Book Review: The One Who Walk Away From Omelas – Ursula K. Le Guin

The One Who Walks Away From Omelas is a short fictional story that was made by Ursula K. Le Guin back in October 1973. I first know about this short story from one of BTS’ Spring Day music video. In that music video, they put up a big ‘Omelas’ sign in one scene. Then there are ARMYs (BTS fans) who shared that BTS use ‘The One Who Walk Away From Omelas’ book for their inspiration.

image source: https://www.quora.com

So a few days ago I began searching for the pdf version of the book so I can read it. Then when I read it, I was really mindblowned. Because, although the story is only 2000 words long, it has a really deep meaning in it.

The story starts with description of Omelas during the Festival of Summer. Omelas itself is a city of happiness without no king nor slaves over there. Everyone in Omelas is really passionate about their life and they enjoy it in there. So basically, Omelas is a place that everyone is dreaming of.

But behind all of the happiness that everyone knows in Omelas, there is one room in a basement, and inside it live a child that never see or feel the happiness of Omelas. No one ever care about that child, although they know about it’s existence. That’s because they all know, if the child is released or feel happiness, the beauty and all of the happiness of Omelas will be gone. So, every kind of happiness that they’ve got is based on this child sadness/misery.

People from Omelas that have just seen this child usually broke up in tears. But overtime, they understand that it is for their happiness. So they can face it easily and start to act not to care about the child.

But there are also people that can’t face the fact about that child. So they choose to leave Omelas. They go away from all of the happiness and joy. They go into the darkness and they never come back. But it looks like they always know where they are heading to, the one who walk away from Omelas.

To be honest, this kind of story always happen in the real world. Well, maybe there is no such thing as the ‘Omelas’ that is illustrated here. But do you ever imagine how many child/people that is neglected in every country in this world? In this world, only people with well economic condition can receive the happiness of life.

In this modern era, even a lot of us are really selfish of what we own. We know that there are people who live in contrary condition and miserable. Sometimes we also see that some people actually take an advantage of others miserable life, and never care about them.

So if I could have enough power, I really want to change people’s mindset. That happiness is not always based on what we have, or how much money we can earn. But happiness is when we can share something to others sincerely. Happiness will be reached when we are able to contribute in our society and make all of the people live in better condition.

I hope you enjoy reading the summary of ‘The One Who Walk Away From Omelas’ story, and I really recommend you to read it by yourself. Bye!