Empoword

Additional Readings 432 offering themselves like divine soufflés to the hunger of the needy and the rapture of the flesh. Let them join the processions” (Le Guin 3). The joyful stimulation of lust: nothing brings more joy than a lover’s touch. But what else does a society need to be happy beside loving and dancing with others? How about children in the Omelas? Le Guin describes that children are raised communally in this fictional society: “Let the offspring of these rituals [processions of sex] be beloved and looked after by all” (Le Guin 3). In Omelas the infants and children are taken care of by the entire town. This symbolizes the unity in the town and the fact that everyone cares for one another. This may seem like a hard for people of today to grasp, because our society teaches us to only look out for ourselves and things that will stave off our never-ending hunger for joy. Although there are multiple endorphin producers that curb the appetite of reasonable happiness, there are many that set our society’s joy apart from this fictional town’s. One of the main differences between Le Guin’s society and ours is the share we place in material items. Our society is caught up on material items, using them to assess personal happiness levels. This is a place of discord between the people in the fictional town and people today: “I think that there would be no cars or helicopters in and above the streets; this follows from the fact that the people of Omelas are happy people” (Le Guin 3). The citizens of Omelas don’t take the same pride or comfort in objects as we do. The author is hinting to another reason our society is not happy. Le Guin feels that machines are no means of measuring happiness: the residents of Omelas “could perfectly well have central heating, subway trains, washing machines... Or they could have none of it” (Le Guin 3). This follows from the idea that material items are not what makes these people happy. One of the biggest contrasts between our society and Omelas is the investment we put towards material possessions; people in Omelas thrive on a different kind of happiness. The author then goes on to contrast the types of happiness and joy experienced by both groups of people: “The trouble is that we have a bad habit… of considering happiness as something rather stupid” (Le Guin 2). Le Guin is conveying the idea that when a society such as ours deems happiness as unimportant, we will start to lose all sense of the word. This is perhaps the reason our society values power, wealth, and