In her novel “The Left Hand of Darkness“, does Ursula K. LE Guin succeed in depicting a completely non-gendered society?:...

ISBN-10: 3640261321
ISBN-13: 9783640261321
Category: Literary Collections
Pages: 20
Language: English
Published: 2009-02-04
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
Author: Melanie Walser

Description

Seminar paper from the year 2007 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 1,5, Free University of Berlin (John F. Kennedy-Institut für Nordamerikastudien), course: The Literature of the Sixties, 11 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: This paper will go into certain aspects of feminist criticisms of Ursula K. Le Guin’s 1969 science fiction novel “The Left Hand of Darkness“, discuss their justification question, and further examine the consistency of Le Guin’s description of the genderless society of Gethen. The Left Hand of Darkness tells the story of Genly Ai, an envoy from Earth (“Terra”), sent by the “Ekumen”, a union of inhabited planets, to planet Gethen in order to convince the planet’s inhabitants to join an interstellar alliance. Throughout the novel Le Guin explores Genly Ai’s difficulties to understand and become part of society on Gethen, which are mainly due to the fact that all the inhabitants are ambisexual; they only take on a biological gender once a month, in a short period of sexual activity. Each individual has the capacity to become either a man or a woman, and their sex can differ from one month to the other. The Left Hand of Darkness has played an essential role in the history of science fiction. Since Science Fiction was a largely male dominated field of literature in the 1960s, both in its authors and its protagonists, Le Guin’s novel was pathbreaking in many ways. It has attracted a lot of attention for its unusual focus on social science and human relationships as opposed to natural science and technology and for its attempt to show a society of complete equals. However, Le Guins thought-experiment about a genderless or gender-ambiguous society has frequently been subject to harsh criticism by feminist critics, who hold that she has not succeeded to create a credible picture of this society. They claim the gender situation throughout the book to be inconsistent. According to these critics, instead of depicting a society without any gender roles, Le Guin describes a purely male world, and fails to make the reader see the Gethenians as women as well as men. This paper discusses the validity of these criticisms.

Get the book

Similar books

A Concordance to Conrad's Victory
By Todd K. Bender, James W. Parins, Robert J. Dilligan
ossession:-amā'the “oise: , ś head'ail but lying under her as deadly, ... seemed to undes stand, exactly how to deal with conceited death 's head.
Understanding Ingeborg Bachmann: Understanding Modern European and Latin American Literature
By Karen Achberger
Similarly , Nadja in " Word for Word " is reluctant to call Mr. Frankel by his first name , Ludwig , an act which would signal an acceptance of his appropriateness for her , since Ludwig — like Robert , Ernst , Fritz , Erich , Franz ...
Bluegrass Cavalcade
By Thomas D. Clark
Ellen went to Mrs. Donahue's house for help and Pius was soon hurrying to St. Lucy to telephone for a doctor. When Pius returned he brought the Carriers who remained all night. Bill and Pius helped the doctor set the bone and bind in ...
Anime Wong: Fictions of Performance
By Karen Tei Yamashita
The mother was on Donahue. 60 Minutes did the doc and they'll repeat the news at ten. People dying, people killing, people crying— you can see it all on TV. Reality is really on TV. It's just another way to see— starvation in North ...
Byron: The Erotic Liberal
By Jonathan David Gross
Philip P. Wiener . New York : Charles Scribner's Sons , 1973 . Plato . Plato : The Symposium . Trans . and ed . Alexander Nehemas and Paul Woodruff . Indianapolis : Hackett Publishing Company , 1989 . Plummer , Kenneth , ed .
Evening Street Review Number 5
By AMANDA ADAMS, ANDREA BATES, CYNTHIA BELMONT
When the credits started to roll and Carmen, needing her meds and cigarettes, handed Ryan her car keys, Mary Ellen stared in disbelief. “She's giving him her keys!” she thought, eyeing Pepe, trying to catch his attention because he knew ...
The Science of Herself
By Karen Joy Fowler
Here she debuts a provocative new story written especially for this series.
The Lonely Planet Travel Anthology
By Karen Joy Fowler, Alexander McCall Smith, Francine Prose
We make our way slowly into the assembly hall, where 26 identical pillars cut from one rock line the sides. A fat stupa cut of the same rock stands at the innermost part of the hall; 20 feet high, it's shaped like an overturned bowl ...
Ancient Israelite Literature in Its Cultural Context: A Survey of Parallels Between Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Texts
By John H. Walton
... 126 , 134 174 , 203 , 211 , 212 , 216 Theodorides , Aristide , 93 Wiseman , D. J. , 50 , 51 , 67 , Thomas , D. Winton , 170 , 84 , 85 , 89 , 93 , 170 , 200 171 , 200 Thompson , R. Campbell , Wolf , Herbert , 126 22 , 47 , 113 Wright ...
Selected Letters: Nicholas Hagger's Letters on His 55 Literary and Universalist Works
By Nicholas Hagger
Everyone seems to have got something out of the speeches, the Metaphysical Revolution was declared, and Shelley's wind is now scattering “sparks, my words among mankind” (the passage Kathleen Raine quoted). We now hope it translates ...