Themes and Dichotomies in The Left Hand of Darkness

 Truth | War | Shiftgrethor | Dichotomies

---

• Truth--
• Intro-- truth vs, lying.  Paradox that the novelist tells the truth best by lying (writing fiction)
• science fiction vs. thought experiment
  
• p. 1--  "truth is a matter of imagination
• Genly Ai doesn't know waht the truth IS early on (when Estraven trie to warn him
• the difficulty of attaining it, how complicated it is

• Self/Other -- narrator confuses himself by always thinking in terms of how things are and aren't like him.
  
•  WAR-- on Gethan , there is no war.
• Need for sacrifice... blood to cement the arch.  (without the bloodbond, the arch would fall)
• Shiftgether --  face, pride, position.  Comes from the word for "shadow"
• Politics-- how they work
• The Ekumen
• Sex and Gender
• Time/ foretelling
• Comparison with Babel-17. (How do both books represent New Wave?)
• Does LeGuin use the book to express her own personal views?
• Yes,  book is in part about sex roles..thought-experiemtn to discover what is left of being human after you ake gender away..
• Language is an issue in each book (Sapr-WHorf is alluded to in each book)
• subjectivist world-view is that we create reality in our minds.  What we see and think is real IS.  Vs. Objectivist (platonic) view that there is a reality apart from us.
  
• Mind-speech in LHD --> comp to the language of B-17
• focus on pronouns...as part of what creates our worldview.  
  
• Myth --resonances.
  

---

DICHOTOMIES
 

YIN	YANG
darkness, receptiveness, fertility, the feminine,  UNCONSIOUS	light, creativity, action, maleness, EGO, SUPEREGO
Karhide (53) chaotic, anarchy, every which way, splendor elegance, personality, uniqueness more an anrachy loose confederation of states	Orgoreyn more cookie-cutter a dictatorship of law more of a modern nation state
Handarra --  more internal, looking for a state of being. very very old-- 10,000 years no priests, no church, no heirarchy, no vows, no creed believe ignorance is bliss-- openeness to experience without any preconceptions even if you knew the truth, it wouldn't help you to live that much (70- uselessness of knowing the answer to the wrong question) the only questions that can be answered are easy; the real questions (the meaning of life 42) are  too complicated	Yomesh --  has a god (Meshe) founded by Meshe-- only one who survived asking the question--what is the meaning of life Was enlightened and saw the answer Eye of Meshe sees no darkness

•