In conclusion, both Lois Lowry's The Giver and Ursula K. Le Guin's “The One Who Walks Away From Omelas” explore the theme of happiness built on the suffering of one individual. Although both stories share this similarity, they show different perspectives on what happiness and goodness really mean. In The Giver, the community is unaware of the pain hidden behind their ideal lives, while the citizens of Omelas know about the child's suffering but choose to accept it anyway. This difference highlights how human goodness can be viewed in contrasting ways: one story suggests that experiencing pain is part of true happiness, while the other reveals a darker side of human nature where people can ignore someone's suffering for their own joy. Ultimately, both stories challenge us to think about the choices we make and the impact they have on others, making us question what kind of happiness is worth having.
Lois Lowry’s The Giver and Ursula K Le Guin's “The One Who Walks Away From Omelas” have a lot of similarities and differences. Both stories are centered on the idea of one person suffering. They differ though, because they have different ideas of what happiness is. Furthermore, The Giver and Omelas have a different view on the goodness of humans.
In both The Giver and Omelas, they send the same message about having someone suffer for everyone else's happiness. The Giver has all the bad memories from the past and everybody is having a good life not knowing that those memories exist. As Lowry writes, “You have to suffer like that all the time,” Jonas pointed out. The Giver nodded. “ And you will. It’s my life. It will be yours.”(131). Lowry was trying to convey that The Giver has been suffering from this pain coming from the memories which show that the Giver does suffer. The child has to sit in its excrement in a broom closet with barely any food or clothes. Le Guin told the readers that there will always be someone suffering in Omelas. In Omelas, the child has to suffer until it dies and once it dies it will be replaced. That shows that there will always be someone suffering.
One of the major differences in the stories is that in The Giver, nobody knows about the suffering and in Omelas, they know. The citizens of the community all think they have a normal life because they do not know what all the memories are which only The Receiver of Memory knows about and has to suffer with having them. “They need a receiver to contain all that pain” (131) The Giver says. Everyone knows of the struggle of the child in the basement and they also know that their happiness depends on that knowledge and they also have the choice to leave the community of Omelas. “They all know it is there, all the people of Omelas.” This knowledge makes the readers see these people as selfish because they can save the child but that would make everyone else lose all the joy in Omelas. They could just leave Omelas but that wouldn’t save the child.
Some parts of both The Giver and Omelas do have similar aspects but they disagree about the goodness of humans. In both The Giver and Omelas, some elements show how society can be built on the suffering of one or a few individuals. In The Giver the people live in a controlled environment where emotions are taken away for the sake of safety. On the other hand, in Omelas, the happiness of the entire city depends on the suffering of this one child. However, the stories disagree on human goodness because "The Giver" suggests that true happiness involves accepting both joy and pain, while Omelas shows that people can ignore a child's suffering for their happiness. In both The Giver and Omelas, the stories explore how happiness can come at the expense of someone else’s suffering. In The Giver, the community sacrifices the ability to feel real emotions to maintain peace and safety, which means they ignore the pain of one person, Jonas, as he learns the truth. Conversely, in Omelas, the people are fully aware of the child’s suffering but choose to accept it because it brings them happiness, which suggests they are more selfish. This shows that while both stories deal with difficult choices, they have different ideas about what it means to be good or happy.
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