Blog post 3/25

In the book “left hand of darkness” I don’t really understand why Ursula Le Guin says her book was not a feminist book. “Left hand of darkness” has many aspects in which gender was a major point of discussion. Since from the beginning of the book most of the time the readers are understanding the book by the view of the narrator, Genly Ai . As Genly progresses in the book, some of his thoughts were focus on the relationship between gender and the gethenians way of kemmering. In addition Le Guin keep using the male pronoun “he” for the gethenians. Is she trying to display to the readers how females are underrepresented during her generation? Also the invention of the Kemmering cycle could be a feminist generated idea, since females maybe underrepresented during Le Guin’s time, the idea of being able to change gender maybe tempting to some females. In the book “left hand of darkness”, another feminist display was when the king of Ehrenreng got pregnant, Le Guin maybe showing the reader that even a person in a female state could say in high command such as a “king”.

blog post 3/18

On p.245, the mentioning and the use of the female identification term “her” was used by Gently. Did the cold weather and mental fatigue finally cause the narrator to lose his mind? Or was the term “her “purposely given to the sledge due to the reason that it has help add relief on his journey through the icy terrain? In addition is it possible “her” was a reference to Gently’s traveling partner, Estraven? Since Estraven was in kemmer at the time and had taken up the female Getheriean form. Also was Gently practicing an old tradition of naming items people may love or treasure? In today’s world many people give names to their boats and airplanes due to the reason they enjoy them. Could another reason for Gently’s mentioning of “her” be a desire to be with a women? Since Mr. Ai has yet to meet a woman from his world for many years, he might be suffering from loneness and that the out burst of “her” may have been a long hidden desire.

Blog Post 3/9

Is it possible that the Gethenians were once related to the Terrens? Both species have a similar concept of government, the government of a monarchy. The Terrens once had monarchy as one form of ruling governing body and the Gethenian are running on a current monarchy type of government. In addition weaponry was also similar; there was a past reference in the early chapters of “The Left Hand of Darkness”, where the mentioning of ballistic type guns in the Gethenian society once existed. The close similarity of transportation were also present, both societies have boats and cars at their disposal. Another similarity was the set value on gems, like rubies. On a psychological note both Gethenian and Terren seems to value shiny and hard to find objects. Even the plant that the Gethenian live on is very similar to the plant Earth in which the Terrens are from. A few people in today’s world know that Earth is considered an ice world, and that the current warm climate today is possible due to the warm phase between ice ages that last can thousands to millions of years. Another known similarity includes the drink that some Terren’s favor very much, this drink is beer, in the book Gently came across a few events in which the liquid was consumed.

Blog post 3/2

In the book “Left Hand of Darkness” the narrator lacks a major purpose in trying to ask the Gethenians to join the alliance of planets. The Gethenians don’t seem to have anything beneficial to offer to the Terren. The planet “Winter” is in the heart of an ice age. Which means the planet would not have the potential of being an agricultural world. In addition the Gethenians are separated within their own society, not all of them will follow the rule of king Argaven. The narrator even got first hand evidence on how this society maybe unstable, when Prime Minster Estraven expressed his opinion on how the king was unfit to rule. In return the kings label the prime minister as a traitor. This internal conflict within the governing body shows that the Gethenians are not in a well developed society. The Gethenian also live in the world of the old. They seem to lack progress motive. Their society runs on an old style of government which revolves around a king. Also another example of their old way of thinking is the electric car evidence. The Gethenians let their cars stay on the speed of 25 mph and don’t want to change their way of running things even after seventeen centuries of using the same method of transportation.