PLATONIC, JUNGIAN, AND TAOIST ALLEGORIES IN URSULA K. LE GUIN’S “THE
ONES WHO WALK AWAY FROM OMELAS”

Alexander Macdougall

English 1100
Section 001
Ameena Mayer
Langara College
April 5, 2022

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Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching states, “Run the country by doing what’s expected. Win the war
by doing the unexpected. Control the world by doing nothing” (sec. 57). “The Ones Who Walk
Away from Omelas” is a fantasy short story written by Ursula K. Le Guin. First described as an
anarcho-utopia of sorts, the city-state of Omelas is shown to have one major dystopic flaw. The
suffering of an imprisoned child is the source of the population’s idyllic existence. Most
Omelans choose to accept the unfair treatment of the child as necessitating their own prosperity,
though a minority select self-exile, unable to cope with the truth behind their society’s
foundation. These opposing responses can be related to three geographically and temporally
distant philosophical and psychological thinkers. Plato’s allegory of the cave describes a host of
prisoners, entertained from cradle to grave by the casting of shadowy figures on the wall
opposite their bound position. Jungian psychology explores the nature of the unconscious mind,
a mysterious domain of the human psyche which presents itself in both individual and collective
aspects. Lastly, Lao Tzu presents a sacred supposition that inaction is often preferable to drastic
action. When the lives of Omelas’ citizens are paralleled to these three psycho-philosophical
aspects, a theme that collective apathy can override a society’s moral conscience becomes
apparent. The population is willfully imprisoned by the illusion of their picturesque existence,
which symbolizes the prisoners of Plato’s cave allegory refusing to acknowledge the true reality
of the outside world. In turn, this society-wide apathy may symbolize the burying of emotions to
the unconscious mind, as outlined by Carl Jung. Finally, inaction towards a plausible rescue of
the child, by both those who remain and those who leave Omelas, symbolizes a Taoist notion of
‘not doing’ as a paradoxical solution to communal indifference.
The citizens of Omelas symbolize Plato’s subterranean captives, both made apathetic by
their comfortably stagnant lives. According to John Wright in “The Origin of Plato’s Cave,”

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those residing in Plato’s cave are enthralled in perpetuity by the casting of shadows,
“which…were [their] only realities” (132). This is much like the lives of Omelas’ population,
which is generally mesmerized by the prosperity the “child’s abominable misery” (Le Guin 113)
brings them. Although some Omelans understand the reasoning for the child’s dilapidated
condition as unjustly fueling their society’s happiness, the majority elect to remain in complacent
prosperity. Ultimately, “they begin to perceive the terrible justice of reality and…accept it” (Le
Guin 114). Similarly, when the unshackled prisoner returns to explain the artificial nature of the
cave dwellers’ existence, Plato’s subterranean residents decide to continue “in comfortable
contentment with their lot” (Wright 132). Both Plato’s theoretical prisoners and the citizens of
Omelas largely accept the illusions that pervade their lives, lest their cozy worldview be
painfully shattered. In this regard, both Plato and Le Guin provide commentary around popular
apathy towards social issues that may interrupt an individual or group’s comfortable state.
While apathy may abound Omelas’ population, it is a product of repressing the
unconscious mind. The use of the child as a scapegoat for Omelas’ potential degradation exists in
the back of each citizen’s mind, instinctively guiding “the nobility of their architecture, the
poignancy of their music, [and] the profundity of their science” (Le Guin, 114). Despite being
armed with the knowledge of this unjust correlation, most Omelans elect blissful ignorance to
maintain their advanced culture. Jungian psychology might attribute such placations to the
unconscious mind. David Ross Komito describes this portion of the psyche as “those aspects of
mental functioning which go on without one’s being aware of them…experiences which are so
painful or threatening that we prefer to ignore them” (37). The experience of each citizen’s
visitations with the child may certainly be described as both painful and threatening. Around the
ages of eight or twelve, the child’s dilapidated condition is revealed to the citizens of Omelas.

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Most “feel disgust… anger, outrage…[but] if it were cleaned and fed and comforted…all the
prosperity and beauty and delight of Omelas would wither and be destroyed” (Le Guin 114).
Emotional distress is wrought via each citizen’s revulsions, while the risk of Omelas’ gradual
decline jeopardizes everyone’s utopian lives. Thus, the impoverished reality of the child is left to
reside within the unconscious psyche of most Omelans, fueling their collective moral lethargy.
While most who accept the child’s situation elect utilitarian inaction, those who walk
away practice inaction, symbolizing a Taoist notion of ‘not doing.’ In this regard, those who
reject Omelas’ unjust foundation are seen to deviate from a theme of communal indifference:

Those who think to win the world
by doing something to it,
I see them come to grief.
For the world is a sacred object.
Nothing is to be done to it.
To do anything to it is to damage it.
To seize it is to lose it.
Under heaven some things lead, some follow,
some blow hot, some cold,
some are strong, some weak,
some are fulfilled, some fail.
So the wise soul keeps away
from the extremes, excess, extravagance.
(Lao Tzu, sec. 29)
The logic of Lao Tzu’s above proverb espouses sacred moderation (Le Guin, Tao Te Ching sec.
29), a Taoist ideology practiced by both the supporters and opponents of Omelas’ utopian caveat.

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Although most citizens “perceive the terrible justice of reality and…accept it,” some “leave
Omelas, they walk ahead into the darkness, and they do not come back” (Le Guin, “The One’s
Who Walk” 114-115). Regarding the reality of the child’s horrific existence, both parties can be
said to practice inaction following their initial emotional reactions. The ones who remain employ
this Taoist approach in a negative manner, vampirically subsisting on the abandoned child’s
suffering in passive excess. Alternatively, the ones who walk away positively abandon both the
city and the child. They are said to travel toward “a place even less imaginable…than the city of
happiness” (Le Guin, “The One’s Who Walk” 115), as if traversing into another plane of
existence. By electing inaction, the ones who walk away have struck a balance between
maintaining Omelas’ heavenly dystopia and refusing to partake in the child’s suffering. If they
had remained, their lives would be spent in misery. If they rescued the child, a great portion of
Omelas’ population would see their utopian lives dematerialize. Thus, the decision to excise
themselves from this unjust reality may be seen as morally correct in the Taoist sense. By
entering an unimaginable world upon balancing of potential outcomes, the self-exiled may be
seen to triumph over the fantasy-state’s collective apathy.
When presented with the moral quagmire of the child’s condition, those who walk and
those who remain react with diametric inaction. Their collective and individual conditions can be
explained by historical, psychological, and philosophical allusions. Just like Plato’s remaining
cave prisoners, those who stay in Omelas fall under a complacent stupor while in awe of their
glorious society. Jungian theories on the unconscious human psyche can explain this pronounced
apathy as a repressive emotional response to the child’s horrific conditions. Finally, the Taoist
notion of ‘not doing’ is alluded to by both those who remain and those who walk away, taking on
both the positive and negative aspects of inaction. In some ways, the world of Omelas mirrors

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our own. While the ills of humanity tap annoyingly at the back of our minds, society continues to
purchase products manufactured by a global minority of impoverished toilers. Confronting this
issue may necessitate self-exile from our comfortable hideaways, an exploration of our
ignorance, and a clear understanding of both the positive and negative aspects of inaction.

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Works Cited
Komito, David Ross. “Jungian Psychology and Tibetan Buddhism.” The Tibet Journal Vol. 8,
No. 4, 1983, 36-49, JSTOR https://www.jstor.org/stable/43300107. Accessed March 16,
2022.
Lao Tzu. Tao Te Ching: A Book About the Way and the Power of the Way. translated by Ursula
K. Le Guin. Boston: Shambhala Publications, 1997.
Le Guin, Ursula K. “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.” ENG1100: The Liberation of
Words, Spring 2022, Langara College, Vancouver, edited and compiled by Ameena
Mayer, English 1100, published by Langara College. Courseware.
Wright, John Henry. “The Origin of Plato’s Cave.” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology Vol.
17, 1906, 131-142, JSTOR https://www.jstor.org/stable/310313. Accessed March 16,
2022.