Topics for The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas.

• Our Imagination as a vehicle for Complicity: As the narrator invites the audience to create an image of Omelas, we become complicit in the moral consequences of its greatest crime: the agreement to allow a child to continue suffering in order for everyone else to be happy. By reading this story, Le Guin pulls us in to its creation, generating consensus and understanding of our circumstances. Think about what this allegory represents. By imagining and co-creating this city of Omelas with Le Guin, do we share a responsibility for the suffering of the child in the basement?
• Coming of Age and the Loss of Innocence: All children between 8 and 12 learn about the child in the basement. At this discovery, the narrator states that everyone is disgusted and horrified at first. How might the contrast of childhood and adulthood (or at least puberty), be represented through the coming of age in Omelas? Why are youth the first ones to consider walking away?
• The utilitarian scapegoat. A child suffers in a basement somewhere in Omelas so that thousands of citizens can live in bliss and comfort. Evaluate the pleasures of Omelas' citizens in light of the suffering that this child must endure. Is the sacrifice of something precious a worthy trade-off for the pleasure and comfort of thousands?
• The absurd pleasures we desire. Many pleasurable behaviors described in Omelas come across as bizarre. Motifs such as nudity, music, drugs, and plenty of contradictions populate Le Guin's narrative. Why does Le Guin use such thoroughly exaggerated pleasures to allegorize our own? How do these pleasures echo the kinds of pleasures we pursue?