In addition to the two primary plot threads following Genly Ai and Therem Harth rem ir Estraven, Le Guin includes five Gethenian tales, short stories within the novel (Chapters 2, 4, 9, 12, and 17). Yet, in the second paragraph of Chapter 1, Genly Ai tells us that “it is all one story.” Evaluate his assertion and support or reject it. After that answer the questioins below: MLA FORMAT
What do we learn about Estraven in Chapters 2 and 9?
What other information about the foretelling does Chapter 4 foreshadow?
What do we learn about the Gethenian concept of time in 12?
What do we learn about shifgrethor in 17?
What is the quality of the answer that the Foretellers give?
What does the shadow of 17 symbolize?
On a separate piece of paper do the assingment below:
In her Introduction, Le Guin tells us that, in her novel, she is describing us:
Yes, indeed the people in it are androgynous, but that doesn’t mean that I’m predicting that in a millennium or so we will all be androgynous, or announcing that I think that we damned well ought to be androgynous. I’m merely observing, in the peculiar, devious, and thought-experimental manner proper to science fiction, that if you look at us at certain odd times of day in certain weathers, we already are. . . . I am describing certain aspects of psychological reality in the novelist’s way, which is by inventing elaborately circumstantial lies.
Examine the lies she tells to determine what METAPHORICAL times of days and which METAPHORICAL weathers she is talking about. In what ways is she claiming humans are androgynous?
Understand that metaphorical means NON-literal, so she is not talking about time by the clock or weather in the sky. Weather, in this comparison (metaphor) is circumstances we find ourselves in, such as work/careers, parenthood, interpersonal relationships, and so forth. Times would be specific situations in those contexts. She is saying that, in certain situations and circumstances, our genders do not matter: we (re)act as humans, not as men or women.
You job is to identify what those situations and circumstances might be by identifying parallels in the lives of the people of Gethen. Name them, and show the parallels.The essay asks you to do either one of two things:
1) Look for examples of things the Gethenians do which are like the parenthood illustration I used above to prove that she is correct, that there are times when OUR genders don’t matter. She puts these (re)actions into the form of the androgynous Gethenians to tell a good story, but she is really talking about us.
“Lies” = metaphor. A metaphor is a comparison (study of SIMILARITIES) between UNLIKE (= DIFFERENT) things. Its purpose is illustration. For example, I once heard a student say, “Kissing him was like eating a bowl of spaghetti.” Literally, this statement is a Lie, but it nevertheless describes and explains what that kiss was like in a short, easy-to-grasp manner. We are not left in any doubt that she was NOT impressed.
Think of a Time (in LeGuin’s metaphor) as a specific instance and Weather as general conditions. It’s sort of like 3 pm on a Rainy afternoon: the Time is a specific instance, and the general condition is rainy.
Let’s apply that to her theme of psychological reality that tells us that we are sometimes neither male nor female but simply human.
The weather/situation is Parenthood. The time/instance is an infant crying. According to LeGuin, the response will be for the parent to go to the infant and try to comfort it. This response is not linked to male or female: it’s simply what a human parent would do.
Her Introduction says that she believes there are many such times/weathers when our genders are irrelevant, that we are simply human, not male or female, in our actions/responses.
In order to talk about this conclusion, she could have written a psychology textbook about our common human nature, using all literal facts and figures, OR she could have written a novel, which uses Lies—metaphors in the form of people who are androgynous physically—to illustrate our common human nature. Being a novelist, she naturally chose to write the novel and fill it examples like the one I used above but set on this other world with androgynous humans living there.
This essay will require analysis. Don’t bother retelling the story: your readers have read it. Instead, take the story apart to see how the pieces interact. Show us cause-and-effect relationships, the causes being the elements, the effects being the readers’ reactions, and the relationships being the means by which the reactions were evoked. Identify the general effect in a Thesis Statement (or Statement of the Controlling Idea).
USE THE “LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS” BY URSULA K. LE GUIN AS YOUR REFERENCE ONLY FOR BOTH ASSINGMENTS. WORD COUNT IS UP TO YOU BUT NOT TO SHORT
MLA FORMAT
Fable in Chapter 2 – About love – full brothers who break the incest taboo against vowing kemmer for life. In this tale pays the price with his brother’s suicide, his exile, and he loss of his left hand. Foreshadows the coming part of the story wherein Estraven is exiled out of his kingdom and onto the ice field, and yet lives to accomplish his mission.
Fable in Chapter 4 – Again about love, but one has a selfish desire to know something he has no business knowing. The other shows to what extent he is willing to sacrifice for the other the information he requires. Still, due to misunderstanding, the first one kills the other one his love, suffers madness because of it. Perhaps foreshadows the concept of knowing the “uselessness of knowing the answer to the wrong question” (70).
Fable in chapter 9 – Story of Estraven the Traitor. Again about love, and a forbidden love. Perhaps again foreshadows the friendship/love that develops between Estraven and Ai after the escape from prison and the journey across the ice plain.
Fable in chapter 12 – The Time and Darkness Myth attempts to describe the concept of time as understood by the Gethens, and how Meshe saw everything, “not what was, nor what will be, but what is” (164). Darkness is described as something “only in the mortal eye” (164). It is interesting that this myth follows long after Ai attempts to explain “the idea of timejumping” (37) to King Argaven.
Fable in chapter 13 – A creation myth “recorded in many forms” (237) for the Gethen, which begins with Ice, as their planet is overrun with ice and winter. This story embodies self-love which creates fear and rivalry, which leads to death. Yet at the end there is love, or at least coupling that produces offspring to people the world. In Gethen there is rivalry and suspicion that works to put self-interest in each domain above the interest of the planet as a whole.
I believe that all these stories are essential and agree with Ai that it all is one story. They illustrate the ways that different types of love can be experienced: whether in understanding and consummation; misunderstanding and betrayal; over-riding love of hearth, country, and mankind; and the sacrifice that love may demand. The creation myth illustrates that all men came from the same source, asks should we fear, murder and betray one another if that is so, and highlights the origin of such ‘darkness’. The time myth I believe underscores the concept that all things are understood in time, and the importance of patience: “time is the one thing that the Ekumen has plenty of” (27).
Le Guin, Ursula K. The Left Hand of Darkness. New York: Ace, 1969.
Asnwer these questions:
What do we learn about Estraven in Chapters 2 and 9?
What other information about the foretelling does Chapter 4 foreshadow?
What do we learn about the Gethenian concept of time in 12?
What do we learn about shifgrethor in 17?
