"The Left Hand of Darkness" and Gender

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that Ursula K. Le Guin's "The Left Hand of Darkness" confronts the complex philosophical issues of gender and individuality through the obligations of friendship and patriotism between two characters, who share an exhausting journey across a frozen world where loyalty and trust become the fundamental components for survival. The author points out that "The Left Hand of Darkness" is a concept that means that there cannot be light without dark; it is the balance between all things including male and female, positive and negative and opposing forces, which best represent the symbolic struggle between society and mankind within the novel. The paper concludes that this novel profoundly exhibits that men owe patriotism not to a nation or planet but to a humanity, which is built on the ideologies of trust, loyalty and truth.

From the Paper:

"This novel is set on a primitive planet named Gethen located on the outskirts of discovered space. Genly Ai is an ambassador from Human Ekumen, one of some eighty human worlds in existence at the time, that travels to Gethen to trade knowledge and create better communication between these and other foreign worlds. Gethen is a harsh cold world where snow falls everywhere and only the regions closest to the equator are habitable."

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