Omelas: A Fake Utopia

The author described Omelas as this perfect utopian society, where there is no need for drugs, war, and everyone is equal.  One of the main points of the story is how everyone in society is equal, but the child in the cellar contradicts this idea. The story describes how the child,  “…is feeble-minded. Perhaps it was born defective, or perhaps it has become imbecile through fear, malnutrition, and neglect. It picks its nose and occasionally fumbles vaguely with its toes or genitals, as it sits hunched in the corner farthest from the bucket and the two mops. 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. The door is always locked; and nobody ever comes, except that sometimes–the child has no understanding of time or interval–sometimes the door rattles terribly and opens, and a person, or several people, are there” (Guin, 5-6).  I interpreted that this child in the above section was either autistic or had some sort of mental illness. In Omelas, it seems that a person can not be ‘defective’ in anyway otherwise they are not allowed to be apart of the utopian society. The people of Omelas claim that if they let the child into the real-world, then the happiness of the city would be at risk. What this society does not realize is that despite preaching for equality, they are preventing everyone from being able to join in on their utopia, which in itself is unequal. It is one thing to essentially institutionalize the child, but the people of Omela go out of their way to mistreat the kid. In a society that is supposed to be full of happiness, mistreating people, even if they are not recognized by the society as a whole, demonstrates how the culture is inherently flawed.