create a society built only on seeing the bright side of things in life is all well and good, but when you have to sacrifice a human being, let alone a child, just to make sure there are no imperfections in this society is simply inhuman. We can fight it all we want, but in the end, the hunger for perfection will always appear, no matter how much we don't want it. The fact remains that just as the boy was imprisoned by the people of Omelas for the sake of perfection is almost the same way our modern society tries to try to make this world better. There is no perfection in this world, no matter how much people tend to20)