Synopsis:
The only chronological element of the work is that it begins by describing the first day of summer in Omelas, a shimmering city of unbelievable happiness and delight. In Omelas, the summer solstice is celebrated with a glorious festival and a race featuring children on horseback. The vibrant festival atmosphere, however, seems to be an everyday characteristic of the blissful community, whose citizens, though limited in their advanced technology to communal (rather than private) resources, are still intelligent, sophisticated, and cultured. Omelas has no kings, soldiers, priests, or slaves. The specific socio-politico-economic setup of the community is not mentioned, but the narrator merely explains that the reader cannot be sure of every particular.
Self-admittedly, the uncertain narratorreflects that "Omelas sounds in my words like a city in a fairy tale, long ago and far away, once upon a time. Perhaps it would be best if you imagined it as your own fancy bids, assuming it will rise to the occasion, for certainly I cannot suit you all."[7] The narrator even suggests that, if necessary, the reader may include an orgy in their mental picture of Omelas.
Everything about Omelas is so abundantly pleasing that the narrator decides the reader is not yet truly convinced of its existence and so elaborates upon one final element of the city: its one atrocity. The city's constant state of serenity and splendor requires that a single unfortunate child be kept in perpetual filth, darkness, and misery.
Once citizens are old enough to know the truth, most, though initially shocked and disgusted, ultimately acquiesce with that one injustice which secures the happiness of the rest of the city. However, a few citizens, young and old, silently walk away from the city, and no one knows where they go. The writing ends with "The place they go towards is a place even less imaginable to most of us than the city of happiness. I cannot describe it at all. It is possible it does not exist. But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas."
The quote from William James is:
Or if the hypothesis were offered us of a world in which Messrs. Fourier's and Bellamy's and Morris's utopias should all be outdone, and millions kept permanently happy on the one simple condition that a certain lost soul on the far-off edge of things should lead a life of lonely torture, what except a sceptical
and independent sort of emotion can it be which would make us immediately feel, even though an impulse arose within us to clutch at the happiness so offered, how hideous a thing would be its enjoyment when deliberately accepted as the fruit of such a bargain?
Plot Summary
Roger and Alison are stepbrother and sister. Alison's father died and her mother Margaret has married Clive, a businessman and former RAF officer. Clive's former wife was notoriously unfaithful, bringing shame to the family and a particular kind of pain to his son, Roger. To bond the new family together they are spending a few weeks of the summer in an isolated valley in Wales, a few hours' drive from Aberystwyth. They occupy a fine house formerly owned by Alison's father, subsequently transferred to her to avoid death duty. He in turn inherited it from a cousin, Bertram, who died there in mysterious circumstances around the time Alison was born.
With the house comes Huw Halfbacon, also known as Huw the Flitch, a handyman and gardener. He is the last of the original domestic staff to remain at the house. The former cook, Nancy, had left to live in Aberystwyth but is offered a substantial amount to come and resume her duties. With her comes her son Gwyn. He has never seen the valley before but knows everything about it, courtesy of his mother's stories. Someone else who knows a lot about the place is Huw, but he is very mysterious about it. Oddly, Nancy has told Gwyn nothing about Huw.
