One key message in Omelas is that the foundation of happiness involves some balance between one’s awareness of needs, wants, and calamity. Omelas’ happiness necessarily includes the ability of Omelas to fulfill the needs of all of its citizens, the potential for the wants of each citizen to be fulfilled, and the existence a miserable child. The assumption made throughout this short story, that without misery there can be no true happiness, did not seem obviously justified in the story. There did not seem to be any reason to say nothing kind to the child besides the threat that Omelas must “wither and be destroyed.” If the misery of the child contributes any happiness to Omelas, then it fulfills the third component of the foundation of happiness. There does not seem to be a reason why the third component must constitute the foundation. Thinking about something miserable happening to someone must be depressing, so it should follow that a lack of adversity may yield happiness.
Restructuring the definition of happiness LeGuin gives by removing the third component, all one needs to be happy is to have all of their needs and wants fulfilled. There are two problems with this definition. Assuming all alive creatures have their needs fulfilled, if we suppose that a simple housefly with no wants satisfies the conditions of happiness, then people with all of their wants fulfilled are no happier than houseflies; we therefore would live as insects. Second, suppose a person has all of their needs and wants satisfied and is happy. There is nothing to stop them from wanting more. Eventually, that want cannot be fulfilled and that person will be less happy. Greed shall be born to stay happy and so then will there be misery. The third component emerges anyway.
In a world where there is no crime, that yields one of two possibilities: either said world experiences no crime, or the world is in anarchy. It may be argued that one world is more miserable than the other, but considering the scope of a singular world, it would be difficult to argue whether certain people in a world of crime are less miserable than the other; whether certain people in a world without crime are more happy than the other. This yields the conclusion that there must be extremes for there to be a spectrum.
For practical purposes, suppose the premise of Omelas holds: in our world, there is always misery. If that is the case, then the only. The child metaphorically symbolizes the misery that is both possible and observed in the world. The maltreatment of the child cannot see intervention because it would erase the misery in Omelas. If the population cannot compare to other cities, meaning misery is never detectable, then there would be no such thing as “good” or “bad” which implies there exists no such thing as “better” or “happier.” Through the allegory of Omelas, LeGuin illustrates the necessity for adversity to justify any happiness.