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.