In her short story, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas,” Le Guin attempts to paint this picture of utopian society. In her attempt, she intentionally tips her own hand, not to show her own mistakes, but to show the true, underlying corruption of the society she is portraying. Within literature or any sort of storytelling, there is the suspension of disbelief, wherein the reader submits to the rules and circumstances that the author creates for the sake of sanity. It is the reason that someone can read any of the Lord of the Rings books and not complain about the book not being realistic on every page. We have entered into the world of the author and so to the author’s world we must conform. It is therefore shocking then when we are asked to believe in the world that Le Guin paints for us, only for it to be contradicted by Le Guin herself. Initially this could debunk the entire story. If Le Guin is our only source of knowledge about this world where the Omelas exists, and that source is inconsistent, then naturally we are snapped out of reality and the mystique is gone. She begins the story by describing Omelas as a beautiful place. Joy runs rampant as energetic and lively as the parties, which seem to stretch on into eternity. The only thing that breaks these festivals is the very thing that breaks the trust between the reader and the author. Early in the story, on page 278, Le Guin writes definitively, “They do not use swords or keep slaves.” And so on her authority we must rely. Therefore because of her authority we are confused when she begins to describe the child locked away, beaten, misused and abused for the sake of everyone who lives in Omelas. Nowhere in the entire description does Le Guin describe this joy for sorrow trade-off as a choice made by the child. In fact, he specifically describes the child as calling out for relief. But relief never comes and neither does freedom, freedom for anyone in Omelas. In direct opposition with the claim regarding slaves, Le Guin writes, “They know that they [those who live in Omelas], like the child, are not free.” If there are no slaves, then how could there be no one free? Le Guin intentionally contradicts herself here in this story. In the same way that those who walk away do so because of a broken spell or a surfaced lie, so we are to have the same reaction. By tipping her hand and exposing herself to be unreliable, Le Guin is playing specifically with this idea of enchantment. In Omelas, there are certainly slaves; in fact there are only slaves. The only ones who are free are the ones who recognize the lie running like a current underneath the entire city, and similarly the entire story. This city, in all its boasts and brags has no pure joy of its own and has no freedom of its own, and that is why the others must leave. In the city there is no guilt, but outside of the city, there is certainly guilt, and it is the guilt that drives them out. It is guilt from a falsified and shattered truth. Therefore as readers we are to be under the same impression by her intentional misinformation. We could choose to believe that still there are no slaves or we could leave the walls of her story and see the situation for what it truly is.