The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas Inequality Essay

Ursula Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” is a great example of how inequality is often present, yet ignored, in our society. Like the citizens of Omelas, most people think that it’s okay, or rather necessary, for one person to suffer for the greater good. In our case, the one person who suffers is not actually a person. It is, in fact, a group of people who’s suffering is constantly being ignored. Le Guin uses the child in "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" to demonstrate the line of thinking that: as long as a few people are happy, the suffering of one is okay. This just goes to show that humans have grown accustomed to ignoring the plight of those in need. The first thing that should be noted is that the word inequality isn’t just a blanket term to describe the misfortune that the lower class suffers. There are actually …show more content…
When these large corporations overextended themselves financially and were seeking bail-outs from the government, where was the help for the working lower class? There was no help. Jobs were being lost left and right. People were on unemployment benefits for extended periods of time. I recall sometime after that, that the government, who of course is made up of the 1%’ers, shut down at a time when people needed them to come through. They took a break when they needed to make an immediate decision on whether or not to extend the unemployment insurance benefits for people who still hadn’t had success in finding employment. This was just another classic example of how the needs of the many were ignored for the few. They didn’t have to worry about the things that the lower class had to worry about. They had, and still have, money to pay their bills, to feed their kids, to not have to worry at night. But those same things that they don’t have to worry about because they have the income they need to deal with such things, isn’t something that is afforded to everyone, especially the lower