“Ainsetain of Terra” is of course Einstein of Earth. Humans are “aliens,” as are the Hainish. Le Guin has written several novels set among the Hainish, who are ultimately the ancestors of all these races. Though it is not necessary to know those novels to understand The Dispossessed, it is important to understand that Urras is not a clone of Earth. As we shall see, it is neither so scrupulously maintained as Anarres nor so exploited as Earth.
How do Shevek’s memories about Mitis and his education contrast with the following conversation about the women Shevek had met at the party the previous night? Pae is a “moderate” on the issue of education for women. What is his position? What else is being said about gender in this passage? What is Shevek’s reaction to Oiie’s comment that he comes as an emissary of his society? How does the PDC function on Anarres? What pleasant surprises does Shevek experience?
As is revealed in Chapter 11, the Earth people call Anarresti and Urrasti “Cetians” because their planets orbit the prominent star Tau Ceti, eleven light-years from Earth.
What does Shevek’s comment, “Perhaps our woes are inescapable,” imply about the society he comes from? Thu is a sort of Stalinist, communist state as described by Pae. Benbili corresponds more or less to the underdeveloped world of Earth. Study the paragraph beginning “Traveling by car or train.” What messages is Le Guin conveying here? Is desire for profit the only natural human motive for work? How do the newspapers manage to censor Shevek despite their favorable reporting on his speech?
To understand the issues involved in Shevek’s research, one must know some basic physics. Relativity theory tells us that no object can travel faster than the speed of light. In fact, as one approaches the speed of light, time seems to pass more slowly relative to one’s starting point. Thus, a voyager from Earth taking a ten-year journey at near-light speeds would (depending on the speed of travel) come home again to find that many more years had passed on Earth, obliterating everyone who ever cared about the voyager’s expedition. Yet few stars are as close to Earth as ten light-years (the distance light travels in ten years).
These facts make distant interstellar travel, trade, and warfare seemingly quite impractical and virtually pointless: a depressing conclusion that is usually dealt with in science fiction either by ignoring it or coming up with various pseudo-scientific concepts such as “space warps” and magic “faster than light” drives. Le Guin suggests that our inability to conceive of faster-than-light travel is a limitation of human science which might be overcome by a combination of elements from the Hainish, Earth humans, and the Anarresti and the Urrasti. “Sequency” refers to what physicists sometimes call “time’s arrow”: the fact that time moves in only one direction, one event after another.
“Simultaneity” implies that time can be viewed differently, as is explained by Shevek at the party scene in Chapter 7. Le Guin’s proposal is no more scientific than the magic dilithium crystals which power the Enterprise; but it makes a striking metaphor for the synergy which can result from cooperation among different peoples.
What message does the Fort in Drio convey to Shevek? Note that the chapter ends with the Odonian symbol of empty hands.
Chapter 4
In what way is Anarres a colony? What motivates Anarresti to take on defense duty? Why did Odo advocate decentralization? What fact made it difficult for her to implement her anarchist philosophy?
The clustering of similar businesses together in neighborhoods is very characteristic of pre-industrial cities, as are other features of Abbenay. What energy sources are used in Abbenay?
What is implied by the open-fronted shops, the unlocked doors? Electric trolleys like those described in this chapter used to provide inexpensive and relatively unpolluting transportation in almost every town until the automobile took over. Many environmentalists still consider light rail a superior form of transportation. One perhaps paranoid theory (illustrated in Who Killed Roger Rabbit?) has it that the automobile manufacturers and petroleum companies conspired to destroy the old trolleys.
What does the scene in which Shevek encounters the statue of Odo convey? How does Sabul exploit Shevek? What does the discussion of living/sleeping arrangements tell us about Odonian society? How much freedom is available? How much privacy? What do Shevek’s problems with Sabul tell us about the limits/problems of Odonian scientific research? What does Shevek’s meeting with Rulag tell us about Odonian family life and gender roles?
Chapter 5
What are the good and bad points of Shevek’s students? How do they react to his decision not to give grades? What does Shevek’s reply to their complaints mean? It may seem bizarre that students are not allowed to marry, but this was a common rule in colleges on our planet not so long ago. In fact, by allowing professors to marry, Urras is being more liberal than nineteenth-century England or America.
Shevek is shocked by the price of the fur coat in the window. Why? But the high price of this coat is also a sign of what good aspect of Ioti society? One of the classic criticisms that socialists make of capitalist society is the “alienation” that it causes in the workers, the product of whose labor is separated from them, unlike the old guild system in which the craftsman was also the dealer. Judging by Shevek’s reaction to Ioti stores, how would the Odonians seem to have overcome this problem? When the communist Chifoilisk from Thu tries to get Shevek to think of him as an ally, what is Shevek’s reaction? Why does he claim that the Odonians are not idealists? Is this an altogether negative observation? Explain. What are his criticisms of Thuvian socialism? Odo’s saying that where there’s property there’s theft strongly resembles the classic saying by the socialist Proudhon, “Property is theft.” Can you distinguish between the two?
What is the significance of the fact that Oiie’s children are the first to ask Shevek to describe Anarres? Explain and evaluate the Anarresti system for getting dangerous, hard jobs done and their method of controlling uncooperative behavior. The wall symbol returns at the end of this chapter, in Shevek’s dream. How is it used here?
Chapter 6
Why is Desar’s hoarding of goods irrational? What attitudes characterize the Odononian approach to the arts? How are they different from the dominant attitudes in our culture? When Bedap mentions the conversation about suicide and suffering, he lets us know that the tall woman was Takver, Shevek’s wife-to-be. What function does the symbol of the wall perform in Bedap’s talk with Shevek? What is Bedap’s theory of how ideas are crushed in Odonian society? What does he think the basic problems are? What is Shevek’s answer? (Hint: it is the same answer that used to be given to justify the repressive government of the U.S.S.R.)
Note that throughout his childhood and youth, Shevek is mostly a very traditional Odonian, shocked when others attack the system. Although he will become a rebel, he does so reluctantly. What effect does this pattern have on the novel? Does it make more credible his renewed appreciation of Odonianism when he is on Urras? Why is it blasphemy that kids are memorizing Odo’s words? How does Tirin’s punishment (which is strongly reminiscent of the Chinese Cultural Revolution) illustrate what has gone wrong on Anarres? Are these flaws inevitable, do you think? What does it tell us about Anarresti culture that Shevek can pair with Bedap for a while even though he is “pretty definitely heterosexual?”
How do Salas’s difficulties in music parallel the problems Tirin talked about earlier? Describe Shevek’s second encounter with Takver: How is it different from the typical encounter of lovers in fiction? The relationship between Takver and Shevek has come under heavy criticism from some quarters. Can you see why? Note that there is no wedding. Anarchists generally reject the idea that the state should play any role in formalizing relationships. How does Shevek view Takver’s relationship with nature? In the scene of the couple lying out under the moon we are reminded of the fine fur that covers the skin of these people.
Chapter 7
Note the recurrence of the wall symbol at the top of the second page of this chapt
er. What does it stand for here? To what sort of familiar Earth event does the uprising in Benbili and A-Io’s response to it correspond? What does Shevek hear the birds singing on campus? What does Shevek learn about sex and gender on Urras in his relationship with Vea? Why does Vea think the Odonians have no morality? Why does she prefer a fixed morality? What does Shevek say is the characteristic that allows the strongest to survive? Can you make arguments for or against this proposition? Explain the meaning of Shevek’s statement “To break a promise is to deny the reality of the past; therefore it is to deny the hope of a real future.”
What does Shevek’s long answer to Vea’s question about what Anarres is really like tell us about his current feelings concerning the two planets? Note the recurrence of the wall image at the end of this speech. Why does the sexual encounter between Shevek and Vea go so badly?
At the end of the chapter Pae discusses the danger of an uprising, and mentions the possibility of a general strike. This was the chief revolutionary weapon advocated by syndicalists. Although most were not pacifists, they thought an armed revolution unlikely to succeed. The idea was to organize the majority of the population into labor unions which would then simultaneously agree to go on strike, essentially bringing the country to a halt, until the government was forced to step down. There have been a few notable general strikes in history, some of them fairly successful.
Chapter 8
Why does Takver have such trouble understanding the concept of hell? Shevek’s difficulties in getting his work published are a reminder of the old saying that the press is free for anyone who owns one. The perpetual excuse of the Soviet government for not printing unorthodox ideas—a shortage of paper—is alluded to as well.
One of the major agenda items of the women’s movement in the seventies was childbirth reform: including less use of drugs (indeed an end to treating childbirth as a medical emergency rather than as a natural event), labor in the more efficient sitting posture, an end to the practice of whisking the newborn off to a nursery instead of letting it bond with its mother first, and the use of midwives instead of doctors for normal childbirths. All of these points and some others are illustrated in this childbirth scene, which was utopian at the time it was written but fairly commonplace now.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of seeing monogamy as a purely voluntary, private institution without any institutionalization? Does Le Guin imply that monogamy is superior to other forms of relationships? What are the normal penalties for rape? Divlab’s willingness to separate couples for reasons of work will remind some of Chinese government policies; but couples in our own culture are often separated for work reasons. Is the Anarresti system more like the Chinese or like ours?
In a capitalist depression, many people are without work at all while those still working must labor extremely hard to survive. What is the Odonian alternative to this pattern? Why are most telephone calls on Anarres long distance? The episode of the drought is meant to convey how this society deals with such a crisis. Be careful that your concern over Takver’s and Shevek’s separation does not obscure everything else that is going on here. How are they motivated in making the decisions they do? What works well during this crisis? What works badly? Why is Pravic not a good swearing language? What weakness in the student-centered education system is revealed by Shipeg’s career?
Chapter 9
Why does Shevek say the bread he has eaten on Urras has betrayed him? The ansible, which allows instantaneous communication (in some mysterious way evading the Einsteinian light-speed limit), is a feature of many of Le Guin’s stories. It is characteristic of her socially-oriented SF that interstellar communication should be more important than transportation. Note that Terrans are thought of by Shevek as “jealous wall builders.”
The search for a unified field theory discussed here has still been unsuccessful, though advances have been made since Einstein’s time. The wall metaphor recurs in the paragraph beginning “He had been groping and grabbing after certainty” and again on the next page in the paragraph beginning “After a while he got up shakily…” What does Efor tell Shevek that helps motivate him to break out of the university grounds and contact the rebels? What is the essence of the argument between Tuio Maedda and “the girl” over the use of force? What does Shevek mean by telling the crowd, “You cannot make the Revolution. You can only be the Revolution”? Describe the two views of proper military organization argued by Atro and Shevek.
Chapter 10
In what way are the remarks about men and women made by the driver to Shevek in the paragraph beginning “By damn, I agree with that!” rather traditional? When Shevek sees Sadik again he notes her furry face. When Sadik says, “You can share the handkerchief I use,” she is uttering for the first time a line which Shevek remembered in an earlier chapter. How are the attractiveness of youth and sexual desire linked in the Shevek/Takver relationship?
How long is an emergency long work shift? How does Tirin’s play answer the common objection that a communist/anarchist society would inevitably fail because the rich will always be able to buy property and power? Explain Shevek’s diagnosis of what went wrong with Tirin in the paragraph beginning, “Well, this.” What do you think of Takver’s arguments about the relationship between pregnancy and ethics? They recall distinctly a similar argument made by one of Shevek’s childhood friends in Chapter 2. Explain this statement: “That the Odonian society on Anarres had fallen short of the ideal did not, in his eyes, lessen his responsibility to it; just the contrary” (hint: the explanation is in the following lines).
Chapter 11
Note that Shevek notices that Ambassador Keng has a hairless face and that he feels hairy next to her. His reaction to her features as being childlike and rounded suggests that the Urrasti and Anarresti have more angular features. What does the Earth ambassador’s reaction to Urras tell us about conditions on Earth? What does it mean that she thinks Urras is Paradise while Shevek thinks it is Hell? Note how carefully Le Guin has avoided a bipolar value system throughout this novel, creating a spectrum of social arrangements with none perfectly good or perfectly evil.
Chapter 12
This chapter is set just before the events of Chapter 1, bringing us full circle. Analyze the argument against parliamentary procedures given in the third paragraph. This preference for process over results stems directly from anti-hierarchical strains in ’60s political movements. Note how Rulag is reintroduced into the story with no reference to the fact that she was Shevek’s mother. Why? What role does she play here?
“No vote was taken, as usual.” What grounds might anarchists have for arguing against voting? What do you think of Odo’s message on deserving as quoted by Trepil? The essence of the anarchist ideal lies in the speech of Bedap in the paragraph “Of course not.” What does it tell us about how an anarchist society can exist?
It is revealed in the final lines that Shevek had not intended at first to go to Urras. Throughout the novel he has been backed by circumstances and experiences from one position to another, often in directions he had not intended to go. This makes him strikingly different from the classic enterprising SF hero who always knows exactly what he wants and goes right after it.
Chapter 13
Note the recurrence of the wall image in this chapter. Why do you think Le Guin chose to end the novel in the fashion she does? What advantages are there in not resolving everything?
Paul Brians is Professor of English at Washington State University, Pullman. This study guide also appears at http://www.wsu.edu/∼brians/science_fiction/dispossessed.html. More study guides are available at Professor Brians’s website: http://www.wsu.edu/∼brians/index.html.
About the Author
Ursula K. Le Guin is the author of more a 100 short stories, 2 collections of essays, 4 volumes of poetry, and 18 novels. Her best known fantasy works, the Books of Earthsea, have sold millions of copies in America and England, and have been translated into sixteen languages. He
r first major work of science fiction, The Left Hand of Darkness, is considered epoch-making in the field of its radical investigation of gender roles and its moral and literary complexity.
Three of Le Guin’s books have been finalists for American Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize and among the many honors her writing has received are a National Book Award, five Hugo Awards, five Nebula Awards, the Kafka Award, a Pushcart Prize, and the Howard Vursell Award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She lives in Portland, Oregon.
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NOVELS AND STORY COLLECTIONS BY URSULA K. LE GUIN
NOVELS
Always Coming Home
The Beginning Place
City of Illusion
The Dispossessed
The Eye of the Heron
The Farthest Shore
The Lathe of Heaven
The Left Hand of Darkness
Malafrena
The Other Wind
Planet of Exile
Rocannon’s World
Tehanu
The Telling
The Tombs of Atuan
Very Far Away from Anywhere Else
A Wizard of Earthsea
The Word for World is Forest
STORY COLLECTIONS
Buffalo Gals
The Compass Rose
A Fisherman of the Inland Sea
Four Ways to Forgiveness
Orsinian Tales
Searoad
Tales from Earthsea
Unlocking the Air
The Wind’s Twelve Quarters
Credits
Cover illustration by Danilo Ducak
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.
The Dispossessed Page 39
