The Left Hand of Darkness

First edition, Ace Paperback

An early hardback cover

A popular paperback cover

The Left Hand of Darkness is a 1969 novel by Ursula K. Le Guin. Its treatment of the gender-changing Gethenians was one of the first serious science fictional explorations of how gender roles are or are not associated with physical sex and how both can be different from accepted norms.

On Gethen (aka "Winter"), the human race was biologically altered to be unisexual. Reproduction is accomplished by the people going through a stage called kemmer in which either the male or female sexual hormones are activated in response to the person's companion.

Gender

In 1969 critics hailed The Left Hand of Darkness for its feminist themes and mythic storytelling. In the book, Le Guin conducts "a thought experiment" on the effects of gender (or lack of it) on society by exploring the implications of an androgynous race. In those early days of the feminist movement, she was forcing people to examine the roles of men and women in society. Le Guin wasn't sure she could sell the book or the idea. She thought men might feel figuratively castrated by the androgynous characters. Yet it became the best known and most honored of her works, winning a Nebula, a Hugo and a James Tiptree Jr. Retrospective Award.

Le Guin admits that in her earlier works she "wrote like an honorary man." She was initially cautious in her feminism. Even in "The Left Hand of Darkness," she still used "he" for the androgynous characters and rarely showed them in feminine roles. She told me that she regrets having allowed her characters only heterosexual relationships. But she feels she wrote the best book she could given the times. Le Guin credits reading The Norton Book of Literature by Women and her literary inspiration, Virginia Woolf, for allowing her to write like a woman and to feel liberated in doing so.

Opinions vary on how successfully Le Guin removed gender from this story. Despite the criticisms mentioned above, the novel does show some Gethenians in traditional "women's" roles, including a well-meaning and slightly nosy "landlady," who muses on "her" experience raising children. Nonetheless, if we choose to interpret adventure, diplomacy, imprisonment, and endurance as "male," the point that the characters engage in mostly "male" activities" has some merit. In a later edition Le Guin included a preface with alternate versions of the first section, one featuring the female pronoun as default and the other featuring a neutral pronoun.

Story

Genly Ai, envoy of the Ekumen, travels to Gethen to live as an envoy, encouraging the Gethenians to join the Ekumen's loose confederation of cultures. He goes first to Karhide, one of the two major countries on Gethen. Karhide is ruled by Argaven, a temperamental king, who is simultaneously threatened and attracted by the Ekumen's offerings. While living in Karhide, Ai travels around the countryside, including a visit to a colony of mystics and fortune tellers. Ai asks the diviners a question: "Will Gethen join the Ekumen," and after a complex and intense ceremony, receives the unambiguous answer "Yes."

Eventually, Argaven takes against Ai and the Ekumen, and exiles Ai from his country. Ai travels to Orgoreyn, the other large country. There, he re-meets Therem Harth rem ir Estraven, an Orgoreyn official whom Ai came to distrust during his time in Karhide. Orgoreyn is a far more bureaucratic and less feudal land than Karhide, but no less dangerous to an envoy from the gendered world. Eventually, Ai is seized and imprisoned. He is close to death, partly from harsh treatment and partly simply from his different biology and metabolism, when Estraven rescues him. The two of them embark on a grueling and dangerous journey across the Gethenian icecaps. During this journey, Ai teaches Estraven "mindspeech," the telepathic skill of the Ekumen, and the two characters become extremely close. They weather storms, both literal and emotional, manage the treacherous footing of the ice, and are within sight of their goal when Estraven is shot and killed. Ai makes connection with Estraven's family, and eventually returns to Earth.

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Awards

The book won the Nebula and Hugo Awards as well as a Retrospective Tiptree Award. Gwyneth Jones selected it as the first entry in her Top Ten Science Fiction Books by Women in 2003.

Significant editions, translations, adaptations

• 1969 Ace Science Fiction Special, edited by Terry Carr. cover art by Leo and Diane Dillon
• 1970 Walker first hardcover edition
• 1980 Harper & Row
• The Left Hand of Darkness (Lifeline Theatre) (1995 adaptation for stage)

See

• The Left Hand of Darkness - Editions and Translations
• The Art of The Left Hand of Darkness

Further reading

• FeministSF Book Discussion Group (May 2004)
• "Is Gender Necessary?" - 1976 essay by Ursula K. Le Guin (TLHOD is not feminist)
• "Is Gender Necessary? Redux" - 1987 essay by Ursula K. Le Guin (TLHOD did have significant gender issues; her earlier essay's denial of its feminism was a response to critics' focus on the gender aspects over and above other aspects of TLHOD)
• "The Fisherman's Daughter" - 1988 essay by Ursula K. Le Guin (critics were right about use of sexist language / imagery)
• Derek de Solla Price, The New Republic
• Lynn Alexander, Study Guide for The Left Hand of Darkness
• William Warner, Study Guide for Ursula Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness (April 2, 2002)
• Rebecca Rass (Pace University), Study Guide for The Left Hand of Darkness
• Rejection letter - a 1968 rejection letter received by Virginia Kidd on behalf of her submission for publication of Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness

Other Gethenian fiction by Le Guin

• "Winter's King" (short story). Written prior to TLHOD an then revised for The Wind's Twelve Quarters (1975) to change genders.