• The Left Hand Of Darkness: Its Place In The History Of Science Fiction
• Ursula K. LeGuin's Life And Work: An Interview
• Characterization in the Novel
• Chapter-by-Chapter Analysis
• Critics Respond to the Novel
• Glossary of LeGuin's Invented Words
• Ideas for Discussion

:: THE LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS: ITS PLACE IN THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE FICTION ::

Male dominance.

The first science fiction novel, it is largely agreed, was written by a woman, Mary Shelley, the daughter of the feminist Mary Wollstonecraft and the wife of the English romantic poet Shelley. She wrote Frankenstein in 1818 when she was only nineteen. However, the field has since been dominated by male writers who have made the domain of science fiction almost exclusively male. Indeed, in his book Billion Year Spree - The True History of Science Fiction, Brian Aldiss describes the genre as an "all-male escapist power fantasy" and calls its writers "Philistine-male-chauvinist pigs" who work in the "Ghetto of Retarded Boyhood."

Immature heroes.

The heroes that these male writers created were generally immature men seeking to remain forever young and powerful, playing with imaginative and powerful toys, hoping to escape from girls or women, mothers or wives, as well as to avoid the responsibilities of a demanding reality, enclosing themselves in their exclusive men's club.

Female heroine followers.

Needless to say, all these heroes were virile males served by their followers, the female characters. With all their invention and often daring imagination, these writers failed to explore alternative roles for women in a future society. Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, the lions in the genre, had hardly any place for women in their fantasies. Other writers who did employ female characters pictured the relationships between the heroes and their women largely along the same lines as did the existing society: women as assistants to men, women in the role of entertaining dolls. A classic example is the story "Helen O'Loy" by Lester del Rey (1938) which features a man who builds a robot programmed to be a perfect wife. These writers, naturally, aimed their stories mainly at male readers, mostly young boys who often stopped reading science fiction novels once they grew up.

No women writers.

In her fine introduction to Women of Wonder, Pamela Sargent, herself a prolific science-fiction writer, calls traditional science fiction "an escapist literature for men and boys." She claims that women have traditionally been discouraged from entering scientific and technological fields, based on two assumptions: first, that women lack the aptitude, and second, that they are essentially intuitive rather than rational, and are "hostile to any kind of intellectual exploration."

Few women dared to invade the field and even when they did, they imitated their male colleagues. Catherine Moore, for example, wrote from the male point of view, "a necessity," Pamela Sargent explains, "for anyone who wished to publish in the pulp magazines which had dominated American sf since the 1920s."

Change.

A change began to take place after World War II, when some women science-fiction writers joined the field. However, they too, like their male colleagues, usually presented housewife heroines, passive, naive, ignorant child-raisers, who solve problems not through their intelligence and daring but through ineptitude or accident.

Only in the 1960s, a decade that gave birth to much questioning of conventions as well as to many social revolutions (including feminism), women science-fiction writers began to question the very nature of science fiction, and as a result, took it in a completely new direction: software replaced hardware, human relationships replaced technology, social science took the place of the physical sciences. Substance and emotional content introduced depth and meaning into what had often been flat, boy scouts' literature.

Women writers.

In 1973 Brian Aldiss said that much of the best writing in science fiction of that time was done by women who brought the genre closer to mainstream fiction. Although there was still much "Sword-and-Sorcery" writing in the market, the best of science fiction is more reality-oriented, reflected in better and more careful writing, better characterization, and more diversity of subjects.

Although much of today's science-fiction writing is still male-oriented power fantasies, serious writers such as Ursula LeGuin or Joanna Russ have turned the best of science fiction into writing worthy of serious consideration and literary criticism. Pamela Sargent, in her introduction to Women of Wonder, presents an intriguing quote by Harlan Ellison: "... women are writing many of the things male sf writers thought could never be written, they are opening up whole new areas to us ..."

Rise in popularity.

Darko Suvin, a Canadian critic, surveying contemporary science fiction, maintains that science fiction, maintains that science fiction has risen in popularity in the leading industrial nations, <especial.y> among college graduates and the general population interested in alternative ways of thinking. This increase is attributed to the fact that from the early 1970s on, an increasing number of courses in science-fiction literature have been offered in universities worldwide.

Background of The Left Hand of Darkness.

In the light of this history, Ursula LeGuin's Left Hand of Darkness, first published in 1969, presents a real change. Human relationships take center stage; everything else is subordinate to the development of a profound and meaningful relationship between two human beings. The great achievement of The Left Hand of Darkness is the creation not of a new technology or of science-fiction gadgets but rather of a new society of truly equal human beings. It is her depth of thought, emotional involvement, strong moral values, and philosophical thinking that place LeGuin among the very top contemporary science-fiction writers.

Feminist book.

In her article "Is Gender Necessary?" LeGuin herself openly discusses what inspired her to write The Left Hand of Darkness. It was, she writes, in the mid-1960s when the women's movement began to awaken after half a century of stagnation. Although as a writer she had never been treated unfairly or patronizingly on account of her sex, LeGuin was bothered by the question that besieged many women then and even now: What is a woman? This question had motivated the French philosopher and writer, Simone de Beauvoir, to write what has been considered the bible of the women's movement, The Second Sex (France 1949, United States 1953), the exploration of women's situation throughout the ages. This question also inspired the American feminist Betty Friedan to write The Feminine Mystique (1963).

In "Is Gender Necessary?", written in 1976, seven years after the publication of The Left Hand of Darkness, LeGuin, suprisingly, rejected the notion that hers was a "feminist" book. Although she considered herself a feminist (holding that every thinking woman is a feminist), she emphasized that "the real subject of the book is not feminism or sex or gender ... it is a book about betrayal and fidelity." However, in 1987, eleven years later, LeGuin revised her essay, or rather added comments that attest to her own growth as a conscious feminist. In "Is Gender Necessary? Redux", she admits to having been defensive and resentful that critics had concentrated on the gender problems "as if it were an essay, not a novel." In her revision she writes that "there are other aspects of the novel" inextricably involved with its gender aspects.

In The Left Hand of Darkness LeGuin has aspired to reach beyond the question of "What is a woman?" to broader and deeper questions of "What is sexuality?" and "What is the meaning of gender?" Besides physiological differences, are there really any differences between men and women? Being a novelist, her explorations of these questions are the basis of The Left Hand of Darkness.

To be precise, the book does not offer ultimate answers, and readers will not find there the answer to the basic question of "What is a woman?" Actually, when the male Envoy from Earth is asked by his friend from the new planet to explain what a woman is, he embarrassedly hesitates, fails, and finally admits that he does not know what a woman is. But more important than the answers are the questions and the hypothesis that LeGuin offers, in her "thought-experiment," as she calls the novel in her intriguing introduction. The book serves as "the record of my consciousness, the process of my thinking" in the laboratory of the mind. It offers alternative modes of thinking not about the future but about ourselves in the present.

The result? "Messy," according to LeGuin, "dubious and uncertain." The same experiment done by someone else, she maintains, and even by herself several years later, "would probably give quite different results" (in her revision she replaces the word "probably" by "certainly").

However, LeGuin has been frequently criticized for making her Gethenians, although they are menwomen, too much like men. Feminists have accused her of not going far enough and for using male protagonists. In her recent essay, "The Fisherman's Daughter" (1988), LeGuin admits that these critics were right, that until the mid 1970s "men were the central characters, the women were peripheral, secondary." And she adds that feminism has empowered her to criticize her society, herself, and feminism itself.

All that aside, however, in the New Republic, Derek de Solla Price emphasizes that he knows of no "single book [that is] likely to raise consciousness about sexism more thoroughly and convincingly than this one."

:: URSULA K. LEGUIN'S LIFE AND WORK: AN INTERVIEW ::

The writer and the woman.

Ursula K. LeGuin draws a sharp line between herself as a person, woman, wife and mother and herself as a writer. An introvert, she jealously keeps her private life to herself, shielding her family and her private self from the limelight.

In her entire body of stories and novels nothing is autobiographical. Her friends and family members will not find themselves in her books as is so often the case with fiction writers. Although the integration of polarities emerges as a central theme in her writing, it seems that hers is a sharply divided world between the private and the professional.

Her answer to my request for a telephone interview came in the form of a short letter, with a don't-call-me-I'll-call-you provision, ardently defending her telephone number as others defend their valuables.

Is this one reason why she writes science fiction, for the distancing effect that creates the maximum remoteness between LeGuin the writer and LeGuin the woman? "Is science fiction the best way to guard her privacy? "I don't want to write autobiographies," she said once. "I want to distance myself from my books. That's one of the reasons I write science fiction. I write about aliens."

Political activist.

So I was truly surprised to hear a warm and melodious voice over the telephone. She apologized for not calling the day before as agreed. I was happy she had not called then because on the previous day I had joined other writers in a demonstration for freedom of speech concerning the Salman Rushdie affair. "Oh, that's what we did here!" she exclaimed. (Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses had provoked Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini to erder his assassination.)

Here was a glimpse of LeGuin the person, after all. It was typical of her, putting her writing aside and throwing herself into a social or political cause she believes in. In the 1960s she became involved in the peace demonstrations and campaigned for Eugene McCarthy and then George McGovern in their primaries. Her political activities in the peace movement led to a short novel, The Eye of the Heron, and to The Word for World Is Forest, and then to The Left Hand of Darkness, considered by many to be her best work.

No-war society.

Her voice was pleasant and relaxed as we talked about the genesis of her book. "It all started when I began to imagine a society without war, a people that does not think in terms of war. They have murders and forays but never wars. What kind of people would they be? I thought. Obviously, they'd be different from us. But in what way? That's how I came to the idea of an androgynous society. As one character says in the book, war is a displaced male-generalized activity, something that men do and women don't." War, as she defines it in her book, is "a vast Rape."

Why science fiction?

Still, the question of why a talented and versatile writer like herself has chosen science fiction, a genre considered by the mainstream literary world as marginal, is still there. One reason, as said before, is her need to distance herself and her private life from her subjects. But as with all else in Ursula LeGuin, the reasons for her writing science fiction are complex and many.

A journey inward.

At one time she explained that fantasy is the best medium to describe the journey inward to self-knowledge, because for her, the journey to other planets, to outer space, is a metaphor for the journey inward into the unconscious. This inner journey cannot be described in the language of rational everyday life, she said. Fantasy is the natural language for telling "the spiritual journey and the struggle of good and evil in the soul."

Childhood.

Perhaps the first reason for her writing can be traced to her childhood, growing up with parents who both were writers, scholars, and excellent story tellers. Born in Berkeley, California, on October 21, 1929, Ursula K. LeGuin was the youngest child of Theodora and Alfred Kroeber. Her mother, after earning her master's degree in clinical psychology, married, and three years later, with two babies, was widowed. Later she married Alfred Kroeber, and had another son and her youngest and only daughter, Ursula. When her own children were having their children, Theodora, now in her fifties, began to write, making a name for herself with the biography of the sole survivor of an Indian tribe wiped out by North Americans, Ishi in Two Worlds (1961).

Ursula's father, Alfred Kroeber, was an anthropologist who spoke several languages and was renowned for his work on the California Indians. Even before she could read, Ursula would listen to her father tell Indian legends and myths.

The making of a writer.

This home was an excellent greenhouse for nurturing a writer, and Ursula, from an early age, enjoyed the best training in psychology, anthropology, sociology, and writing. "I had an emotionally and psychologically and intellectually very rich and very serene childhood," she told me. "I loved where we lived. I had a large, warm family. It was a place where a small girl could grow and flourish like a flower in the garden."

As a child Ursula read everything she could get her hands on: myths, legends, fairy tales. Once, when she was about twelve, she picked up a book in the family's large library, and while reading it, she was struck by the realization that people were still making up stories and myths! It was a decisive moment. She had discovered her native country and her inner lands.

Beginning to write.

In fact, she had completed her first short story three years earlier, when she was only nine. It was about a man persecuted by elves. A year later she wrote her first science fiction story about time travel. She submitted it for publication but the story was rejected, and she did not try to publish her work again until the age of 19.

Reading

Instead, she plunged into reading, and there is no better apprenticeship for a writer than reading, She read mostly fiction, poetry, and science fiction, some of it trash, "because we liked trash." In her teens she stopped reading science fiction and did not read it for fifteen years, because it was too much about "hardware and soldiers"; instead, she turned to the classics.

Higher education.

She graduated from Radcliffe College with a major in French in 1951 and earned her master's degree in French and Italian from Columbia University in 1952. A year later she began to study for her <Ph.D>. and won a Fulbright grant to study in France.

Family life.

Crossing the Atlantic on the Queen Mary, she met her future husband, Charles LeGuin, a professor of French history. Their marriage in Paris signaled the end of her doctoral studies and the beginning of a long and happy family life which later included two daughters and a son. In 1959 Charles was assigned to teach history at Portland State University and the family has lived in Portland, Oregon, ever since.

Rejected manuscripts.

Giving up her work on the doctorate allowed LeGuin more time to write. She kept writing and watching her drawers fill up with manuscripts and rejection slips. In ten years she had written, aside from poetry, five novels, some about a fantasy country in Central Europe named Orsinia, but none was accepted for publication. It became for her a matter of "publish or perish." Her fantasies did not fit any existing category, and if she wanted to publish she would have to find an acceptable form. She began to write science fiction.

Publication.

LeGuin admits that her "first efforts to write science fiction were motivated by a pretty distinct wish to get published." Not having much hard-core scientific knowledge she wrote "fairy tales decked out in space suits." It paid: she got them published. She was 32 when she managed to sell her first story, "April in Paris," to Fantastic magazine (1962). Her first science fiction novel to be published was Rocannon's World (1966). This signaled the beginning of a brilliant career that has produced science fiction stories and novels, children's and young adults' books, essays and poetry. "I have cut across so many boundaries that the critics don't know what to do with me," she laughs over the phone. "I write in so many categories."

Success.

Two more science fiction novels, Planet of Exile (1966) and City of Illusion (1967), followed almost immediately, but her real success came with the publication of A Wizard of Earthsea (1968) which won the prestigious Globe-Hornbook Award for Excellence. With the award came national recognition. Then, The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards, and when her novel The Dispossessed (1974) appeared and also won the Hugo and Nebula, LeGuin became the first science fiction writer to have won both awards twice.

It would take too long to list all her books and stories and all the awards and prizes she has won. Just reaching her 60s, LeGuin no doubt will continue to add considerably to both lists.

Model feminist.

Many feminists have complained that Ursula LeGuin's characters are predominantly male, and even her Gethenians, the people on planet Winter, who are both men and women in one, appear to be basically male. However, her own life can serve as a model of the successful, modern, sophisticated, and liberated woman who has managed a brilliant career, successful marriage, and motherhood, without sacrificing any of them.

"When the kids were babies I wrote at night, from nine to eleven or as long as I could stay awake. Then, as they began school, I had the whole schoolday to work; I felt as if I grew wings. Now, I try to work in the morning, from about seven to two."

Partnership.

She could manage her writing because of the steady support of her husband. Theirs was a partnership with "mutual aid as its daily basis." They divided the work conventionally: she, the house, the kids, the cooking, the novels; he, the teaching, the bills, the car, the garden. Whe she needed help he gave it "without making it into a big favor"; when she wanted to complete a story, he would take the kids. "He never begrudged me the time I spent writing, or the blessing of my work." It is difficult for one person to do two full-time jobs but two people can do three full-time jobs, she said. "That's why I'm so strong on partnership. It can be a great thing."

No wonder that love, bonding, and intimate relationship take such a significant place in all her work! This is the one idea that overrides everything else in The Left Hand of Darkness. Moreover, in this book she carries the idea even further and maintains that true love between individuals must precede, and is the only basis for, national, international, or universal relations.

The male writer.

"Does your happy and fulfilled life refute the notion that a writer has to suffer in order to write?" I asked her. This made her burst out in peals of laughter. "I think that this notion seems to suit men wonderfully well. They love to smite their brow with their hand and say, 'Oh, how I suffer,' while some woman is actually doing all the work. I'm quite leery of this idea. I think writing is quite hard enough work without complaining about all the rest. I get impatient with Conrad or Flaubert who, while complaining, were actually being looked after very nicely. They were not really handling the complicated part of life that any woman has to handle if she has responsibilities for the household or of getting the meals. You know, as I watch women writers, I see them cope with it all along with their art, and we are talking here about real work, not psychological suffering."

The price of love.

LeGuin seems to have been blessed with a happy family life as a child and as an adult. Yet in her novels and essays she refers again and again to pain and suffering as a necessary price for happiness. In The Left Hand of Darkness, the moment Ai gains profound love he also loses it. Where had her experience of sorrow come from? I wondered.

Tragic sense of life.

There was silence at the other end of the line, and I wondered whether she was thinking the question over or looking for ways to avoid touching upon her private life. "I guess," she finally said, "one carries in oneself a tragic sense of life. If you believe, as I do, that the great tragedies, such as Sophocles' or Shakespeare's, were the truest things ever written, then you know that what is within our grasp is essentially tragic."

In The Left Hand of Darkness she wrote that the only certainty a person has is his mortality, the knowledge that he is going to die.

"Yes. No matter how lucky one can be, there is considerable suffering involved in being alive, in being human."

"There is a strong sense of inescapable tragedy in your book," I said.

"I agree. I realize that underneath everything I write there is this sense of the tragic. This is the way I'm made, how I see life. It doesn't mean I don't appreciate life. I see much of my writing, but mainly my poetry, as celebration and I like writing which is celebration."

We resumed talking about the genesis of the book. "A book like that," she said, "doesn't have any single beginning. As I mentioned before, first I had the idea of creating a society without war. This led me to the androgynous society. Then I had the characters. And as the characters began to interact I began to see the plot. I saw two people dragging a sledge across the ice."

"My favorite part in the book," I commented.

"Mine, too, "she said enthusiastically. "I had to do a great deal of work before I began writing. I had to figure out how an androgynous society actually works. Also, I had to do a good deal of reading about living in a very cold climate."

Winter.

"I never quite understood," I admitted, "how the bitter cold climate on Winter, which features so prominently in the book, is connected with the idea of androgyny?"

"I have no idea," came her clear answer. "One of those underground connections, I guess. I can probably explain it less well than a critic. I don't think it is particularly linked to the sexual issue. The link in my mind is to loneliness, Ai's loneliness for being one of his kind on the planet, and to Estraven's, because he has isolated himself. This is a story of extremely lonely people coming together, and the cold accentuates, and reflects their loneliness. Before I began writing I read Winter in Finland, which was very helpful. I wanted to know what one does when it's 30 below zero for a month!"

Preparation for the book.

"Also, I read what I could concerning the special sexuality of the people on the planet. I checked out human sexual physiology, but to tell you the truth, I didn't have the courage till after the book was printed, to take it to a doctor and ask: Is this plausible? It was our pediatrician. He read it and he gave it back to me, saying it's plausible but it's disgusting!" (She laughed merrily). "I thought it was charming. 'Yes, it did work,' he said, 'you did it pretty convincingly.'

"I also had to write the history of both countries on the planet Winter. It's not in the book, but it underlines it. How did the two countries get to where they are now? Why are they as they are?"

Stronger feminist.

"In your article 'Is Gender Necessary?' you write that The Left Hand of Darkness is not about gender but about betrayal and fidelity - "

"Have you seen the revised article?" she interrupted excitedly. "This is very important for me. I have a new book that just came out, Dancing at the Edge of the World, and in that you'll find a revised version. Nothing has been changed in the text, but notes and comments have been added, where I disagree violently with some of the things I myself have said there. I have become a much stronger feminist and my thinking is considerably clearer since I wrote the book, which was itself part of my becoming a feminist."

Several essays in Dancing at the Edge of the World present strong and clear feminist statements. In "Woman / Wilderness" LeGuin criticizes civilization for leaving out the experience of women as women, an experience unshared with men. "The misogyny that shapes every aspect of our civilization," she wrote, excluded "the being of women." Another essay, "Prospects for Women in Writing" ends with a strong proclamation and a feminist commitment: "To keep women's words, women's works, alive and powerful - that's what I see as our job as writers and readers for the next fifteen years, and the next fifty."

A major flaw in The Left Hand of Darkness, as LeGuin herself came to admit and as many of her critics expressed, is as she says, "that the Gethenians seem like men, instead of men-women."

This flaw is mainly the result of her use of the masculine pronoun he. While LeGuin is very imaginative in her use of language-in inventing names and places and landscapes that do not exist-in this novel she has used a quite traditional grammatical structure which, in English, is strictly divided along masculine-feminine lines. Reluctant to invent a new pronoun to herald the new age of human beings, equal in life and in language (it would drive the reader mad, she claimed), she preferred to use the masculine pronoun, which, in many ways, negated the main idea in the book.

It is strange, even inexplicable, that even at times when she could have used the neuter "people" or "human being" or "person" or "child" or "youth," she stubbornly has used explicitly male words such as "man" and "son." Even the woman investigator in The Left Hand of Darkness admits that "the very use of the pronoun in my thoughts leads me continually to forget that the Karhider I am with is not a man, but a manwoman." And if the woman reporter who meets the Karhiders face to face prefers to call them "he" and not "she," one may conclude that as LeGuin presents them, they do resemble men. This greatly diminishes the overall impact of the original idea of a sexless society.

Parenthood.

It is interesting to note that the Gethenians, who can be both mother and father, feel closer to the children "of their flesh," those to whom they actually gave birth. Estraven writes to his son of the flesh but does not mention the other two children he has fathered. Likewise, King Argaven of Karhide, although he fathered seven children, is especially fervent about giving birth to a child of his flesh even at great risk to himself because of his age. Is LeGuin saying that the mother-child relationship is stronger than the father-child's?

Gender Redux.

LeGuin's recently revised article, "Is Gender Necessary? Redux" is her clear recognition of her flawed treatment of the gender in The Left Hand of Darkness. She tells me, "I wrote the original article in reaction against the kind of criticism that was bothering me very much because I was about to begin to agree with it; so I was quite defensive, and then my defenses broke down and I said, No, they are right. Estraven appears to be a man, I shouldn't have used the male pronoun. And then I revised the article."

About revisions.

"Have you ever considered revising The Left Hand of Darkness?" I asked her.

"I think that this would be almost impertinent. You have to let the whole work stand. You made a mistake, it's your mistake, then you go on and do better. I've had two opportunities to work on that. One is the short story directly related to The Left Hand of Darkness. I wrote it first then revised it for later publication."

The story she is talking about is "Winter's King," written about a year before The Left Hand of Darkness, and it concentrates on King Argavan of Karhide on Planet Gethen. In her first version of the story there is no mention of the ambisexual society. This idea came later and was incorporated in The Left Hand of Darkness. However, in response to the strong criticism of the use of male pronoun in the book, LeGuin revised "Winter's King," using the feminine pronoun for all Gethenians, while keeping the masculine titles such as King and Lord, to remind the reader of the ambiguity.

"The second opportunity I had was in the writing of the screenplay for The Left Hand of Darkness," she explained. "I've made up a pronoun. I referred to Gethenians not pregnant or in kemmer by the invented pronoun 'a' (pronounced "uh" [ ]) in the nominative case, 'a's' in the possessive case. I thought, 'Since it was to be used only for dialogues, you can do it without driving people mad.' You see, this is the main trouble with made-up pronouns, to read a whole novel with something in place of he or she is just not possible. Actually, they used to be the English genderless pronoun until the 17th or 18th century, when the grammarians declared the he was the generic, but it's quite arbitrary. In colloquial English we all still say, 'Anybody missing a notebook, will they stand up?' We say it all the time. But I couldn't refer to Estraven throughout the book as they. I did try to put in a made-up pronoun, but it leapt out of every sentence."

"Still, there are many times in the book that you wrote man or son, when you could easily have said people or children."

"Yes, over and over. There are many places I'd like to revise in that sense. I masculinized the book most unnecessarily. I agree with you. It gives me considerable pain now to see how easily I could have degendered it. But I feel a moral compunction about revising an old book."

"In this particular case, revision might well be a creative adventure," I suggested.

"It would be fun to try, I admit. The trouble is that the book has been in print ever since it was published; there has never been a time when it dropped out of print, when I could have done something about it."

Invented names.

"The name Ai, for the Envoy from Earth, carries triple meanings. But what about all the other invented names in the book?"

"No, they don't carry any meaning. They were picked purely for sound. Like a musical phrase."

"Except Argaven, maybe. I found him to be very aggravating."

She burst out laughing. "Oh, I never thought of it," she said in her sing-song voice." In Estraven people heard estrogen, which embarrasses me. Isn't that awful? Estraven is from Estre. So I thought, Estre-van, coming from Estre, what a pretty name, I liked the sound of it. It's purely aesthetic, my name making-up."

"Do you play music?"

"Well, not much, I played the recorder. But I've a musical daughter."

Critical response.

"I was surprised to find so few reviews of The Left Hand of Darkness, a book which had won two major science fiction awards, in the mainstream press. Does the press ignore science fiction now as much as it used to?"

"Very nearly. The newspapers, if they review science fiction at all, tend to put it in a little corner called sci-fi, you know. Since 1969, when the book appeared, the academics are paying much more attention to science fiction. And we do get articles, some highly intelligent, some very academic, but they too appear only in very specialized publications. But just ordinary newspapers, no; science fiction is still ghettoized pretty consistently.

"What has also changed is that since the early 70s, when the whole English curriculum was opening up, many science fiction courses are taught in schools. High school teachers have discovered that science fiction is a wonderful way to get high school kids to read and talk about what they have read. The Russians discovered it long before we did; they have been using science fiction as a teaching device for decades."

"Does it bother you," I asked her, "that you are categorized as a science-fiction writer and thus excluded from what is generally considered 'literature'?"

"This is a very complicated issue," she said. "I object very strongly to the genrefication of literature. There is an assumption that everything called genre is secondary. This is simply untrue. Are writers such as Marquez, Borges, or Calvino automatically second-rate because they aren't writing realistic literature or mainstream fiction?

"On the other hand, there is marketing. In order to get the books to the interested public, libraries and bookstores and publishers need categories. And there is another aspect. As a writer of a despised genre, you have a kind of freedom. You are not nagged by the academics and critics, you can do whatever you please. In some ways I do feel trapped when I'm called a science fiction writer, and in other ways I feel delighted. On the whole, I think that boundary lines are changing, although conservative people don't want to admit it."

"Any advice for a young science fiction writer?"

"Read, and read the best. One doesn't have to have scientific knowledge. My science background is pretty minimal, but I was brought up to have a healthy respect for science, for I was a daughter of a scientist. If I need to know anything for my story, I go to the library and read about it. I think that most science fiction writers work this way.

"Science fiction begins at the moment where science ends, and then you can go on and build on what is known. Therefore, science fiction is getting more and more difficult to write because science develops so fast that the science-fiction writer has difficulty coping with it. This is one reason why there is less and less technological science fiction written because technology has overtaken it. It's different if you use social science, as I do, because social science is very slow moving and the writer is much freer."

Is LeGuin romantic?

No doubt. If a political mission depends on a love relationship between two individuals, as is the case in The Left Hand of Darkness, LeGuin is certainly a romantic. We all know that this is not the way politics is done; that in reality human relationships are sacrificed for political goals. But as LeGuin writes in her introduction to the book, she deals with "what if," not with "what is." We are surrounded by "as is"; we need to speculate on alternatives that are rewarding and stimulating, even if they remain in the domain of "thought-experiment."

Themes In The Left Hand of Darkness

LeGuin's themes in The Left Hand of Darkness are many, complex, and interwoven.

The outer journey.

An Envoy from Earth is sent to a distant planet in order to convince its people to join the League of the Planets for the purpose of sharing communication, knowledge, and trade. His adventures, misunderstandings, dangers, final awareness, and his singular relationship with one person of the planet Gethen (also called Winter) comprise the plot of the book.

Most science fiction books feature journeys, usually from Earth to different planets. At first glance, LeGuin follows suit. But further reading reveals that her journey consists of other journeys.

Journey within a journey.

Ai's most important journey is not from planet Earth to planet Winter but his onerous and risky journey across the wastes of ice, together with Estraven, the native, the "Other." And this journey across the ice reflects another: Ai's true journey into himself. It is Ai's growing awareness of himself and of himself in relationship with the Other.

The outer and inner journeys.

Ai's outer journey parallels his inner journey. "The seat of the soul is there," said the German poet Novalis, "where the outer and the inner worlds meet." And the American anthropologist Joseph Campbell said "that the laws of outer space are within us, that outer space and inner space are therefore one and the same thing."

Journey as symbol.

The journey is one of literature's most prominent archetypal symbols, telling of man's journey through life. The journey, which is usually difficult and risky, is a learning experience, through which the hero-traveler searches for an answer to the meaning of life and to his own place in the world. By the end of the journey, the traveler gains maturity and self-awareness. It is a process of self-growth and self-discovery. One of the most famous journeys of antiquity, and one that has become a symbol for many others, in Homer's The Odyssey, in which Odysseus, triumphant after his conquest of Troy, travels for ten painful and arduous years to reach home, a metaphor for his soul and his anima.

Theme of love.

One can read LeGuin's book as an unusual love story, even as the ultimate romantic love story of the space age, Romeo and Juliet in a sophisticated, space-age version. The lovers are not from feuding families but from different planets. They are aliens, foreign to, and different from, each other in every possible way-mentally, culturally, and even physically-yet they find the way to mutual understanding and true love.

Impossible love.

In many ways, this is a tale of an impossible love, of love that transcends barriers and asserts itself in spite of its impossibility. The theme of love, mainly impossible-between brothers and between aliens-runs through the entire book, and underlies not only the Envoy's narrative but also the myths and legends of planet Winter.

The first impossible love is between brothers, specifically between Estraven and his brother Arek, that ends in the latter's suicide. The second impossible love is between two aliens, inhabitants of different worlds. This love too ends with death, possibly suicide. Is LeGuin's message that true love, even though unifying, is ultimately impossible and therefore tragic?

The self and the other.

The theme of the Self and the Other runs parallel with the theme of love, because only love can bridge the chasm between aliens and turn the Self and the Other into I and Thou.

The concept of the Self and Other is a complex one. In The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir maintains that it is in the human nature of people to treat those who do not belong to their group as "others." "Otherness," she writes, "is a fundamental category of human thought," and "as primordial as consciousness itself." Thus, people from out of town are "strangers," those from other countries are "foreigners," and people from other planets would be "aliens." Likewise, states de Beauvoir in her philosophical treatise about the condition of women, men treat women as the "Other."

Central theme.

The need to overcome this "otherness," to reach beyond it, to accept the Other wholeheartedly and to encompass the Other into the Self, is the central theme in The Left Hand of Darkness. Estraven and Ai are different from each other in every possible way. Although Estraven, the older, more experienced and educated of the two, has accepted Ai from the start, Ai, from Earth, has to go through an arduous process of education to be able to accept Estraven as a human being, as I and Thou.

I and Thou.

I and Thou is the central theme in Martin Buber's philosophical treatise of the same name (1925; 2nd ed. 1958). True relationships are possible, he maintains, only when they are based on I and Thou and not on I and It.

New definition of love.

In a way, LeGuin offers a new definition of love which does not call for the unification of the lovers, or for sexual consummation (an ironic comment on Freud's concept that sex is the basis of intimacy), but for total acceptance by each of the other person, with all his differences, as he is.

Gender.

To create a planet whose inhabitants are ambisexual, men and women in one, is LeGuin's most original invention. She has taken one of the most poignant contemporary issues, that of equality between men and women, to the very extreme: when men and women become completely equal they become the same, they become menwomen, people who possess the qualities of both male and female.

Androgyny.

The theme of androgyny (having the characteristics of both male and female) first appeared in ancient myths of both the East and the West as a symbol of completeness. Human life began as sexually undivided. In Plato's Symposium, Aristophanes tells the fable of angelic, eight-limbed creatures who threatened the gods and as a punishment were severed into two halves. Since then, the two halves, which consist of men and women, are frantically looking for each other in order to regain their unity. The biblical story is similar: God created Adam, one complete human being, and only later He created woman from Adam's own flesh. This division into male and female is the root of sexuality and its consequence is the expulsion from Paradise.

The theme of androgyny, or hermaphroditism, as a symbol of wholeness can be found in many myths. For the Chinese it is the assimilation of yin and yang expressed in the figure of a holy woman; the Zuni Indians make their chief god, Awonawilona, a he-she being; the Greeks make the son of the gods Hermes and Aphrodite, Hermaphroditus, unite in his body the physical characteristics of both sexes; and Eros, the god of erotic love, was both male and female. Hence, androgyny is connected in myth as well as in the human mind with yearning for completeness, for a state of Paradise.

Modern science has proven that both men and women carry male and female hormones, that the fetus is first neuter and only later becomes either male or female.

Unisex.

Our contemporary society increasingly leans toward the unisex. Men and women not only wear similar clothes but are also encouraged to develop the qualities generally considered typical of the other sex: men to develop qualities such as gentleness, patience, love of peace, and the ability to nurture; and females to develop characteristics such as assertiveness and activeness.

Elimination of exploitation and war.

LeGuin's unisex eliminates what Simone de Beauvoir considers woman's inferior status and exploitation as the "second sex." The results are intriguing: the elimination of sexuality as a social factor results in the elimination of exploitation and of rape on the individual as well as on the national level (rape of the environment, of natural resources, etc.), and the complete elimination of war.

Balance and wholeness.

The implied message of The Left Hand of Darkness is that our lives would be greatly enriched if we, both men and women, were allowed to feel the entire range of human emotions and not be restricted to only some of them, the nature of which are dictated by tradition, prejudice, or misconception. In order to achieve peace and harmony in our personal life and in the world in general, we have to acknowledge and cultivate the female and male principles in each of us. LeGuin's manwoman idea is a metaphor for harmony, integration, and wholeness.

Balance and wholeness of the planet.

LeGuin takes her idea of harmony between the male and female principles onto a national level: her planet Gethen reflects the integration of, and the balance between, the only two nations on the planet.

The first, Karhide, is anarchic, based on the female principle. In the revision of her essay "Is Gender Necessary?" LeGuin explains that "anarchy has historically been identified as female. The domain alloted to women-'the family,' for example-is the area of order without coercion, rule by custom not by force." Karhide's society is decentralized, flexible, and circular. Diametrically opposite is Orgoreyn, based on the male principle. There, people create "structures of social power," make laws and break them. Their society is centralized, rigid, and linear.

On Gethen the two societies are in balance. The story begins when this balance is dangerously threatened.

Taoism: holistic view of the universe.

The Left Hand of Darkness embodies LeGuin's main belief, largely based on the ancient Chinese philosophy of the Tao (pronounced Dao), meaning "The Way." Since the 1960s, a decade known for its search for alternative ways of thinking and living, there has been a great interest in the West in Oriental philosophies such as Zen Buddhism and Taoism.

Taoism offers a holistic outlook of the way the universe works. "Tao is the course, the flow, the drift, or the process of nature," says Alan Watts in Tao: The Watercourse Way (1975). While in other cultures light opposes darkness, good opposes evil, life opposes death, each one struggling to eliminate the other, in the Tao both light and darkness, good and evil, positive and negative are essential for the continuation of life. Opposites are seen as the two edges of one and the same pole, as north and south: you cannot have the one without the other. The two poles of cosmic energy-yang, positive, active, male, and yin, negative, passive, female-are essential for harmonious balance.

Taoism and psychology.

Carl Jung explained Tao in the light of modern psychology: "If we take Tao as the method or conscious way by which to unite what is separated, we have probably come quite close to the psychological content of the concept." The value of Tao to modern psychology lies in its power to reconcile opposites on a higher level of consciousness, to reconcile in order to achieve a balanced way of living.

Taoism and The Left Hand of Darkness.

The entire story of The Left Hand of Darkness strives toward the establishment of harmony and wholeness on the personal, national, and cosmic levels. The book begins with the disruption of the balance between the two countries of planet Winter, which is threatened with the eruption of the first war in its history. The two protagonists, citizens of different planets, are widely apart. From that point on the story moves toward restoring the balance and harmony between the protagonists, between the two countries on Winter, and between Winter and the rest of the universe.

:: CHARACTERIZATION IN THE LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS ::

Point of view.

LeGuin presents her two protagonists from two limited points of view. The characters reveal their nature, first, through their own words and deeds. This is done by way of first-person narration. We learn much about Ai and Estraven through their own reports about themselves. They also reveal their nature through the impressions they make on each other. This way we obtain a double view of each character. But we do not have the writer's own view of her characters and can only guess at it. The development of the story mirrors the development of the relationship between the two protagonists, Ai and Estraven.

All other characters, such as King Argaven, his new Prime Minister Tibe, and some Orgoreyn officials, are minor characters who play their roles and then disappear from the story. They are largely flat, lacking in depth and complexity, and not fully characterized.

Ai And Estraven

In spite of all their differences, both Ai and Estraven share one basic characteristic: their utter loneliness. Ai, an alien from outer space, light years away from his own people and familiar environment, is physically and mentally different from all the people among whom he finds himself. Estraven, away from his family, from his country, is a fugitive in exile. Both are outsiders who are forced to take a long journey in a very inhospitable and cruel climate.

Genly Ai

His name, Ai, discloses his three roles in the narrative: as I, the narrator who sees everything from his own limited point of view; as Eye, the observer who learns to see into people and events; and as Ai, a cry of pain. The development of the character is his journey from I to Eye and at last to Ai, his final cry of pain as he comes full circle to the discovery of self and depth of soul.

Ai as I.

Ai as I is a conventional, young, black Earthman, "confused and defensive," as LeGuin described him later, sent by the League of the Planets to the distant planet Gethen to convince them to join the interplanetary league. (The fact that Ai is black is mentioned but never really developed and one wonders why LeGuin saw the need to mention the color of his skin, It seems irrelevant and superfluous to the development of both the story and the character.)

Ai, who has volunteered for his mission, has given up his family and friends and the world he has known. He is a very dedicated and brave Envoy and although, as the story begins, he has already spent two years on the foreign planet with little success, he does not give up. He is determined to carry his mission to its hoped-for conclusion, whatever the consequences. When his two-year effort to persuade the King of Karhide fails, he moves on to the only other country on Gethen, ready to start working for his mission all over again.

But dedication and bravery are not enough. Ai, an average conventional Earth male, lacks the insight and understanding to carry out his mission. After two years on Gethen, he still does not understand its people, and is unable to step away from his conventional and Earth-like prejudices and accept people different from himself. In fact, although he is the alien on their planet, he regards the Gethenians as aliens. His main flaw is his inability to communicate and negotiate with the Gethenians and understand their way of thinking. In fact, he looks down on them: they are strangers, Others, different from himself.

LeGuin stresses time and again that what this Earth male finds so hard to accept is the feminine component of the Gethenians who are ambisexual, men and women in one. He prefers to relate to them as men, because this is the only way he knows, and whenever he detects any trait that he, the Earth male, considers feminine - and for this he selects mostly negative traits - he is disgusted. A Gethenian seems like a feminized man in his eyes when he detects his "fat buttocks that wagged as he walked, ... (his) soft fat face, and a prying, spying, ignoble, kindly nature." The inmates in the Labor Farm are repulsively effeminate because of their "gross, bland fleshiness, a bovinity without point or edge ... flabbiness and coarseness" and their trivial talk. (Is that how an Earth male regards women?) Like-wise, Ai rejects Estraven, the Prime Minister and his only supporter, mainly because of his "soft supple feminity," his womanly performance "all charm and tact and lack of substance."

Ai as eye-less.

At this point in the story, Ai, whose name suggests an "eye," is actually blind. He lets his prejudices get the better of him, causing him to misjudge what is actually happening around him to the point that he endangers his life and his mission without even being aware of it. In the beginning of the book he finds himself in the middle of a political intrigue that has a crucial bearing on his mission, and all he has to say is that he is bored. He listens to the state officials talk but, understanding nothing, he claims that "it's nothing to do with me" when it is all to do with him and his mission.

Ai's problem on Gethen is his accepting his situation as an alien, a stranger, a foreigner - "few foreigners are so foreign as I" - without making any real effort to understand these people who are foreign to him. He is an alien in the true meaning of the word. Away from his planet, his people, and his family, he is truly and utterly alone. The fact that he is at this point incapable of developing a close relationship with the Gethenians, or at least understanding them and thus feeling closer to them, not only causes him to feel completely forlorn but prevents him from carrying out his mission.

The trouble is that he does not yet understand his own mission, and therefore he keeps failing. Arrogantly and ignorantly, he declares that his mission is more important than personal relationships. He does not realize that his mission is also a personal odyssey. Ai is young, not yet thirty. He has yet to learn that his political mission - an alliance with Gethen - depends on his ability to overcome his alienation, establish true communication, and relate to the Gethenians on a personal level, on the level of his very being. His ability to learn to trust, care, accept the Other is the key to ending his isolation and to the success of his mission.

This becomes the real story: the education of Ai, the slow process of self-awareness, the process of becoming a full-fledged human being. Ai is the one character in the book who is undergoing a fundamental change and at the end of the book we meet a completely different person.

Ai as eye.

Ai is too stubborn, ignorant, and blind to change on his own. LeGuin forces him to change by forcing him to be completely dependent on a Gethenian to whom he owes his life and with whom he has to spend many days in close proximity. Vulnerable and alone with Estraven on the ice, estranged from his sophisticated technology which enables him to contact his star ship, Ai is forced to open his eyes and see Estraven as he is, not a stranger, not an alien, but a human being, in all his strengths and weaknesses. For the first time Ai learns to share with Estraven what they have in common - their humanity - and at the same time accept their differences. Ai learns to accept Estraven's female component and, moreover, to confront and accept the feminine side in himself, the "gentle" part suggested by his first name, Genly. The profound love and understanding that develop between the two is possible not in spite of their differences but because of them; both learn to accept each other's "otherness." For love, LeGuin stresses again and again, is the acceptance of the Other, becoming "not We and They; not I and It; but I and Thou."

At this point Ai, having gained insight through his love for Estraven, also understands the true meaning of his mission. Only when he is able to love a Gethenian and establish real communication with him, can his mission to establish communication between the Planet Gethen and the rest of the planets be realized.

From Eye to Ai.

Having gained love and lost it, Ai becomes a cry of pain and sorrow. The final chapter delineates how Ai has finally integrated the three meanings of his name: "I" the participant who becomes personally involved; "Eye" the observer who sees, understands and accepts; and "Ai" as a cry of pain.

Therem Estraven

The Gethenian protagonist, a manwoman, is portrayed from the very beginning in roles we are conditioned to see as male. He is a shrewd politician, a prime minister, a powerful aggressive figure, constantly pushing forward, struggling to realize what he strongly believes in. We never have the opportunity to see him in a traditional female role, mothering or nurturing, or even loving as a woman. In fact, when toward the end of the book he is going through his kemmering female phase, it requires a feat of the imagination to see him as a woman.

Compared with Ai, Estraven is a personality on a grand scale. To use Ai's words, Estraven possesses " a solidness of being, a substantiality, a human grandeur." Trained by the Handdara, a cult closely resembling Chinese Taoism, he is capable of great insight on the personal and political level. Thus he is the first and the only Gethenian to understand the crucial benefit that Ai's mission will bring to his country and his planet. Accordingly, he invests all his energy, his position, and later even his life, for the general good. And he is proven right, because his courage of conviction actually prevents Gethen from engaging in the first war in its history.

However, if this were all, he would have been a flat, one-dimensional character. In fact, he is a fully-rounded, multi-dimensional character who casts a long shadow, to use LeGuin's language, that reaches into the depth of the soul as well as to the depth of the Gethenian mythological past. Estraven's personal life, only suggested and never really described, has been steeped in profound and tumultuous human emotions, involving love and death, which feed his soul like a dark subterranean river.

Third point of view: first legend.

In presenting Estraven's complex character, LeGuin skillfully offers a third point of view, that of Karhidish legends, which indirectly but very meaningfully, shed light on his life. The first legend, "The Place Inside the Blizzard," tells of two brothers who bore a child together and then vowed kemmering, meaning love and fidelity. But permanent kemmering between brothers is considered a great sin and is forbidden. Unable to bear the separation, one of the brothers commits suicide, which is an even greater sin that the first. Blamed for the suicide of his dead brother, the surviving brother is forced into exile.

As in the legend, we know that Estraven's brother, Arek is dead, that Estraven loved him deeply, and that he cannot free himself of this love. We also know that Estraven had been exiled from his village, apparently blamed for the suicide of his brother.

This is crucial to the understanding of Estraven's personality and to the development of the larger story. Because Estraven, as we later learn, is first attracted to the Envoy not for political reasons at all. When he first hears the name, Ai, he hears a human cry of pain. Much later in the story, when Estraven learns to communicate in mindspeech, he hears Ai's voice calling him from the depth of his soul in his brother's voice. Was it really his dead brother's cry of pain that Estraven heard in Ai's name that impelled him to help Ai's mission? Does it mean that Estraven actually sacrificed his career and later his life for personal reasons rather than for the good of his country? As in every complex personality, these questions are left unanswered. This may be one of those impossible questions that the Handdara Cult maintains you learn not to ask.

Like Ai, Estraven changes through their relationship, though not as much. He, after all, being much more self-aware than Ai from the very start, has accepted Ai and related to him as a human being. (Is it because Estraven has self-awareness or because Ai reminds him of his dead brother?) But Estraven has to learn to let go of the past in order to be able and willing to love again.

This happens on the Gobrin Ice, when he finds himself alone with Ai, both stripped of outside resources. Here Estraven is, for the first time, on an equal footing with Ai; he, too, is now without the support of his own people. Only when they are alone, separated from all human society, its norms and regulations, can the two closely observe each other, learn to accept each other's weaknesses and differences, and each develop profound love for the other. Only then can both enter a relationship of "I and Thou."

Second legend.

The second Karhidish legend, "Estraven the Traitor," tells of Estraven's ancestors, who were engaged in a life-and-death dispute over land. The tale ends happily, though, when the heirs of both feuding houses vow kemmering to each other and peace is established. However, the ancestor, also called Estraven, was labelled a traitor because he had traded land for peace.

This legend mirrors Estraven's present life on several levels. First, Estraven, the protagonist of our story, who, like his ancestors, also wants to trade land for peace, finally has to trade his life for the desired peace. Unlike the happy ending of the legend, the result is tragic for him.

Second, the word Traitor has a special significance to the personality of Estraven, and again, as with all else connected with Estraven, it works on several levels. He is accused of being a traitor by King Argaven for helping the Envoy from Earth and for wishing to preserve peace in Karhide, even at the price of giving up the disputed land. What is a Traitor for one, is a Hero for another.

The way Estraven ends his life presents a puzzling question. Is this, too, one of those questions which we have to learn not to ask? Skiing straight into the border-guards' guns, did Estraven commit suicide? Was another separation and exile from a loved one too much for him to tolerate? Or did he think that his death would help Ai to bring about the long-sought alliance of Gethen with the Ekumen and so deliberately sacrificed his life for a cause?

King Argaven

Of the few minor characters in the book, only King Argaven of Karhide is worth special attention, not so much for his personality as for the ideas he represents and for the comic possibilities he allows the writer. "The king is pregnant" is one of the most surprising sentences of the book. (Although LeGuin admits that she is fond of this sentence, it is not the reason she invented the ambisexual people of Gethen.)

A mad king ruling over a basically anarchic state is a comic figure. It seems that LeGuin is fascinated by the idea that the only ruler to reign over a nation of individuals who never "march in step" is a mad one. LeGuin's idea of anarchism is closely linked to her Taoist ideas that order is organic and should not be imposed. The Taoists recommend that a good ruler should rule as little as possible and leave his people alone. What ruler will agree to that unless he is light in the head? LeGuin, so it seems, pokes fun at our politicians, suggesting that the best politician is a mad one...

Everything about King Argaven is absurd. In the keystone ceremony it is he who labors to set the keystone in the arch while everyone else watches idly. Indeed, King Argaven is truly preposterous and aggravating. He laughs shrilly and at odd moments, baring his teeth and using four letter words freely-quite a clownish, silly figure, with little that is kingly about him.

The king is ruled by fears. He is afraid of everything and everybody, and so, he claims, he rules his country well. Being mad and fearful, he gives double messages which create confusion and are hard to follow. But this confusion and obscurity allow a nation of individuals to go on with their own lives with the least interference.

Structure And Style In The Left Hand Of Darkness

Circular writing.

The Left Hand of Darkness may not be an easy book to read for readers accustomed to linear writing. In linear writing the plot develops chronologically along a straight line. LeGuin's writing is anything but linear. It is circular or spiral and multi-levelled, making diversions and side-trips to the past, and further even, to ancient times, to myths and legends of her invented planet.

Multiple points of view.

Increasing the complexity of the book is LeGuin's method of telling her story from multiple points of view. With each new chapter the readers must adjust themselves to another voice, to another teller of the story. In addition to the two alternating main narrators, a third narrator appears in one chapter, and in several others, the voice of the omniscient author takes over, recounting the legends and myths of Gethen.

To complicate the matter even further, sometimes each of the two narrators tells his own version of the same events and the same dialogues. Choosing to let both her protagonists narrate their version of the events and their observation of each other, LeGuin provides us with a subjective as well as an objective view of each narrator and of the events he is involved in. This enriches and deepens the narrative.

The plot becomes unduly complicated when LeGuin introduces, though only once, a third narrator, the only specifically female voice in the story. At that point many readers may become confused and even lost, not knowing who is speaking at any one time. Fortunately, as the story progresses, it narrows to only two narrators and becomes clearer and easier to follow.

Structure.

The collage of first-person narratives, myths, legends, and scientific field notes creates a mixture that has drawn some harsh criticism for being mechanical and dogmatic. At the same time it has been hailed by other critics as presenting a remarkable unity, artfully illustrating the philosophical theme of the book, the Taoist holistic view of life, which requires the co-existence of opposites. It is not light or darkness, but always light and darkness. Likewise, it is the various parts of this collage which form the greater whole, just as in the story itself the different planets create the unity of the League of the Planets. In this way the structure of the book reflects its main theme.

Interconnectedness.

The story develops through two different modes of writing: first, the first-person narrations telling the events as they unfold in the story's "present;" and second, the omniscient recounting of myths and legends of the far past. In the beginning of the book the two modes seem to run along parallel tracks; however, as the story develops, they overlap and it becomes clear that the myths and legends are there to provide background to the events of the story and to explain the psychology and philosophy of the people of Gethen. We can understand Estraven and his relationship to Ai only through consideration of the myths. LeGuin emphasizes the interconnectedness between the different modes of the narrative by using similarly named people and places in the main narrative and in the myths.

This interconnectedness between parts to create a greater whole exists in all of LeGuin's books, which together create a network of interconnectedness. Although each book or story is an independent entity, it is at the same time a part of the greater whole of her entire work, governed by a central theme: the relationship of all the invented planets in her different books to the League of the Planets. The suspense is always whether or not a certain planet will join, remain in, or leave the League. Rafail Nudelman points out that every LeGuin tale repeats "a movement from fragmentation toward unity." In the beginning of each story the hero finds himself in a fragmented world, a world of isolated enclaves amidst vast wastes. This recurring setting, maintains Nudelman, mirrors the League of the Planets which consists of isolated, independent entities of life in the vastness of the universe.

Recurring motifs.

The recurrence of themes within the single work as well as throughout all her works reflects LeGuin's philosophical view that the universal structure is repeated in every entity small or large, and in every level of life: the micro and the macro reflect one another.

Chapter structures.

Of the twenty chapters that comprise the book, half are told by Genly Ai, the Envoy from Earth, four by Estraven the Gethenian, one by a former female investigator from Earth; and five tell the myths and legends of the imagined planet. The first half of the book includes the myths and legends of Karhide, and the second half includes the myths and legends of Orgoreyn, the other country on Gethen.

What makes reading the first chapter something of a struggle is its magnitude of scope and multitude of ideas presented simultaneously, and in a rather static manner which obscures the story line. Although LeGuin begins with a wide base, as the story progresses, its plot and setting narrow. The first thirteen chapters serve as a long introduction to the real story which gains momentum and energy in the later part of the book. From Chapter 14 on, when we are left with only two characters struggling alone across a vast waste of ice, the story becomes clear and absorbing. At that point the story, characters, themes, and writing converge into a rich and harmonious unity; the narrative drive accumulates energy and the book displays the emotional density of the novel as a work of art.

Narrative technique.

Genly Ai, the alien from Earth, writes most of the reports, but he also serves as the arranger of the different segments in the book, at a later time than the original writing. As a character, as the narrating "I," his story is fragmentary and subjective, his observations often mistaken, displaying ignorance and lack of insight. However, Ai, in the observant role of "Eye," and as the one who objectively arranges the parts and puts them together, offers a unified whole.

Juxtaposition of nature and man.

Nature and its relationship to the characters are an essential theme in the book. In that, too, LeGuin is a faithful adherent of the Tao, which seeks its principles within nature and emphasizes the metaphysical foundations of nature, stressing harmony and balance. Man and nature are a unity. Man's fate is part of the function and the totality of the universe. The same principles that regulate nature also regulate man's life. Man can find peace only when he is completely attuned to the universe.

Ai, an alien on Winter, is constantly cold and is unable to adjust to the climate-a metaphor for his inability to understand and accept the Gethenians. He is foreign to their person, their environment, and their climate. So it is even more meaningful that it is on the Gobrin Ice, in bitter cold, that Ai learns to adjust himself, mentally and physically, to the cold planet and its inhabitants. It is when Estraven comments that Ai "sweats like one of us" that the ice between them begins to melt.

Nature, like all else in the book, reflects the tension between opposites, "silent vastness of fire and ice" that spells out in "black and white Death, Death" while "we laughed with joy."

Language.

LeGuin is noted for using her language not only for functional reasons but with a care and precision that often approaches poetic beauty. This is unusual with science fiction writers whose plot and science fiction inventions often take precedence over their care for language. Specifically, LeGuin's description of landscapes is composed with a great amount of energy, a loving care for words and their sound.

LeGuin makes lavish use of alliteration, the repetition, at close intervals, of the initial consonant sounds as in bare bright or blinding biting, used to accentuate the poetry and the beauty of language, apart from the actual meaning of the words: "I felt a pang of pure pity for the man. . .sweating and superb under the weight of his panoply and power" (Chapter 3). In the same paragraph she also uses assonance, the repetition of vowel sounds: "gone now, down, done."

The beauty, precision, and rhythm of her language are manifested in the description of the landing of the long-awaited star ship in the final chapter:

She came down in a roar and glory, and steam went roaring up white as her stabilizers went down in the great lake of water and mud created by the retro; down underneath the bog there was permafrost like granite, and she came to rest balanced neatly, and sat cooling over the quickly refreezing lake, a great, delicate fish balanced on its tail, dark silver in the twilight of Winter.

This description, skillfully expressed in a single continuous sentence, lives up to the climax and excitement of the occasion, in some ways the ultimate goal of the story, the success of Ai's mission.

Some reservation.

However, the beauty, richness, and precision of the language can present a problem: one finds it difficult to believe that Ai, a conventional stuffy young man, to use LeGuin's own expression, who throughout the book demonstrates shortsightedness and lack of understanding, is so skilled in the use of language and is capable of poetic insight. To be able to write so beautifully, one needs sensitivity and deep understanding of language and of life, something that Ai definitely lacks. This makes it difficult to believe in Ai's authenticity. Instead, one is constantly aware of LeGuin the writer who makes Ai speak for her, scheme her plot, and conjure up her ideas; this lends a feeling of affectation to the first half of the book. However, from Chapter 14 on, when Ai reaches a certain degree of maturity and becomes more sensitive and understanding, he and the language he uses coalesce.

Invented Names.

Newly invented words and names foreign to our ears and eyes proliferate throughout the book and may make it difficult for the reader to follow the story line, especially in the first few chapters.

Of all the weird and hard-to-pronounce names of people, places, months, days, and new concepts, only the name of the Envoy, Ai, bears a meaning (triple meanings in fact), significant to the concept of the book. One wishes that the other names were also meaningful. It would have been easier to assimilate them and would have made the reading of the book more enjoyable.

Gender and language.

It is inexplicable that LeGuin, who seems to excel in inventing new names and words, preferred to employ the conventional male pronoun in regard to her invented ambisexual people, the menwomen of planet Gethen. A rare chance to expand our language has been missed, and we are in dire need of expansion, especially in the area of gender. Now we muddy our writing with the clumsy "he or she" for lack of a pronoun for someone who is first and foremost a human being. Even wo/man or s/he could have served LeGuin's story better, for both words-woman and she-contain man and he, but neither man or he contains the female. Unfortunately, the use of the male pronoun has forever decided the fate of the Gethenians, at least in the mind of the readers, to be primarily male.


:: CHAPTER-BY-CHAPTER ANALYSIS ::

Introduction

Fiction and science fiction.

For years, science fiction has been a category of its own, avidly read by many, but basically separated from mainstream literature. It has been, for the most part, ignored by literary reviewers as well as by literary scholars, relegated to its own magazines, its own awards, and its own public. This has been a sore point for Ursula K. LeGuin, as it has been for every serious science fiction writer. Although since the publication of The Left Hand of Darkness in 1969, and in many ways because of it, science fiction has been taken more seriously and even been a subject for academic studies, it is still largely an "alien" in mainstream literature.

In her introduction to The Left Hand of Darkness, LeGuin takes great pains to show that mainstream fiction and science fiction have much in common, and actually are basically the same; science fiction, contrary to what people may think, is not about the future but about the present, and like fiction, it reveals hidden truths about ourselves. It is not about different planets, it is about the present world.

Expanding the definition of science fiction.

LeGuin is one of the first contemporary science fiction writers to have brought change to the genre and thus expanded the very definition of science fiction. For her, science fiction novels are an experiment in the imagination, "a thought-experiment." One of the essential functions of science fiction, she once wrote, is to ask provocative and essential questions which will reverse our habitual way of thinking. Science fiction presents "questions, not answers."

Instead of accepting reality as given and unchangeable, the science fiction writer explores it in the laboratory of the imagination, turns it upside down and inside out, searching for its inner truth.

Truth-lies-imagination.

How is it possible, she asks, that lies-characters, places and events that have never existed-can tell us the truth about ourselves?

LeGuin is examining the words truth, imagination, and lies, and intentionally equates and confuses that which is unreal, invented, or imaginative, with lies. And so, in a seemingly absurd way, her story-meaning her imaginative, fictional world that does not exist in reality-is a lie that illuminates the truth about reality and about ourselves.

In that way, both mainstream fiction and science fiction tell the truth about reality through "lies," that is, through imagination. "Truth is a matter of the imagination," says LeGuin through her protagonist in the very beginning of The Left Hand of Darkness.

Fiction as metaphor.

Both fiction and science fiction, continues LeGuin in her analysis of the similarity between the two genres, are metaphors-imaginative word-pictures that provide a complex of associated meanings. The main difference is that science fiction draws its metaphors from science and technology. As for "the future," this, too, is a metaphor, which means that "the future" of science fiction is not really the future but the present.

Metaphors of science and technology.

One wonders whether what LeGuin considers a minor difference between fiction and science fiction, namely, metaphors drawn from science and technology, is responsible for the fact that many people, otherwise avid fiction readers but who feel that science and technology are foreign languages to them, refrain from embarking on these journeys to imaginary worlds.

Fear of the future.

Fear of the future, of the unfamiliar, of change, may be another reason, not addressed by LeGuin, which explains why some readers avoid reading science fiction. Reality may not be perfect, but at least it is familiar. Most people tend to resist change and fear the unknown.

Science fiction offers alternatives outside the reader's realm of experience. If mainstream fiction offers exploration into the known, science fiction offers exploration into the unknown, and the androgynous society of Gethen in The Left Hand of Darkness is the unknown. The reader may not be able to identify with the Gethenians, who are at once men and women, having no idea how a manwoman feels or thinks.

In this respect, science fiction presents us with territories and experiences in which we find ourselves alien. It is not only about aliens, but it also turns us, the readers, into aliens in a strange land. Moreover, science fiction suggests the possibility of a change; the future may be far different from the present. We all aspire to a better world in which wars and rapes will be eliminated. Still, the ambisexual society of Gethen is not our society, and the reader may become impatient, feeling that we should learn to deal better with our present problems, such as rape and wars. The literature of "as if" may be wonderful, but after all we live in "as is."

The good news for fiction readers who are now about to read The Left Hand of Darkness is that it has more to do with human relationships than with science and technology, more with "software" than with "hardware."

Chapter 1: A Parade In Erhenrang

The first chapter introduces us to the major characters of the novel and to some of the unique features of the new planet Gethen (Winter), while delineating the main themes of the book. The complexity of its ideas, coupled with an abundance of strange and difficult-to-pronounce names, makes this chapter somewhat difficult to read.

Point of view.

This is the first of ten chapters (out of twenty) in which the protagonist (the main character), an Envoy from Earth, tells his own story and reports the events from his point of view. This technique of first-person narration limits our perception to what the narrator knows.

Unity and harmony.

Genly Ai, the narrator, tells of a royal ceremony which takes place in Erhenrang, the capital city of the kingdom of Karhide. This ceremony consists of the mounting of the keystone which will unite the two piers and complete the arch of Rivergate. This is a central symbol in the book. In a way, the movement of the entire book is from fragmentation toward unity and wholeness, an idea reflected by the mission of the Envoy from Earth: to unite the planet Gethen with the League of the Planets for coordination and harmony in the universe.

The keystone is set in pink mortar. In olden times the mortar was mixed with human blood and bones; now it is mixed with animal blood-blood being necessary for bonding. Does this mean that in order for Genly Ai to bring about the bonding between the planets, blood will have to be spilled? Is that why the color red is so prevalent in the book?

Plurality.

True to LeGuin's philosophical beliefs based on the Chinese philosophy of the Tao, unity and harmony do not mean uniformity or unification but the sum of opposites. The country of Karhide, one of only two countries on planet Gethen, is based on plurality. When the people and dignitaries march, each marches to his own rhythm. There is no attempt to march in step. The result is not confusion and disharmony, as we, schooled in Western tradition, may expect, but human dignity, the dignity which results from respect for individuality.

Likewise, the music that accompanies the parade is "discordant," with each band playing its own music. Not unity, but a cacophony of sounds and rhythms. "Karhide is not a nation," explains Estraven, "but a family quarrel."

Ironically, in this anarchic society of individuals, it is the Envoy from Earth who, feeling lonely, craves "sameness," wishing "to be like everybody else." The melange of individuals around him only adds to his sense of physical alienation.

Unity based on plurality.

Both unity and plurality create the ironic political government of Karhide, which, contradictory in terms, is anarchistic monarchy, an anarchy governed by a king. But LeGuin's world, just as that of the Tao, is made up of the coupling of contradictions, of the bridging of polarities. In the traditional keystone ceremony, it is the king who works to set the stone in mortar, while the people watch idly.

What kind of king can rule over anarchy? Only a mad king. Were he sane, he might wish to do away with the anarchy and establish his reign. And so the King of Karhide is insane. To ensure his madness, the musicians play him the royal music, which is a discordant blast that would drive any one mad.

Characters: Genly Ai.

The Envoy from Earth, who narrates the events and his feeling about them, is young, honest, and naive. He honestly reports whatever he observes and hears. But because he is a naive and undeveloped young man, he sees much but understands little. His narration reveals more than he is conscious of. It is up to us, the readers, to interpret his words.

Although Genly Ai has been on planet Gethen close to two years, still he does not understand its people. Ironically, he has remained very much a stranger not only because the Gethenians regard him as an alien, but also because he sees them as aliens and strangers. He is so entrenched in Earth standards and conventions that he is incapable of accepting the Gethenians as they are-different from him. Judging them by Earth criteria, he is unable to extend himself, transcend his preconceptions, and accept that which is the Other.

His inability to accept the Gethenians is all the more ironic because to bring them into the alliance of the planets is the very reason he has traveled from Earth to Gethen. How does he plan to bring about this alliance based on communication, harmony, and coordination, if he, the Envoy, looking down on them because they are so different from him, is unable to relate to them as human beings? Ai's flaw is that he has taken his mission literally-political alliance - and not metaphorically-spiritual alliance. Moreover, he tries to communicate with Karhide as a nation and to deal with its authority, as one would have done on Earth. But Karhide is a country of individuals, "not a nation but a family quarrel" and the only way to communicate with its people is through individuals. The result is that he has stayed on the planet for two years without accomplishing his mission.

Ai is blind to the truth, which is, as he himself says at the outset of this chapter, "a matter of the imagination." But instead of using his imagination to gain insight into the Gethenians' psyche, he is stuck in the facade of things. Twice in this chapter he fails to read correctly what will later prove extremely significant to him and his mission, instead dismissing what he sees as boring and having nothing to do with him.

In no other issue are his preconceptions and misunderstanding so pronounced as when it comes to the matter of gender. He cannot see the Gethenians as they really are: people who are at once man and woman. In fact, Ai mistrusts the Gethenians exactly because of this wholeness.

Thinking of Estraven as male, for instance, Ai finds his womanly side not only confusing but somehow false, making him seem inconsistent and untrustworthy. He sees the inherent female in Estraven as mostly negative, the way many males regard effeminate men on Earth: lacking in substance, being deviant, and engaging in intrigues. The Gethenian face seems to him to be as incomprehensible as the face of a cat, a seal or an otter.

Ai also fails to understand shifgrethor, the most significant social principle in Karhide. Shifgrethor, which guides the way all Gethenians behave toward each other, includes the concepts of "prestige, face, place, and pride-relationship." It is a difficult concept that LeGuin has invented and it requires further reading to fully understand it.

Estraven.

The Prime Minister of Karhide, on the other hand, displays "human grandeur"; he is a man of moral substance, according to Ai's report. Nevertheless, Ai mistrusts him for the same reason he mistrusts all Gethenians-for displaying feminine traits.

This is ironic because Estraven is the only person in Karhide who has taken Ai and his mission seriously. He has investigated the Envoy and his space ship as well as the validity of the mission, and he is determined to further Ai's cause.

Estraven's grandeur of soul is seen in his humane handling of the land dispute between Karhide and its neighbor, Orgoreyn, the only other country on the planet Gethen. In order to prevent bloodshed, Estraven, acting alone and at great risk to himself, helped some farmers to resettle across the old border. Estraven is ready to give up the disputed land rather than let people be killed. He stresses that he does not serve any one, not even the king; he serves higher causes and higher ideals.

Tibe.

The King's cousin, Tibe, has his eye on Estraven's position as Prime Minister. He is the master of intrigue, scheming to bring about drastic changes in the planet: to turn the anarchy in Karhide into dictatorship under his leadership, and to introduce war into Gethen's 13,000 years of history without wars. Tibe understands that Estraven, who exchanges land for peace, and the Envoy from Earth, who advocates alliance and harmony among planets, are his mortal enemies.

Point of view.

This chapter is told in the first person, by Ai in his role as "I," who reports about the events. Only later will he serve in his other capacity, not yet developed, as "Eye," the observer. It is ironic that he reveals about himself much more than he himself realizes. At this point, self-awareness is not his strongest point.

Chapter structure.

The chapter is divided into two parts, or two locations. First, the celebration of the keystone, in which Ai displays his ignorance and inability to grasp the politics and the social order around him. Second, at Estraven's home, Ai displays his inability to understand the one person in all Karhide who respects his mission and who treats him like a human being. It is Ai, the alien, who treats Estraven as the stranger.

Words.

LeGuin takes great care with words. Not only does she make every word tell, but also makes every word act on several levels. Take for instance the word "yellow," a dominant color in this chapter. During the keystone ceremony Ai experiences physical warmth for the first time on planet Winter, with its sub-zero temperatures and permanent snow. During this spiritual ceremony, the sun shines bright and warm, signifying enlightenment, inspiration, and goodness. Is it a hint that once Ai's mission is successfully completed, he, who is always cold, will feel warmer?

LeGuin whimsically turns words inside out, questioning basic concepts. Patriotism, for example, which for the Envoy from Earth means love for one's homeland, is for Estraven, and clearly for LeGuin, "the fear of the other," and fear of the "other" - of the alien, of the one different from us - is a key theme of the book.

Chapter 2: The Place Inside The Blizzard

A tale of love.

At first reading, this chapter seems a surprise and an irrelevant detour from the narrative. Only later it turns out to be directly connected with one of the central themes of the book: a story of love between two brothers. This is love in its negative form: love prohibited, and love betrayed. It is the tale of starcrossed brothers, whose vow to stay together is broken by the complex code of incest. The result is tragic: one brother commits suicide and the other is banished from his village. When the exiled brother meets his dead brother in the place inside the blizzard, the latter cannot speak his brother's name.

Technique.

As strange and as disconnected as this chapter may seem, every detail will recur and play a significant part in later chapters. This is characteristic of LeGuin's method of composition: a mosaic of self-references and of recurring themes.

Structure.

"The Place Inside the Blizzard" is the first of a series of Gethenian legends and myths that LeGuin interweaves with her story of the Envoy on the planet Gethen. These tales create the mythology and culture of the planet, endowing it with depth and history. Thus the story unfolds on multi-levels, constantly employing references and allusions between the present of the planet and its past.

This multi-level structure reflects LeGuin's philosophy of life as developing in a spiral form. Events that happened in the past repeat themselves again and again in numerous variations. Whatever happens is neither disconnected nor accidental, but has deep roots in the past.

Style.

The language of this chapter is that of legends: short on details and explanations, containing minimal but essential dialogue; nothing extraneous to the important story line is presented.

At the ending of the chapter, as is often so in legends, harmony is re-established: the disorder in the nature of the world is corrected and the usual order of life is resumed: the living brother takes back his curse - "his name and his shadow" - and his old village prospers once again.

Theme 1: Two brothers.

In The Uses of Enchantment (1976), Bruno Bettelheim writes that the theme of two brothers is very prevalent in fairy tales, and is central to one of the oldest of them, found in an Egyptian papyrus of 1250 BC. According to one study there are at least 770 different versions of the theme.

In the "two brothers" tales one brother usually stays home and the other sets out on an adventurous quest. The brothers keep in touch through magic. The two brothers actually reflect the two sides in human nature, the desire to stay home, safe and attached to the past, and the urge to reach out to the future. The stories often teach that to live completely attached to the past is stunting; while it is safe, it allows no life of one's own. Only the integration of the two can lead to a successful existence. We will see this theme resurface throughout The Left Hand of Darkness.

Theme 2: Love forbidden and betrayed.

Although incestuous love is not forbidden on Gethen, it can last only until one of the brothers gives birth to a child because permanent incestuous bonding is forbidden. In this story, the two brothers swore eternal love, kemmering, to each other and thus defied the law of the planet.

The living brother feels deeply betrayed by his brother, who committed suicide rather than escape to the south where they might have lived together in anonymity.

On the planet Gethen, suicide is considered a worse sin than murder, although LeGuin offers no explanation for this law. When one of the brothers gave birth to a child, the two were commanded to separate. Unable to comply, one of the brothers committed suicide, defying the law of the land.

Theme 3: Left hand.

The dead brother seizes the living brother by his left hand causing it to freeze and later to be amputated. The significance of the left and right hands as well as of the title of the book becomes clearer later, specifically in Chapter 9, the second legend of Karhide, and even more so in Chapter 16.

Biblical reference.

When the exiled brother finally managed to find a place where no one knew him, he assumed a new name: Ennoch. This is a clear reference to E'noch, Cain's son (Genesis: 4, 17). The Biblical tale of the two brothers Abel and Cain is a tale of betrayal. Both tales result in the death of one brother and the exile of the other. The living brother is forced to be "a fugitive and a vagabond" (Genesis: 4, 14) hunted by all. In the Bible, Cain complaints to God, who grants him a special mark to protect him. Finding peace he settles and fathers a son, E'noch. The living brother in LeGuin's story, blamed for the suicide of his brother, becomes nameless and gains peace by assuming a new name, Ennoch.

Central image.

The place inside the blizzard is a certain spot on the glacier in the northern country, windless, snowless, and shadowless, where the two brothers, the living and the dead, meet for the last time. This scene recurs in a different version in Chapter 19, when it assumes its full meaning.

Chapter 3: The Mad King

Point of view.

The third chapter, like the first one, is written from Ai's point of view. He reports the progress of his long-sought-for audience with the king of Karhide in order to discuss with him his mission: bringing Gethen into the Ekumen, the League of the Planets. (Ecumenicism is a movement to unite the followers of different religions or beliefs.)

Theme of betrayal.

As in the former chapter, the theme of betrayal features prominently. The king accuses Estraven, his Prime Minister and a firm supporter of the Envoy, of betraying his country by advocating that Karhide give up certain disputed land, and that it join the League of the Planets. The King declares Estraven a traitor and orders him exiled.

The theme of betrayal acquires an additional twist when the King tells Ai that it is Estraven who has betrayed him by advising the King not to meet with Ai but to send him away. Ai, who has no insight into the people of Karhide or their politics, is rightly confused.

Characterization: The King.

The chapter heading informs us that the King is mad. The best king to rule an anarchic country of individuals, says LeGuin, is a mad king. The Chinese philosophy of Taoism, which underlies much of LeGuin's thinking, advises rulers to stay out of people's way, to govern as little as possible, and to let people alone. Only a mad king will agree to be as little of a king as possible. Otherwise he may begin to exercise his authority and turn the country into a dictatorship. And in fact, the King, under the influence of his cousin, the intriguing and power-seeking Tibe, is on the point of turning the country into a centralized state with its characteristics of national aggression and wars.

King Argaven is neurotic, prone to fits of anger, full of fears, and generally very aggravating. He seems unstable, confusing truth with lies, and is unable or unwilling to understand Ai's mission. He behaves more like an immature, fearful, and irresponsible child than a serious ruler.

Characterization: Genly Ai.

This is the first stage in the education of the Envoy, a main theme of the book. Failing to communicate with the King, and with his only supporter, the Prime Minister Estraven, in exile, Ai finally understands that he cannot achieve his mission through the King and the ruling authority of Karhide. In fact, he may have lost his chance of getting the planet Gethen to join the Ekumen. He is overwhelmed by a feeling of failure, but for the first time he is willing to take the initiative in learning more about this strange planet.

Moreover, if truth is a matter of the imagination, as Ai says in the first chapter, for the first time Ai is using his imagination to gain some insight into the real Estraven. While imagining the proud Prime Minister trudging his way on foot into exile, Ai, for a short time at least, has a glimpse of Estraven as a human being, a person in trouble and in pain. Through this act of empathy with the "other," Ai finally understands that Estraven has been trying to warn him of the danger he, Ai, is in, advising him to leave the court and the city.

Structure and background.

The audience with the king allows LeGuin the space and justification to provide the story with the necessary background. Through the Envoy's explaining his mission to the king, LeGuin explains to her readers the function and the history of the Ekumen (communication, harmony, and sharing of knowledge), the differences between the people on Earth "who come in all colors" (we learn now, for the first time, that Ai is black), and the Gethenians who are "yellow-brown or red-brown," and mainly about the all-important difference of gender.

Gender.

From Ai's conversation with the king we also learn about the peculiar nature of the Gethenians: they are ambisexual or androgynous, meaning, they are not divided into two sexes, they are neither men nor women, but each is both man and woman in one. The Gethenians are sexually neuter and inactive except for four days a month, when they are in kemmer, that is, sexually active. Only then, and for these few days, do they become male or female sexual beings.

When the King, looking at photos of people from other planets, asks Ai to explain to him what a woman is, Ai, for lack of a Karhidish word for woman, uses a word for a female animal in heat.

Once again LeGuin stresses the fact that Ai, the Earthman, rejects the Gethenians for the feminine aspects of their nature. And whenever he detects a feminine trait in the King's behavior, it is always negative. The King laughs "shrilly like an angry woman," or he is sullen "as an old she-otter in a cage."

Irony.

Seen from the king of Karhide's eyes, people on Earth who are permanently sexually defined as men or women are "perverts," "disgusting," and "monstrously different." It is ironic that what we have always taken for granted and natural is not to be taken for granted at all. This is LeGuin's way of questioning what we have always assumed to be solid facts: definable male and female identities.

Color red.

In this chapter the color red carries a special significance: it alludes to the blood necessary for bonding. The King's Hall is all red and so are the drapes. The drapes are worn out with time, reminding us of the blood that has been used for mortar. Things are not what they used to be and the red has lost much of its vigor, a clear allusion to the deteriorating state of affairs in Karhide.

Science fiction.

LeGuin introduces here two of her science fiction concepts: (1) A sophisticated communication device called the ansible, one of the very few hardware inventions LeGuin uses in her book. The ansible can transfer a message to distant planets the moment it is written. (2) Timejumping. From H.G. Wells' The Time Machine (1895) on, the question of time has always fascinated science fiction writers and presented them with the challenge of mastering it and devising ever more sophisticated means to transport man through many light years, to the farthest planets, and back to Earth. LeGuin does not linger much on the question of time (although she does dwell on inner mental time, as we will see from the Gethenians' peculiar calendar), but she does feel the need to explain rationally how the Envoy from Earth has experienced the many years needed to travel to Gethen and still remained young. She calls it "timejumping" and uses the hypothesis that if we travel as fast as light we do not age.

Chapter 4: The Nineteenth Day

A second Karhidish legend: this, like the earlier one, seems on first reading to be unrelated to the narrative. However, it prepares us for Ai's meeting with the Foretellers, the Karhidish version of divinators, in Chapter 5.

Impossible questions.

This tale serves to demonstrate how futile and dangerous impossible questions are. Lord Berosty insists on asking the Foretellers an impossible question: to name the day of his death. The clever answer that the Foretellers give him - that he will die on the 19th day of any month-drives him into sheer misery and madness.

Themes of love and betrayal.

Lord Berosty's love companion, Herbor, is ready to sacrifice his life to obtain the desired answer and thus restore his friend's peace of mind. But Lord Berosty, unsatisfied with the second answer - that he will live longer than Herbor - kills Herbor with a "red stone." Is blood necessary to complete the bonding between lovers? Only after he has killed his faithful friend does Lord Berosty hold the dead man as if the two were in "kemmer and all was well."

Chapter 5: The domestication Of Hunch

Point of view.

This is Ai's third first-person report telling of the progress of his mission.

Ai's education.

The first stage in Ai's education on Gethen is to leave the capital of Karhide, the seat of government, and gain some knowledge and understanding of the country's ancient religion, the Handdara. It seems that Ai knows much about the external life of the Karhidish but very little about their spiritual life. Now he undertakes a long journey to meet the Foretellers, sage and enlightened people well trained in the Handdara. With their help, Ai slowly begins to grasp that understanding means to go beyond what one knows and to be receptive to different and unfamiliar ways of thinking.

The Handdara cult.

The Handdara cult is introversive, dark, passive, and silent. It is the ideal religion of the individual: it has no institution, no priests, no hierarchy, no vows, no creed. And, LeGuin adds sarcastically, it may not even have a God. This is LeGuin's way of indirectly criticizing our institutional religions, in which the individual becomes lost in the multitude.

The Handdara cult embodies the holistic vision of the Tao. One of its principles is that there are no real answers except the one that we all die. One has to accept his own limitations, to understand that the only certainty is death, and that it is only uncertainty that makes life possible.

At the same time, if one accepts one's own limitations and the knowledge that there are no ultimate answers, and limits oneself to a concrete yes-and-no question, he may benefit from the special divination ability of the Foretellers. Having learned how dangerous an impossible question is, from the tale of Lord Berosty, Ai asks the Foretellers a limited question: Will Karhide join the Ekumen within five years? He receives a definite answer: yes.

Presence.

The essence of the Handdara religion is the discipline of Presence, something like trance or untrance, self-loss or self-augmentation, which is extreme sensual awareness.

Time.

Because it is Presence, rather than Progress, that matters, the Gethenians live permanently in Year One, meaning, in the very present. It is the Now which counts, and therefore the current year is always Year One. Now we can understand better the implications of the tale of Lord Berosty, who, instead of immersing himself in the discipline of Presence and living in Year One, insisted on knowing the unknown, the day of his death. By being obsessed with the unknown future he lost his present and his Presence.

Co-existence of opposites.

Here again we meet the Chinese philosophy of Taoism. It is never either light or darkness, as is the case in Western culture, but light and darkness together which create the whole and which are both necessary for the world to exist. Opposites do not negate, contradict, or battle each other; they are integral to each other and each exists because of the other. Just as we cannot separate north from south without eliminating both, so is the case with light and darkness, good and evil. Likewise, the Foretellers go into darkness in order to see light and gain enlightenment. Moreover, one can understand something only through the knowledge of its opposite: trance and untrance, activity and inactivity, movement and motionlessness, learning and unlearning. Ai has to unlearn much of what he had learned on Earth in order to understand the habits and culture of the planet of Gethen.

Presence versus progress.

LeGuin introduces some science fiction hardware as a means of commuting: landboats, very slow trucklike vehicles that can travel on land and water. But her main purpose - and this characterizes her whole approach to science fiction writing-is not to surprise the reader with a brilliant technical invention but to embody an important idea. Here she is very critical of the fast pace in which we, on Earth, conduct our lives, and offers her philosophy of "presence": Presence, rather than progress, is what really matters. The Karhidish are never in a hurry and mostly go on foot, having neither horses nor airplanes. Their vehicles move slowly, about 25 miles an hour, very slowly by our Earth standard. Yet LeGuin hails their slowness as a more natural and humane way to live. In her essay "Is Gender Necessary?" she explains that the Gethenians "do not rape their world. They have developed a high technology, heavy industry ... but they have done so very slowly, absorbing their technology rather than letting it overwhelm them." Their progress represents not only sensitivity to their ecology but also a balance between male and female traits: aggressiveness and pushing forward, on one hand, and patience, on the other.

War.

One of the most interesting aspects of planet Winter is its lack of war. Although the Gethenians have their share of fights, aggressiveness, murders, and other abominable crimes, they are expressed on a personal level, and they never lead to war. LeGuin's explanation is intriguing: because they are a nation of individuals (they behave "like animals ... or like women," Ai explains) they lack the ability to mobilize; theirs is more like "a family quarrel," not like a national war. LeGuin believes that order can be more effectively achieved through rituals and parades than by armies or police.

LeGuin cannot escape injecting her sarcasm, with an eye to our society: if the Gethenians become patriotic, they will have "an excellent chance of achieving the condition of war."

Gender.

LeGuin is clearly having fun with her invention of the wo/man being, and humorously opens her chapter with "My landlady, a voluble man." What incites Ai, the typical Earth male, to regard his landlord as a woman? Certain unpleasant physical characteristics: his fat, wagging buttocks, his soft, fat face, and his "prying, spying, ignoble, kindly nature."

Colorred.

In this chapter, too, the color red appears: the Towers are "blood-red"; even the needles of the most common tree on the planet are pale-scarlet; "everything is red and brown."

Style.

LeGuin arrives at her best writing whenever she describes, or rather invents, landscapes imbedded in eternity. Hers is a language of vastness and of timelessness, of great precipices, boundless lands and huge white shadows. In contrast, "a tiny string of dots," the landboats, creep thousands of feet below. But even in the midst of this dramatic scenery LeGuin is compelled to allude to the deplorable state of nature on Earth: Unlike Earth, here in Karhide, where people are aware of ecology, the woods are carefully tended. The only difficulty with these poetic and beautifully described landscapes is to believe that Ai, the narrator, this young and naive person from Earth, could actually write them. He seems anything but poetic.

Characterization.

Ai, as a typical Earth man, tries to understand the Foretellers' "business" rationally, and calls it "chance," using Earth's rationale and terms. But this does not work. Rationalization is not the way to gain truth or insight. Only after his profound experience with the Foretellers, which he translates to Earth's terms and calls "the domestication of hunch," does Ai begin to sense some of life's openness and possibilities. One does not have to know the future. But it must be open to countless possibilities.

Irony.

LeGuin treats with irony the differences between the state of affairs on Earth and on Karhide. Speaking of prediction, Ai has doubts of the ability of the Foretellers to predict the future. After all, he reasons, throughout the history of man we have had "God speaks, spirits speak, computers speak."

Later, he understands that the Foretellers' act is not so much a prophecy as an observation, that they have managed to "domesticate the hunch," the human and natural insight into the working of the world, while on Earth they are too busy with technology, such as "NAFAL ships and instantaneous transmission."

Chapter 6: One Way Into Orgoreyn

Point of View.

Now LeGuin introduces a new first-person narration, that of the demoted Prime Minister, Estraven. He tells of his desperate attempt to cross the border of Orgoreyn, the other country on Gethen. Pursued by his rival, the new Prime Minister, Tibe, Estraven can barely make his escape.

Theme of love and betrayal.

For the first time we get a glimpse into Estraven's personal life. His consort of ten years, Ashe, offers to accompany him into exile, but Estraven is bitter and angry and accuses him of breaking their oath three years earlier. Regarding his life "like a broken promise," Estraven chooses to go into exile alone.

Political opposites.

Planet Gethen is divided between two countries ruled by opposite regimes. While Karhide, although ruled by one mad king, is anarchic, Orgoreyn, ruled by a government of thirty-three official Commensals, is totalitarian, with an active secret police and an inspector lurking behind every man. This political setup corresponds to LeGuin's philosophy of the co-existence of opposites. As long as the balance between the opposite sides holds, peace reigns. The trouble begins when one country, in this case Karhide, led by the new Prime Minister, Tibe, is on the verge of changing its anarchic regime of a thousand years to become centralized and efficiently ruled like Orgoreyn.

Characterization: Estraven.

Estraven is a clever and shrewd politician. Although he has lost his power at home and is in exile, he is far from being helpless. He is constantly scheming to realize his vision.

Questioned by two of the ruling party of Orgoreyn, Estraven offers a clear analysis of the current political situation (the land dispute, Tibe's intrigues and drive to change the political situation and the balance of powers) and the result is imminent danger to both countries. He tells them about the Envoy and his mission, and with profound and visionary insight adds that the Envoy heralds a new era in which the regimes of both countries will have to change: "he brings the end of Kingdom and Commensalities with him in his empty hands."

"Why?" they ask and Estraven explains that in order to deal with the strangers of eighty worlds, all the Gethenians will have to unite and be friends. Estraven manages to persuade the Orgoreyn regime to permit the Envoy to enter their country and present to them his mission.

Style.

There is a definite difference between the way Ai and Estraven narrate their stories, even though the difference may be not easy to define. It stems from their different personalities and lies in the tone of the narration. Ai is young, naive, and inexperienced, while Estraven is older, powerful, and experienced in the ways of the world and of the heart. The tone of Estraven's narration reflects his confidence and his moral conviction. His language is more elegant, and richer, as for example, "I had gone all to grease and luxury and had lost my wind for walking."

Chapter 7: The Question Of Sex

Point of view.

The point of view from which the story is told is changed once again as we are introduced to a third first-person narrator, this time a woman and a former Investigator, a member of the group of Investigators who had visited Gethen secretly two years earlier. She reports on the ambisexual physiology of the Gethenians and theorizes on their origin. Hers is the only voice of a woman in the book.

Gender.

In this chapter LeGuin explores the consequence of her own invention: the manwoman. This ambisexual condition completely equalizes man and woman: everyone can give birth, everyone is potentially a mother and a father. It abolishes the Oedipus complex, in which, according to Freud, every child experiences a psycho-sexual attraction to the parent of the opposite sex. It also abolishes all rape. Because the sexual drive is active only for a few days each month, life and relationship on Gethen are not governed by sexual drive as they are on Earth. Most of the time people are neutral, asexual, and sexuality is not a ruling social, economical, or political factor. All people are biologically the same and therefore all are equal.

War and sex.

LeGuin postulates that the origin of wars is male aggression. There is no war on planet Gethen. Is it because the isolated male sexual activity is limited to a few days each month? War is "a vast Rape," says LeGuin, and by eliminating "the masculine that rapes and the femininity that is raped," war is abolished.

Sense of the absurd.

Speaking about people who are men-women, LeGuin delights in the absurd possibilities this idea offers her: "the mother of several children may be the father of several more." What is completely absurd on Earth is the norm on Gethen.

Irony.

The woman reporter writes that on Winter a person is judged and respected not as a man or a woman but as a human being - an ideal situation from a feminist point of view. Yet, this woman reporter finds the fact that she is not appreciated on Gethen as a woman "an appalling experience."

Style.

This report by a woman Investigator is written in a different style than the rest of the book. It is very dry, matter-of-fact, resembling a textbook. This creates a break in the fictional narrative. The question that the reader may ask is whether this is the only way, or the best way, to introduce the Gethenians' unique sexual physiology. It is telling, not showing. We know but we do not see or feel. Nowhere in this chapter or in any other part of the book does LeGuin actually show how two Gethenians relate to each other intimately, or how they relate to their children in a family or hearth situation.

Chapter 8: Another Way Into Orgoreyn

Point of view.

Once again we have Ai's first-person narration. As he tells of his journey around the country of Karhide and his entry into Orgoreyn, we see the country through his eyes.

Education of the envoy.

This is an important step in Ai's education. Failing in his mission with the king of Karhide, Ai, in a way, is forced to roam the country and learn the ways of its people. Although he is unaware of it, his close contact with the people themselves, and his own experiences of their harsh life in a world of ice, is imperative for the completion of his mission. Not high-level politics but direct contact with and understanding of the people themselves will help him bring about Gethen's entrance into the League of the Planets.

Aims does not justify means.

Does the aim of the public good justify the sacrifice, or even the suffering, of an individual? The different answers to this philosophical and ethical question have been the crux of important political theories of the right and of the left. LeGuin gives her answer very clearly: the aim, however grand, does not justify the means. A mission that "overrides all personal debts and loyalties ... is an immoral mission."

Ai, at this stage of his life, thinks differently. His mission, he states, is more important than personal debt and loyalties. He refuses to carry money to Estraven, now considered a traitor, because it will endanger his mission, even though he is well aware that Estraven has been exiled for supporting him. Is this an act of betrayal? of cowardice? Luckily, Ai realizes in time that he is about to commit a moral error and betray not only Estraven but the Ekumen itself, whose principle is that the aim does not justify the means. With courage, Ai admits his mistake and shortcoming and agrees to deliver the money.

Characterization: Ai.

Ai has not learned all his lessons yet. When he crosses the border to Orgoreyn, and meets what seems like law and order, in complete opposition to the anarchy and chaos of Karhide, he misjudges the new country the same way he has misjudged Karhide. He is impressed by external reality and is unable to interpret it. And so while driving across Orgoreyn, and later, when treated to comfort and luxury, he feels that this orderly country is ready to accept his mission and that he has wasted two years in Karhide. He could not have made a greater mistake. His misjudgment may cost him his life.

Chapter 9: Estraven The Traitor

This is the third in the series of Karhidish myths and legends woven into the story, to which, this time, it is clearly related. Like the first two legends, this too is a tale of love, but unlike the others, it is of love and fidelity, love that transcends and overcomes hatred: Chance brings the heirs of two feuding families into intimate contact. They swear love to each other. One of the two is killed, but the other gives birth to their son. When the son grows up, chance brings him into contact with his parent from the feuding family. The two swear to establish peace.

Recurring themes.

This is a favorite LeGuin device: Let important themes repeat themselves in different times, places, and characters, and often on a different level. Take for example the theme of land dispute, which caused the feud between the two families. We first met this theme on a national level, between Karhide and Orgoreyn, in the narrative present time. Estraven, the Prime Minister, who dared to exchange the disputed land for peace, was declared a traitor and exiled. In the present legend "Estraven the Traitor" we meet an earlier version of the same occurrence but on a personal level. It ends happily: Estraven, an ancestor of our protagonist the Prime Minister, has willingly given up half the disputed land and established peace. For that he was called by some, Estraven and Traitor.

Irony.

The word "Traitor" as used by LeGuin carries double meaning. What is treachery for some is heralded as virtue by others, certainly by LeGuin. The irony is created in the no man's land between the two extreme meanings: the disgrace and the virtue, both squeezed into the same word.

Touch.

In his essay "The Other Side of Suffering: Touch as Theme and Metaphor in LeGuin's Science Fiction Novels" (found in Ursula K. LeGuin, edited by Olander and Greenberg), Thomas J. Remington maintains that touch as a union of opposites recurs throughout The Left Hand of Darkness and LeGuin's other novels. Touch awakens the sexual urge of the Gethenians, but it goes far beyond mere sexuality. In the legend of "Estraven the Traitor" touch is a metaphor for a wholeness and profound love that bridges generations-old hatred. The heirs of the feuding families touch hands and find that they match exactly "like the two hands of one man laid palm to palm." Realizing that this signifies a predestined affinity, the two enemi