In this short story, Le Guin describes the utopian city of Omelas during the Festival of Summer. The city is characterized by its happiness and beauty underscored by its close proximity to a sparkling sea. For the festival, the entire population of Omelas joins together in various processionals through the city. Boys and girls in the Green Fields exercise their horses in preparation for the festival race.

Bells clang and people sing and dance so that the city seems alive with music. In Omelas, the people have precisely what they need, and have managed to trim away the more destructive excesses of life. Despite their happiness, the people of Omelas are not simple. They are “mature, intelligent, passionate adults whose lives are not wretched” (2). Their lives are complex and they do not live in an idyllic fairytale, as the description of the city might suggest.

In terms of law enforcement and government rule, Le Guin leaves this area vague stating only that there is no military presence within the city, and that the people are not governed by a king. There are no slaves and the laws that govern the city are not outlined, but Le Guin “suspects that [there are] few” (2). Furthermore, the people are free from the tyranny of religious leaders, as the city lacks any priests or oligarchical elements.

Sexual mores in Omelas are left to the reader’s imagination. Lu Guin only suggests free love is readily available in the city, where potential lovers wander the streets ready to participate in sexual activity.

This is, however, just a picture of life above ground in Omelas. Beneath the city lives a nameless child who knows only darkness and squalor. This child, of unspecified gender, is chosen from the population to exist as a living sacrifice that allows the rest of the city to live in peace and happiness. The child lives in a tiny, windowless room underneath one of the beautiful municipal buildings in the city, without any comforts or social interaction save the occasional people who come to gawk at it.

Each person in the city learns of the child’s existence at some point in their lives, and most come to peer at the child at least once, though some come for a return visit. The happy existence of everyone in Omelas depends upon the child’s miserable condition, and the knowledge of this creates a conflict within the minds of some of the people of Omelas.

Most citizens eventually overcome their guilt and continue to live happily. Directly above the child’s locked room, people go about their daily business, choosing to ignore the child’s suffering by accepting it as a mere fact of life. To most, the beauty and richness of their lives justifies the sacrifice of the child.

There are, however, some who cannot reconcile the child’s wretched existence with the comforts of their lives. These people leave Omelas. Some leave when they first learn of the child’s existence and others leave after months or years of wrestling with their guilt. The ones who leave simply slip out of the city quietly and embark on solitary journeys out of the city. Though these people come from all walks of life, they all never return to Omelas, and their paths and fates are unknown.