Justice? The short fiction “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin is a story on following of what is right, in order to be happy, one must essentially stand up for what is right, even if it means letting go of what one is used to. Omelas is a place where relaxation and joy reign, where there are no kings, slaves, or rules, and the citizens are happy and safe. The residents of Omelas save one child to be confined in a basement or small room. The confined child has no connection with any of the citizens except for the few who are brought to feed or see the child. The citizens of Omelas' happiness depend completely on the fact that this nameless child goes through suffering. “They all know that it has to be there. Some of them understand why, and some do not, but they all understand that their happiness, the beauty of their city...,depend wholly on this child's abominable misery.”(Le Guin) You can see the irony to show the utopian society cannot exist without the suffering of the child, its seen through a simple speaker, the fact that Omelas no longer exists, and the child suffering. The residents of Omelas have the choice to ignore the suffering of a child who is held captive in a cellar, or fight for what’s right and basically leave their homes. A nameless neglected child is kept in a room in Omelas only referred to as an “it” in the story. "three paces long and two wide.”(Le Guin) The room where the child is held, has no window, only a locked door [and a dirt floor]. “It lives on a half bowl of corn meal and grease a day.”(Le Guin) “It is naked. Its buttock and thighs are a mass of festering sores, as it sits in its own excrement continually”(Le Guin). This neglected child has no friends, no happiness, and lacks health. The child brings with its misery and guilt to the city of Omelas. While in Omelas it is seen as a perfect utopian society where there is no sacrifice, and no one suffers. Unlike the child, the suffering and guilt cannot be kept in a broom closet “it spreads throughout the town.”(Le Guin) At the Festival of Summer, The “boys and girls were naked in the bright air.”(Le Guin). This could be a reference to the Garden of Eden in the religious text, their nakedness representing the freedom, happiness, and utopian attitude of the people of Omelas. They the people of Omelas were religious “Religion yes, clergy no.”(Le Guin). The girls race horses, while boys decorate their hair with flowers, retelling the point that Omelas is free from judgment or predetermined roles for genders. In a change in the tone of the story, the changing of the scene from the light visionary of the Festival of Summer to a child in a darkened, broom closet underground. “Do you accept the festival, the city, the joy? No? Then let me describe one more thing. In a basement under one of the beautiful public buildings of Omelas...”(Le Guin) A victim for the town of Omelas, the child in the basement is only known to us only as an “it.” The child is an unknown gender with festering sores on its legs from sitting in its own filth. “In the room a child is sitting. It could be a boy or a girl. It looks about six, but actually is nearly ten. It is feeble-minded. Perhaps it was born defective, or perhaps it has become imbecile through fear, malnutrition, and neglect.”(Le Guin) This child could stand for the faceless, unnamed, poor class. This nameless child can't enjoy the indulgences in Omelas like everyone else, only sit unaccompanied in a dark basement full of sickness, and sadness. Concealing the poor and permitting an “out of sight, out of mind” attitude. For the people of Omelas, using the basement to symbolize a clear separation in the lower classes and upper. On the on the bottom of the social ladder, lies the poor and poverty-stricken, suffering beneath the happiness of the privileged, and up on the top, lies the high class, enjoying in their riches. False smiles for the few that may be left in this city of paradise, there is no cheer. No one is happy in Omelas. The children in Omelas, when told about the nameless child's suffering and taken to see it "are shocked and sickened at the sight, they feel disgust, anger, outrage, impotence, despite all the explanations”(Le Guin). The children go home silently angered or crying. Some of which do not go home. The social and economic status of the lower class is further used, with the important placement of two mops and a locked door in this broom closet. “It is afraid of the mops. It finds them horrible. It shuts its eyes, but it knows the mops are still standing there; and the door is locked; and nobody will come.”(Le Guin) Usually, mops are used to clean up dirt, but clearly these ones aren't being used right. This message could be seen as the tools to clean up the injustice given upon this child are useable to him. On the door to this broom closet, the citizens of Omelas have installed a lock. Meaning, the upper class can come down the stairs, but the lower class can't come up and escape. The people of Omelas are responsible for the life and well-being of this child because they have the power to take off the lock. But, they don't. In order for justice to win, the lock must be taken down and the nameless child freed. However, this would mean that the citizens of Omelas would have to lose their parades, music, and self-indulgences. In the end, without the poor nameless child in the basement, their freedom would fall. Some people do realize that Omelas is not a utopian place and leave. “The children, the older man or woman, they all walk down the street alone. They keep walking, and walk straight out of the city of Omelas, through the beautiful gates”(Le Guin), because "they were not barbarians”(Le Guin). Some people of Omelas start to leave the city because they can't bear the guilty conscience of the child sacrifice for their happiness. “The place the people go to is a place even less thinkable to most of us. I can 't describe it at all. It is possible that it does not exist”(Le Guin). The neglected child's suffering makes the Omelas success and happiness possible, also causing the downfall of Omelas altogether. "Joy built upon successful slaughter in not the right kind of joy”(Le Guin). Some citizens people Omelas who realize this leave the city. "They leave Omelas, they walk ahead into the darkness, and they do not come back”(Le Guin).