#7 = Volume 2, Part 3 = November 1975
Douglas Barbour
Wholeness and Balance: An Addendum
The Dispossessed is not only an important addition to the small shelf of
superior SF works, it is also a large and central piece in Ursula K. Le Guin's
Hainish Universe mosaic. As I pointed out in "Wholeness and Balance in the
Hainish Novels of Ursula K. Le Guin" (SFS 1:164-73), Ms. Le Guin uses a
consistently paradoxical light/dark image pattern throughout the Hainish books
plus a particular image series in each novel to render the thematic concepts of
wholeness and balance. In The Dispossessed, the most complex novel she
has yet written, her continuing philosophical commitment to the theme of
wholeness and balance is revealed once more in her imagery. Indeed, the concept
of balance enters the very structure of the novel, as chapters are balanced
between Urras and Anarres, with the first and last chapters linking the two
worlds.
In a brief note I cannot hope to do more than point out that the paradoxical
light/dark imagery is mixed in with a number of complementary local image
systems. It would require a long article to explore the inter-relatedness of
these image systems, and the complex philosophical and political explorations
they invoke. Indeed, the number of local images and the ways in which they
reinforce each other and the total conception of the novel is one sign of the
novel's complexity. For example, much is made of Shevek's "light" eyes
and Takver's "dark" voice and eyes. Together, they are the yin/yang
circle Ai points out to Estraven (LHD §19), the whole neither is separately.
Thus even the sexual-love theme of this novel contributes to Le Guin's larger
artistic statement.
One major local image—a brilliantly ambiguous one—is the wall, introduced
on the first page of the novel. It is connected to the image/idea of the prison
throughout; time after time the question of who is being locked out or
in, which side of the wall one is on, is the focus of the narrative.
Perhaps it is wrong to call it an image series, but Shevek's obsession with
number—which he images in his own mind—reflects his search for a balanced
pattern (§2). This motif includes his passionate involvement with music (§6),
and is connected to his search for a "General Temporal Theory." The
concept of Time which this book presents, often in a charged imagistic manner,
is the other major thematic presentation of balance, wholeness, the paradoxical
reconciliation of the opposites of Sequency and Simultaneity (§3). This motif
is often tied into the light/dark imagery which connects this novel to the whole
Hainish series. Moreover, when Shevek finally arrives at the General Temporal
Theory, the moment is presented in terms which recall the Tao:
"There would be no trouble at all in going on. Indeed he has already gone
on. He was there" (§9). Is he not on the Way?
The Dispossessed is politically more complex and mature than Ms Le
Guin's earlier novels; its characterization is also, on the whole, denser than
before. The use of particular image systems to render the single concept of
wholeness and balance is but one thread of a carefully woven tapestry. Other
image systems, such as the wrapping-paper/ornamentation one, contribute to other
themes in the novel. Nevertheless, it is possible to state that Ursula K. Le
Guin, while extending her art in all directions in The Dispossessed, has
continued to explore the metaphysical paradoxes which light and dark have
represented in her work from the beginning.
ABSTRACT
This brief analysis of Le Guins The Dispossessed
is intended as an extension of the analysis of light and dark imagery, wholeness and
balance, in my earlier essay "Wholeness and Balance in the Hainish Novels of Ursula
K. Le Guin" (SFS 1:164-73). It is important to add The Dispossessed to
my discussion of the earlier novels because it is not only an important addition to the
small shelf of superior SF works but also a large and central piece in the Hainish mosaic.
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