Rhetorical Decisions: The Left Hand Of Darkness By Ursula K. Le Guin

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin Institution: Course: Name: Date: Rhetorical Analysis The Left Hand of Darkness is a 1969 science fiction novel by Ursula K. Le Guin. The events in the novel take place on planet Gethen characterized by its cold climate and full of androgynous beings. It presents a character Genly Ai, who has been sent to enlist two hostile countries (Karhide and Orgoreyn) of the planet Gethen and have them join the coalition of Ekumen. However, this get gets complicated due to the political differences between Karhide and Orgoreyn, and the sexual ambiguity of their people. The population of this world is hermaphroditic. The people have both male and female sexual characteristics and have the ability to play one or the other sexual role at different points in their lives. The author uses the differential political and sexual characteristics of the people to teach the audience about differential identities and acceptance of the extremes in society for a cohesive existence. The fascinating issue in the novel is the presentation of androgynous people, with capabilities of both male and female sexualities. Though it is a fictional narrative, I believe that the author was not asserting that human beings will be, or are deemed to be androgynous. In my perception, Le Guin presented her observations that we are already androgynous in the perspective of a feminist (Fayad, 1997). Instead of convincing us to behave or act in a particular way in the future, the author is provoking our consciousness to at least evaluate our existence from a different perspective (Cornell, 2001). It is a way of acknowledging and embracing various forms of ident...