3. To what extent is Omelas an analogy for our own society? Please discuss and provide examples.

After reading and discussing the story with the class, I couldn’t help but draw various connections between Omelas and our society.  

The first example off the top of my head is child labour. Often when we picture child labour, we imagine an African child with malnutrition working days on end for clothing companies. We picture an inhumane society filled with innocent children, some orphaned, others sold off to work for companies like Nike. How many of us can say we don’t own one article of clothing as a product of child labour? We would be ignorant to say we don’t.

Aside from child labour, there’s also slavery. However, slavery today isn’t as stereotypical as one would think. It’s not just Africans captured and sent off to foreign homes serving their masters. Slavery in today’s society can be found within popular companies. I for one am a guilty chocolate and Coca-Cola lover. However, the pleasures I receive from consuming these goods come in exchange for someone’s pain and suffering. In recent studies, I’ve discovered that Hershey chocolates, coco-companies, and sugar cane factories have associated with slavery, and child labour. This is appalling to me. How can there still be slavery in the twenty first century? Although I am firmly against slavery I would find it difficult to give up chocolate. For this reason, I’d probably not walk away from Omelas.

Another example of how Omelas is an analogy of our own society can be found in schools. Everyone has faced some form of bullying in today’s society. It could be physical, verbal or cyber bullying. In all these cases, it’s fair to say one person’s suffering contributes to another’s happiness. Laughter and attention is the product of someone’s pain and humiliation. When I picture the boy in the cell, I imagine how humiliated he must have felt. How exposed and vulnerable he felt because he was naked. In my experience, when I’ve been bullied I felt similarly to the boy.

I also like to look at this story in a different context. The author could be trying to portray a separate analogy as well. In the story, readers learn that a few people who visit and see the boy end up leaving town alone. This can be an analogy to the neglected homeless people in our world. I’ve walked past countless homeless people in my life. I notice them, but sometimes I pretend that they aren’t there. Their suffering saddens me, and If I could, I’d want nothing more to feed them all. It’s difficult to know how helpless I am, in putting a roof over their heads. I can relate to the people who walk away from Omelas. Like them, I walked away from the suffering. Not because I didn’t care, but because I couldn’t help but feel guilty for the basic necessities that I have taken for granted.

In my opinion, Omelas is an analogy for the society we live in today. We live in a cruel world. Although we are shielded from the truth in North America, there is suffering all over the world. Many children, and adults work countless hours for low wages to manufacture the clothes we wear. They are starved and forced to work days on end. I’m starting to think that we live in a society where it is a necessity that someone, somewhere, needs to suffer in order for the world to prosper. This society we live in is no Utopia. If it is true that Omelas is an analogy of our society, how can we believe Ursula Le Guin when she says that Omelas is a Utopia? Think about it.