" The people are prevented from doing anything to try and make the child's life better, and they all follow the rules. As readers, it is easy for us to say that the trade-off is not worth it, that the citizens of Omelas should rebel against the rules and save the child, but the moral question Le Guin presents is complicated. How do we weigh the needs of the many against the needs of the one? The entire population of the city of Omelas gets to live happy, carefree, healthy lives without violence or war, and the only price to pay is the suffering of one person. The price is horrific, all the more so because the boy is merely ten years old, but sometimes a horrific price must be paid. How many of us in the prosperous first world are able to enjoy our luxuries because there are people around the world -- children sometimes -- suffering on our behalf. We happily shop for cheaply-made goods at the dollar store without thinking twice that there might be a child laborer slaving away twelve hours a day for less than a livable wage. Every level of society depends on the labor and work of the level below it. Le Guin taken this idea to the extreme, but the moral choice doesn't ever really go away. At some level, we are all willing to sacrifice the happiness of other in order to support our own.

The exception, of course, is those in the story who choose to walk away from Omelas. Some of them make the decision to leave right after they have seen the boy, immediately rejecting the exchange of their...

Some of those who leave do not walk away right after seeing the boy -- they wait, sometimes years, to make the break with Omelas. It is admirable that these few brave souls choose not to participate actively in the suffering of the boy, and Le Guin intimates that they will be rewarded. It is "even less imaginable to us than the city of happiness," she writes. A better place than utopia. One has to ask, though, why no one helps the boy, not even those who turn their back on the system and lave town. None of these supposedly enlightened souls brings the boy better food or rescues him from his torture. No one takes he walks away from Omelas. Their choice is still the moral one however. According to the rules of the town, everything good that happens to the people is connected to this boy's suffering. If he stops suffering, then the people start suffering. The anguish of many would replace the anguish of one. If those who choose to talk away from Omelas insisted on taking the boy with them, they would then be responsible for the suffering of everyone else they are leaving behind. There is no easy choice here. Although I believe we all want to see ourselves as the ultimate hero, the one who charges into the broom closet and saves the child, but would you do if it your wife, child and grandmother suffered instead? The balance of the individual verses the society has been debated by philosophers for thousands of years, and Le Guin offers a practical yet disturbing solution: walk away.