I would have to say that the narrator does not live in Omelas, since Omelas is not meant to be understood as a literal city, in the same way the story is really not a story but a kind of thought experiment or philosophical problem. That is, the narrator seems to challenge the reader to imagine a city like Omelas, for the purpose of posing a moral question. When the narrator writes that "I do...
I would have to say that the narrator does not live in Omelas, since Omelas is not meant to be understood as a literal city, in the same way the story is really not a story but a kind of thought experiment or philosophical problem. That is, the narrator seems to challenge the reader to imagine a city like Omelas, for the purpose of posing a moral question. When the narrator writes that "I do not know the rules and laws of their society, but I suspect that they were singularly few," or says later, after attempting to describe the city, "Perhaps it would be best if you imagined it as your own fancy bids, assuming it will rise to the occasion, for certainly I cannot suit you all," I think the point is not about whether the city is real, or whether the narrator lives in the city, but to provide an opportunity for the reader to imagine their own version of Omelas, one they can believe in. Once this notion is fixed in the reader's mind, Le Guin poses the problem of the child kept in misery. ("Do you believe? Do you accept the festival, the city, the joy? No? Then let me describe one more thing.") The problem she poses the reader is one of credibility -- how much evil does one need to include in the vision of Omelas to make it "believable" -- and of the imagination. The people who leave Omelas are the ones who choose to imagine a place where goodness can exist without evil and misery -- a place the narrator "cannot describe at all." Le Guin seems to challenge the reader to try to imagine a similar place.
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