The “cheerful faint sweetness of the air the great joyous clanging of the bells” (Le Guin) gives the reader the feeling that everything is excellent compared to our real world. ” Le Guin wrote the story with a narrator that tries to allure the reader into the peaceful and ideal city of Omelas. This society that we are presented with follows a specific convention of speculative fiction since it emphasizes a city “different reality” with “human. The narrator starts by describing the perfectiveness of a society where “ were singularly few” (Le Guin). The story of the city of Omelas presents a different, more perfect version of our reality. As described by Oziewicz, speculative fiction is said to be “stories that departed from consensus reality or embraced a different version of reality than the empirical” (Oziewicz). Le Guin’s short story The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas is centered in a utopia city with humans that are challenged with the reality of their source of happiness. Marek Oziewicz describes speculative fiction as “a subgenre of science fiction that deals with human rather than technological problems” (Oziewicz).
One common subgenre of speculative fiction is that of utopian fiction. Le Guin employs the idea of a perfect place in order to show a different well-functioning society and then criticize its inhabitants’ moral compass. Simultaneously, Le Guin criticizes the main characteristic of this genre by providing the idea that society is not entirely perfect and would follow immoral actions if they guarantee the well-being of masses. As in utopian fiction, the story explores shared understanding within an ideal world where most people live carefreely.
Published in the 1970s, “Omelas” is a rhetorical piece that questions morality and empathy in society.
Le Guin writes this story where rhetorical questions and uncertain narration lead the reader to build an image of Omelas guided by the little information provided by the narrator and their own imagination. Le Guin, presents a unique and challenging approach to the rhetoric of utopia within the genre of speculative fiction while criticizing its general idea of everything being perfect. The short story, The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas by Ursula K.