As a trailblazer in the world of science fiction, Ursula K. Le Guin made history as the first female author to win the Hugo Award for Best Novel with The Left Hand of Darkness in 1970, having already secured the Nebula Award for the same work in 1969. In recognition of her groundbreaking contributions to the genre, she was later honoured with the title of Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 2003. Contemporary writer N.K. Jemisin also made history by becoming the first author to win the Hugo Award for Best Novel three years in a row for each book in her Broken Earth trilogy: The Fifth Season (2015), The Obelisk Gate (2016), and The Stone Sky (2017).
Ursula K. Le Guin’s short story The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas has long been a work that explores moral dilemmas and social values in-depth and has found its way into most courses in moral philosophy and legal theory as a “must-read.” Decades later, N.K. Jemisin wrote a short story, The Ones Who Stay and Fight, which is a direct response to the themes Le Guin presents in Omelas. Although Le Guin’s work is not in dialogue with Jemisin’s, Jemisin’s story can be seen as a response to, or argument against, the pressing moral questions raised by Le Guin.
Omelas
From the outside, Le Guin’s Omelas appears to be the epitome of an ideal city. Children are cheerful, artisans are creative, workers are productive, and most importantly, people are joyous. Throughout the story, Le Guin poses questions, inviting readers to envision an ideal city and the society it holds. Omelas is a place of festivals, music, and pleasures such as drugs and sex parties, all without any negative consequences. At first glance, it seems like an unbelievably perfect utopia, one that we might all long to inhabit. However, as we know from experience or from what we have read, every utopia carries dystopian implications that cannot be ignored, as though a price must be paid, an evanescence fading beneath the surface of its perfection. From the outset, the eerie tone of the narrator and the underlying scepticism offer a glimpse of what lies ahead. Le Guin further uncovers the darkness of Omelas with a powerful question, urging the reader to reflect with her, “Do you believe? Do you accept the festival, the city, the joy? No? Then let me describe one more thing.“
The dark secret of Omelas awaits readers in a filthy basement in a remote part of the city. The happiness of the townspeople depends on the endless suffering of a single child imprisoned in this remote basement. This child, neglected and starved, knows only fear and despair. No one speaks to, no one cares for the child, and the child is just left there all alone, out of sight, for as long as deemed necessary. Everyone in Omelas knows the price this little child paid. Children of appropriate age and intelligence are brought before the child, and no matter how much adults explain to them the intention behind this ‘sacrifice’, they usually leave in anger, tears in their eyes. They desire to act, yet find themselves unable to, caught in a cruel paradox. This paradox is best captured in Le Guin’s words, “If the child were brought up into the sunlight out of that vile place, if it were cleaned and fed and comforted, that would be a good thing, indeed; but if it were done, in that day and hour all the prosperity and beauty and delight of Omelas would wither and be destroyed. Those are the terms. To exchange all the goodness and grace of every life in Omelas for that single, small improvement: to throw away the happiness of thousands for the chance of happiness of one: that would be to let guilt within the walls indeed.“
The splendour of Omelas is inextricably linked to the suffering of the child; if the child suffers, the city thrives, and vice versa. Some citizens carry this burden for the rest of their lives, while others, unable to bear the moral weight any longer, choose to walk away from Omelas.
In many ways, Le Guin’s story acts as a profound thought experiment that mirrors the moral dilemma presented by Dostoevsky in The Brothers Karamazov. Le Guin explores what people would do in a situation where the happiness of an entire city depends on the daily suffering of a single child, a scenario that Ivan Karamazov grapples within his philosophical inquiries. Through this lens, Le Guin reimagines the ethical quandary Ivan articulates and confronts readers with the same uncomfortable choice: whether to accept this moral compromise, or to reject it?
Um-Helat
Jemisin’s short story The Ones Who Stay and Fight begins with a similar atmosphere; the events take place in a city called Um-Helat, its depictions quite similar to Omelas. Jemisin describes this city as follows, “And so this is Um-Helat: a city whose inhabitants, simply, care for one another. That is a city’s purpose, they believe—not merely to generate revenue or energy or products, but to shelter and nurture the people who do these things.” In fact, Jemisin goes a step further, criticising Omelas, arguing vehemently that Um-Helat is not a city of filthy happiness, like Omelas’, ignoring the torture of a child somewhere, but a truly happy city.
Although Jemisin treats the reader like a small soldier, giving commands in an attempt to convince them that Um-Helat is unlike the dystopian cities we are familiar with, a reversal occurs midway through the story, revealing the expected price, much like Le Guin’s approach.
Um-Helat exists in connection with parallel universes, including our own, and its inhabitants occasionally cross the barriers separating these realms to access the resources of our world. In doing so, they gain access to our information, culture, and, as Jemisin puts it, ‘poison knowledge.’ These encounters with our media and culture ‘infect’ the citizens of Um-Helat, causing them to adopt the Orwellian belief that some people are less important than others, prioritising individual desires over the welfare of the community. Such thoughts are forbidden in Um-Helat, and those who harbour them are executed by ‘social servants’ in the name of safeguarding the common good.
Although this execution is swift and silent, with a “beautifully crafted” pike through the spine and heart, an execution is an execution. This is the price of Jemisin’s utopia. Jemisin explains this price in her own words, “Does this work for you, at last, friend? Does the possibility of harsh enforcement add enough realism? Are you better able to accept this postcolonial utopia now that you see its bloody teeth? Ah, but they did not choose this battle, the people of Um-Helat today; their ancestors did, when they spun lies and ignored conscience in order to profit from others’ pain. Their greed became a philosophy, a religion, a series of nations, all built on blood. Um-Helat has chosen to be better. But sometimes, only by blood sacrifice may true evil be kept at bay.”
This raises an intriguing question: Is Um-Helat truly any different from Omelas? Despite Jemisin’s intention to challenge Le Guin’s vision, does she ultimately reaching to same conclusion—suffering of the minority for the happiness of the majority?
Comparison
The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas is, in fact, a thought experiment about the consequences of the so-called happiness we pay for every day. However, while reading The Ones Who Stay and Fight, I found myself struggling with the story and later realised that this is a prevalent response among its readers. Jemisin’s story seems to me to be an opposition to The Ones who Walk Away from Omelas, a defence of a situation in which a different majority is in power and a different minority is punished, rather than a real alternative.
A more critical comparison of these two short stories suggests that the primary difference lies in the authors’ intentions, and perhaps also in their writing styles. In Omelas, the narrator co-constructs the vision of utopia with you, allowing you to shape the city as you see fit. It is yours to imagine, but the story does not demand that you believe in it. Rather, it serves as a philosophical inquiry, an allegory for the real world, offering no claim that utopias are attainable or superior to our societies. The narrator’s distant, slightly unsettling tone cues you from the outset that something is amiss. This subtle unease cultivates a disturbing atmosphere in the town, where a joyful festival plays out as a perfect oxymoron.
In Um-Helat, the narrator seeks to convince the reader of the city’s perfection, adopting a tone that almost compels us to view it as superior. Yet, this creates a contradiction. Jemisin’s society enforces conformity through death, and this is no secret, she introduces a young girl who witnesses the execution of her father for having differing views as his mind was tainted by ‘poisonous knowledge.’ The girl cannot comprehend why her father is killed by the social workers; she blames them, too young to understand the reasoning behind the act. As a result, instead of executing her alongside her father, Um-Helat attempts to rehabilitate the girl by isolating her in quarantine and reaching out over several days. But what do we mean by ‘quarantine’ here? Is it a form of isolation, where the child is locked away in silence, like the child in Omelas? Or is it a quarantine that exposes her to new ideas, challenging the beliefs she has inherited from our world?
This also raises several questions: Why didn’t they attempt to rehabilitate the father, steering him away from the “evils” of our world? Why didn’t they fight for him in the first place? Why was he condemned to a swift and silent execution? And, after witnessing such an event, to what extent, can a young child, a child that was merely a bystander to this violence, can truly be rehabilitated? Jemisin concludes the story by suggesting a question for the reader to ponder. “So don’t walk away. The child needs you, too, don’t you see? You also have to fight for her, now that you know she exists, or walking away is meaningless. Here, here is my hand. Take it. Please.“
Here, Jemisin clearly emphasises the child abandoned in Omelas. However, despite its utopian appearance, Omelas is far from being an ideal society, and Le Guin does not aim to convince the reader otherwise. In fact, Omelas serves as an allegory for our world where happiness is built on exploitation that is hidden from the eyes and difficult to remember every day. On the contrary, walking away from Omelas symbolises a rejection of compromise, a call to reassess our values if necessary, even if it means leaving comfort behind. Jemisin, however, seems to interpret distancing as a kind of escape, an interpretation with which I disagree.
It is also significant that Le Guin’s later short story, The Day Before the Revolution, centres on the character Odo, who actually leaves Omelas and fights against the unjust status quo; this shows that moving away is not equivalent to escapism. Odo’s journey represents the transition from Omelas to the search for a society whose happiness does not depend on the suffering of others. In this sense, Odo can be seen as an extension of the ethical stance of individuals in Omelas who do not accept happiness at the expense of others’ suffering. Therefore, as a reader, when I read Le Guin’s works as a whole, I have always thought that “walking away” does not resonate as leaving the problem behind and accepting no responsibility, but rather the opposite.
Jemisin’s depiction of Um-Helat, therefore, reminds me of a liberal, milder version of Orwell’s 1984. Here, too, it is a world where those who do not say 2+2=5 are executed by social workers, functioning as a kind of thought police who decide who to kill on the basis of thought crimes. Jemisin’s solution – execution for thought crime – does not sit well with me, because being exposed to different ideas does not necessarily mean that you are infected. Given Jemisin’s stance against police intervention, I have mixed feelings about The Ones Who Stay and Fight.
The fundamental problem is that Jemisin’s society promotes equality and social values while at the same time affirming the right of the majority to eliminate dissent. If we apply this logic to a society that contradicts our ideals, could we still possibly argue that the majority has the right to execute those who dissent? What is tolerance if it eradicates any intolerance? Then again, how does tolerance maintain itself?
In contrast, Le Guin’s story leaves us with an open-ended ending. Those who cannot accept the moral price of Omelas’ happiness, those who cannot accept this situation, choose to walk away; this decision resists prejudice and encourages deeper reflection. In most of her works, Le Guin is not an answer-giver, but rather a question-creator. Here, with Omelas, she gives us a micro example and pushes us to question the macro. But Jemisin’s story, despite its good intentions, imposes a solution that reflects the very utilitarianism it aims to challenge.
How paths cross
Both stories raise thought-provoking and ethically challenging questions for us to ponder on. Le Guin’s Omelas makes the reader an active participant, inviting them to recognise the ethical contradiction within the system and to confront this contradiction on their own. As Le Guin ends the story, those who leave Omelas seem to know where they are going. This conscious departure symbolises the search for a justice that is unknown, perhaps never existed, but worth fighting for.
On the other hand, Jemisin’s Um-Helat presents a society shaped by active intervention and drastic measures. This story forces the reader to make a judgement, questioning how far one can go in the name of preserving moral purity. However, while Jemisin’s story finds the solution it seeks, it also leaves the reader with serious doubts about how different the alternative it presents is from the dystopias it opposes. How far can we go ignoring the morally unacceptable in our endeavour to create an ideal society? And, perhaps more importantly, how much should we be willing to lose ourselves in deciding how many people can be sacrificed for this cause? These questions resonate not only at the heart of fictional worlds but also at the heart of our own. Do those who walk away from Omelas follow the right path, or do those who stay in Um-Helat and fight? Perhaps the answer to this question lies in the courage of the reader: To maintain a brutal order, or to question it and seek something more?
*Please go to Bilimkurgu Kulübü to see the Turkish version.
Yeliz Figen Döker is a PhD researcher at the European University Institute, where she works on AGI regulation. She is the co-founder and Head of Science Fiction at DigiCon.
