Blog

I thought Estraven's death was somewhat heroic. Estraven is a smart person, maybe he has thought about it before. He knew about it, knew that he had to die, had to sacrifice himself at the end of the journey. Estraven is very brave, to know he was walking into his death but did it anyways because of a noble cause. Estraven was probably the most likeable character in this book. He was proud, smart, modest and resourceful. It was a waste that he went out like that. I think Genly is very selfish and somewhat insensitive. If I have spent that long of a time with someone, I would at least find out about their personality and understand them more. Genly, however, does not understand Estraven at all. He did not think about Estraven's hardships and what Estraven has to face. Genly only worried about himself most of the time, worried about his ship, the king, his mission, but he has not once thought about Estraven. Estraven did not want Genly to worry so he didn't say anything but Genly is not a good friend. However, I think justice is served cause at the end, people still knew about Estraven's heroic deeds

Language usage

Now that I look over my paper, I don’t actually see a problem with my usage of pronouns, only the fact that I picked the sexes for the people involved. For my narrative, I picked the stereotypical choice of sex for each occupation. However, I think that we do need a universal pronoun for a guy or a girl. I speak two languages and I find that English does not have a universal pronoun like Vietnamese. People always say that English is the most commonly used language in the world, yet we don’t even have something as simple as that? I think there needs to be a change in our language, not just dictionary but also every day use. However, this will be hard because the fact that we have lived many years using this kind of language and people are hard to change. But I think we should still do it because sooner is better than later. I think that pronouns have a lot to do with our culture. It has an effect on how we view society and what we stereotype as roles for men or women. Because of our usage of language we often mistake police officers or fire fighters to be men. However, this is not the case, there are women working in many of these area. Things are starting to change. However, I disagree with the fact that the universal word should be used all the time. The universal word should only be used when the sex is not determined and ‘he’ or ‘she’ is not applicable. As for Le Guin’s usage of the pronoun he in the book, I think that she is right when using the word ‘he’. First reason is because Genly, who tells the story most of the time, lived on Earth for many years where people had different sexes. And like our society, they use ‘he’ dominantly so it would make sense that Genly would grow up and be affected by society and use ‘he’ in his speech and thinking. As for Estraven, who also tells the story, I think he should have a different word, this is true. Because there is no male or female in Gethen, so maybe he should have a different word to describe a person. However, maybe ‘he’ is the universal word in Gethen, because we have never seen them use the word ‘she’.

Estraven and Genly

I guess by now we know that they are pretty good friends now. I find the last part of ch 16 pretty interesting when they were talking about women. Genly said that the most important aspect of life is what sex you were born into. That's interesting, and I think it is true. Society has very different expectations and opinions about men and women. From the moment we were born, we were affected by society and our environment and change. Our parents raised us the way they thought a boy or a girl should be raised. Do I think men and women will truely be equal? no. Do I think people will gradually grow to be more equal? yes. The way that society thinks about men and women will change little by little up to a certain point. Another point I want to make is what is wrong with Genly. He hasn't seen or talked or been with a woman in years, including his time jumps, assuming that all of the other members on the ship were frozen before the trip. Yet, he does not feel lonely or anything. How does Estraven think getting into Karhide would help Genly, with Tibe at the side of the king, wouldn't he try to silence Genly too, to keep his power? From what I could see, Tibe has much more risk than the Sarf in Orgoreyn. With Tibe, he has to answer to the King. If the king changed his mind, Tibe cannot do anything, while the Sarf has absolute power, and nothing can stop them from harming Genly, so the Sarf is a little more relaxed about matters regarding Genly. If I was Tibe, however, I would fear that Genly could persuade the king and it could be very disasterous for Tibe. If I was Tibe, I would kill Genly right away, to protect myself, for the longer Genly lives in Karhide, the higher the chance for an alliance and the higher the risk for Tibe

Who knows what they think?

Why does Estraven think the way he does? I mean, from what we have seen, a lot of the Gethenians are very simple, like the mad king who just wants to keep the status quo and wants to remain in power, and fear anything that might threaten his place. Then we have Tibe, who is just a power hungry politician. We also have a lot of the Orgoreyn officials, like Obsle, who are just afraid for their own lives and position and would do anything to save themselves. These characters, as we can see are simple, and they always show what they are thinking and their actions say it all. However, we have Estraven, who is a complex character. Estraven is always very secretive and subtle about everything that he does. He never shows anyone his true motives. Also, his way of communicating with others just seem out of place. If most Gethenians are just like the other ones, then where does Estraven get the idea that his way of communicating was clear. He said that he was being very clear with Genly the time in the palace, but compare to other Gethenians, he is a closed book. Also, I just realized something about Genly. In the book, we always see him so careless about other people's actions and so naive and trusting. I even thought of him as stupid. As I read along, I see that Genly does not fear death, however. He has been in a lot of dangerous positions and situations but he has never thought of death. Like when he was facing the king, or when he was in that burnt village, or when he is at the prison. He came very close to facing death but he never thought about dying or never fears it. I think he actually wants to die, because Genly knows that if his mission does not succeed, he will have to do time jumps again for the next generation. Maybe he doesn't want to live longer than other people. Maybe he doesn't want to time jump, so he just wants to die. He knows how lonely it is in space now, so maybe he does not want to go back to space, so he is probing Gethen at every place, not caring if he died or not. Estraven just plots way too much and he is out of place in his own world and Genly just seems too indifferent, how could these two work together to bring up an alliance?

Genly and Estraven

Genly is an envoy, I would think that he should know about these people inside out. He is the only one who has to deal with negotiations and stuff ( apart from the other people on the mothership, since they aren't doing much) so I would think that he is very good at diplomacy and persuasion. Why does Genly seem so naive to me? He never realizes anything is going down until half way through, like when he was having lunch with people from Orgoreyn, he didn't realize they were mocking him, trying to prove he was a hoax until half way through lunch. He should have always assumed that these people are onto him, assumed that they are hostile against him because he came from the unknown. Genly does not suspect anything beforehand, which is what happened with Estraven, he didn't suspect Estraven until Estraven betrayed him. Seems to me Genly is a happy-go-lucky kind of guy, or maybe he just hasn't received much training for the job. Maybe the Eukumen really does not care about having such an underdeveloped world in the alliance because they would only be a burden, that's why they only sent one person. Also, when Genly was talking about the other Envoys to other worlds, way back in the first few chapters, how they were captured or killed, but then he said there were investigators coming to Gethen before he came, so what happened to the investigators on those other worlds? Were there none? or were they killed or captured too?

Question Paper

Question Paper
When reading the book “Left hand of Darkness”, I was very intrigued by the fictional physiology of the Gethens, or the technology of the Eukumen. Nonetheless, I found the story to have little character development so far. The characters throughout the stories are very different from each other and they have their own motives, past, and feelings. We have yet to see much though. The first question I want to say is: What are the motives of all the characters in the book? So far, I found Genly and Estraven the most interesting. To me, I feel like Genly’s motives are nonexistent, or at least, his real motives for finishing the job is not based on this “alliance” and “education” and “communication” that he thinks could be achieved if Gethen entered Eukumen. I think that Genly does not care what happens to this world called Gethen, he only wants to return home sooner. Genly is alone on a distant planet with no loved ones around him, the others around him are all alien to him, literally and figuratively. They don’t understand how he feels or the way that he acts and he does not understand them either. He probably dreads those long time jumps that make him travel forward in time. We know that he has been alone for at least seventeen years he has spent time jumping. It made me wonder what could have happened in his past to make him sign up for this job. Did he not have any loved ones or anything to live for in his home world? Or maybe something traumatic happened to him and he felt wrong living in his home world. I have two guesses. My first is that someone he loved died and he could not take the pain. He felt the need to isolate himself from society and he chose to be an envoy. My second is that when he grew up, he realized the humans in his home world were cruel and evil people. He felt rejected and disgusted from such a society and decided to leave, to travel somewhere else, where he would not have to live in such a society. This would explain his reasons for leaving, also, it would explain why he did not trust Estraven in the first place. Because he could not trust anyone back at home, he is less likely to trust a stranger in a new land. Yes, I believe only this way could Genly isolate himself years from any civilization.
As for Estraven, I’m still wondering about his motives also. His past is somewhat clear to us now. He was in his second kemmer, unofficially, when his kemmering partner left him for three years. Maybe what happened in his first kemmer was that his partner died. All I can understand about Estraven at the moment is that he was deeply hurt and betrayed. This could somewhat explain his actions at the capital. Since he is betrayed, he does not trust anyone else in the world. He doesn’t trust Genly, but tried to use him anyways. As for the king, Estraven tried to control him, because he felt the need for power to fill the void that his partner has left. To Estraven, power was probably the only thing keeping him together. However, what I wonder about is Estraven’s motives towards telling the King not to see Genly, at the same time contradicts himself by telling the King to join an Alliance. For this, I have two guesses also. The first is that Estraven was a good person, and he wanted the King to accept the idea of an alliance before letting Genly meets him. By doing so, he could avoid any dangers for Genly if the King violently resisted the idea. Maybe he also believes that he could be a better talker, and he could sway the King better than Genly. My second guess is Estraven is actually a bad person, a traitor to the king. There could have been another alliance which the Eukumen did not know about, and Estraven is somehow involved with the other alliance. Maybe he wanted to push the King to join the other Alliance instead of the Eukumen. Also, it could be that he knows the King is stubborn and he wants the King to make a decision so that his home world would not be caught in a war between the worlds of the universe.
This book is certainly interesting. I hope that the author will answer my questions and possible situations later in the book.

Randomness

I thought this whole story is pretty interesting. The first thing I want to say is about the parralellism. I like how they made a parallel of the past and the present, and through the stories of the past, you could kind of see more insight into the lives of the Gethenians. Genly said they don't believe in wars, yet they have a word for everything but the word war. If there was no war, it would mean there was no revolution? no overthrowing of the king or any such events? If there weren't any such events, why would Estraven be considered a traitor to his country. After all, he was not fighting against the king's power and authority, he only adviced the king. Also, why did Estraven do what he did? Why did he tell the king not to see Genly but on the other hand asked the king about joining an alliance. The king is a coward. He listens to other people's opinions and are bent on the wills of others, like Estraven and the newly appointed minister(?). He does not have a mind of his own, he was a puppet. He was also afraid of Genly, what king would be afraid of a man entering his country, alone offering peace and alliance? Also another point, I think Genly really does not care if Gethen becomes part of Eukumen, he is only doing his job. He dreaded the fact that he has to do time jumps and come back here. He does not care about this whole alliance, he is only trying to finish his job and return to his family and friends. Afterall, Genly's past has been hidden from us. What person, in their right mind, would want to grow up and isolate themselves, spending years in space alone. I hope we get into a litte more insight into Genly's life.