I am finally getting around to reading Ursula Le Guin’s science fiction classic, The Left Hand of Darkness, a book that over the years, numerous friends and acquaintances have encouraged me to read, largely because she explores a topic that has long fascinated me — sexual difference.*
About half-way through the book, I find it at once the most brilliant work of science fiction I have ever read — and among the most frustrating. Brilliant because of Le Guin’s insights into how human sexual difference has defined our culture — the book is set on a planet where the humanoids are hermaphroditic. Frustrating because, at times, it seems less a story than a reflection on sexual difference via conversations with and character sketches of some leading figures on the Planet Gethen (also called Winter), the setting for this novel.
What really got me thinking (and there is much in this book to get one thinking) was this paragraph in the chapter on “The Question of Sex”:
Consider: There is no division of humanity into strong and weak halves, protective/protected, dominant/submissive, owner/chattel, active/passive. In fact, the whole tendency to dualism that pervades human thinking may be found to be lessened, or changed, on Winter.
Perhaps, it is serendipitous that at the moment I read this book I am watching some lectures of Joseph Campbell on DVD. That great scholar of myth is constantly talking about the images of difference which recur in mythological narratives and artwork (i.e,. the ying and the yang). Carl Jung, one of Campbell’s mentors once wrote, “there is no energy unless there is a tension of opposites“. Without sex difference, Gethenian culture would necessarily lack such tension.
LeGuin is right. This dualism does pervade human thinking. It is a theme repeated across cultures and over time.
And LeGuin is really onto something in seeing it as a defining aspect of humanity. Despite the book’s seemingly disjoined narrative, my friends were right to recommend it. It is a fascinating read and well worth your time.
—–
*(As testament to that encouragement, I recently found that I had two copies of the book on my shelves and am reasonably certain I have one in storage as well. Not to mention the used copy I first started reading in high school — until I lost it.)
What fascinates me here is the question brought on by Jung’s quote — the truth of which seems self-evident to me.
Namely: would the animal ancestors of the Gethenians, being hermaphrodites themselves, have had the energy necessary to give rise to a race of people in the first place?
Given that sexual differentiation is found even amongst the plants, I very much doubt it.
This give rise to yet another question: isn’t science fiction better when it’s set in a world one can imagine is actually possible?
Good question, Dave, but would we having this exchange if Le Guin had not articulated her ideas in a book which had generated considerable interest from sci fi (and other) aficionados?
I remember reading this book in college in a 200 level English elective (Science Fiction). Her view on dualism of humans compared to those on Gethen. There is a story hidden there, but it is the discussions on sexuality that are truly fascinating.
It opened my eyes to how we force people to define themselves by their sex. And it was taught at a Catholic College (well a Jesuit one anyway).
Keep the sexes separate…I like not having to wait to use a public restroom.
@ Nathan,
You win the thread.
(Funny story, we had fewer men’s restrooms than women’s meaning I had to walk clear across the building to use the head. (When you’re on the phones, every minute counts) I kept threating to start an ‘Equal Plumbing for Equal Work’ crusade. We got more men’s restrooms)
Since I haven’t read the book, I have no idea how Le Guin portrayed the hermaphroditism of the Gethenians — but it’s certainly not the case that sexual competition and “tension” are absent from hermaphroditic species here on Earth.
Only instead of males competing with other males for access to females, it’s more like, uh, one beta she-male competes with another beta she-male for rights to the big fat alpha she-male.
NB: Generally speaking, individuals in hermaphroditic species tend to avoid self-fertilization — instead, they pair up with another hermaphroditic individual and arrange themselves into a soixante neuf position, so that the guy parts of slug A are lined up with the lady parts of slug B, and B’s guy parts mesh with A’s lady parts. Mutual ejaculation ensues and they both get preggers.
Mind you, the “69 model” is not the only way that hermaphroditic mating occurs — in other species, an individual may play the egg-producing female during one mating season, but transform into a sperm-producing male in a subsequent season, and then back again to female.
Once again, I recommend Dr. Tatiana’s Sex Advice To All Creation (Judson, Olivia; ISBN 0-8050-6332-3) for more information than you ever wanted to know about the dirty whorish private lives of iguanas, parasitic wasps, jellyfish, slime molds, and more.
I am returning to this thread rather late, so unfortunately it is unlikely that any further discussion will occur. (I have been to busy to check back until now.)
However, I wish to comment on Throbert McGee’s reply. He has misunderstood.
By the required energy to give rise to people I did not mean anything like sexual competition and the tension it creates. I meant bodily and mental energy inherent in the organism itself.
As for hermaphroditism itself, I would always take this to mean a creature with both male and female reproductive organs, and not one that was male one season and female the next. And given that Le Guin states that Gethen’s people do not see themselves as divided into this or that half, it seems unlikely she portrayed any such arrangement.
I am returning to this thread rather late, so unfortunately it is unlikely that any further discussion will occur. (I have been to busy to check back until now.)
However, I wish to comment on Throbert McGee’s reply. He has misunderstood.
By the required energy to give rise to people I did not mean anything like sexual competition and the tension it creates. I meant bodily and mental energy inherent in the organism itself.
As for hermaphroditism itself, I would always take this to mean a creature with both male and female reproductive organs, and not one that was male one season and female the next. And given that Le Guin states that Gethen’s people do not see themselves as divided into this or that half, it seems unlikely she portrayed any such arrangement.