Omelas Discussion Questions

1) One of the greatest open secrets about science fiction novels is that, while they can sometimes offer a warning of a future that might come to be if we continue down the path we are on, they more often provide a window into better understanding the present day. They show us deep truths about human nature, truths that can be understood in a new way via their parallel worlds to our world.

If Omelas is not a portrait of a possible future but instead a portrait of our world, what truths does it reveal about our world?

2) Consider the POV of the story. What is significant about the fact that the narrator addresses the reader directly? What is significant about the fact that the reader is made conscious of the fact that they are reading this story?

3) What might this story have to teach us about the limits of the human imagination, and the consequences of those limits?

4) The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas is not science fiction, exactly, though it is not fantasy either. It is a story that defies genre. Le Guin referred to it as “psychomyths, more or less surrealistic tales, which share with fantasy the quality of taking place outside any history, outside of time.”

5) Would you walk away from Omelas? Why or why not?

Design a Utopia:

Before she died, Ursula LeGuin gave an experiment to her fans and other writers of science fiction: to design a world without capitalism. She said: “We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words.” Design a world without capitalism. Discuss how the society functions: where do the people live, how do they work, how do they get what they need. Imagine everything and anything about their world.

OR

Imagine the place that the people of Omelas are walking away toward. 

In both fantasy writing and science fiction writing, this is called "world building."

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