- I -

摘

要

厄秀拉·勒·魁恩是美国当代杰出的女作家，有“女性主义科幻小说女王”的

美称。她经常把科幻小说与后现代主义小说结合，常常利用科幻小说的写作素材来

探讨人类的生存状态问题。对女性问题的关注使她成了与弗吉尼亚·沃尔夫并驾齐

驱的“女祖先”

[1]

，她更是为科幻小说的发展做出了伟大贡献的“女领袖”。勒·魁

恩创作的作品文体形式多样，不仅有科幻和传奇，还有诗歌﹑散文﹑儿童文学,评论

和翻译等。作品的内容涉及广泛，她对道教主义﹑无政府主义﹑女性主义﹑社会心

理学等方面都有研究 。很多年来，由于突出的成就，人们给她很多头衔如小说家﹑

激进女性主义者﹑道教主义者和无政府主义者。勒·魁恩对中国道教情有独钟，十

四岁开始读《道德经》，研究了四十年之久，比对不同译本，并于1997年亲自翻译

了道德经。道家思想蕴含在她的大部分小说中。其中《一无所有》和《黑暗的左手》

是她的两部最好的作品，并都曾获科幻小说的最高奖项--雨果奖和纳布拉奖 。勒·魁

恩在这两部作品中展现了很多道家的元素。正如南茜.布兰迪斯评述的,她的故事里

讲述了英雄们在磨练中不断成熟和心里上渐渐成长的过程，她的主题思想追求的是

平衡和完整。

作为女性科幻小说家，勒·魁恩更关心人类未来的生存状态。道家的核心思想

认为如果人类要更好的生存，就必须懂得如何去建立一个和谐的世界。为了建立一

个平衡而和谐的世界，勒·魁恩在《一无所有》和《黑暗的左手》中把道家思想与

生态结合起来。她期待建立互不侵犯﹑互不主宰﹑有体系的世界。但是她不确定是

否会实现她的梦想。因此在她的作品中我们会发现很多对立的因素，然后她再把这

些对立统一起来。这都是她怀疑态度的表现。

本文主要研究《一无所有》和《黑暗的左手》中道家思想及道家中蕴含的生态

因素在这两部作品中在体现，一共由五部分组成：第一部分简要的介绍了厄秀

拉·勒·魁恩的生平﹑主要作品以及对这两部作品的文学评论；第二部分主要说明

了这两部作品结构﹑时间特征和主人公活动的循环性和回归性；第三部分通过解构

性别﹑融合光明与黑暗，分析了勒·魁恩的阴阳平衡思想；第四部分为道家生态思

想在格森星球和阿内斯世界的体现；第五部分总结了全文，诠释道家生态观在当今

世界的重要性。

关键词：生态和道家思想 ； 和谐世界 ；平衡性与整体性

[1]

Elisabeth Sherwin ,

“

Meet the High Prietess of Science Fiction

”

, July 27 1997 gizmo @dcn . davis. ca. us.

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Taoist Ecological Thought in Ursula K Le Guin’s The Left

Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed

Abstract

Ursula Le Guin is an excellent American contemporary writer who was called the

Queen of feminist science fiction. She is also a novelist who often combines science

fiction with postmodernism, relying on science fiction to explore existent problems of

human beings and feminist problems. Owing to concerning about female problems, Le

Guin together with Virginia Woolf is regarded as “Female Ancestor”. Importantly, she is

a “female leader” who has made great contribution to the development of science fiction.

She has published many works in different genres such as fiction, fantasy, poetry,

children’s book, essay

，

criticism and translation. Her works explore Taoist, anarchist,

ethnographic, feminist, psychological and sociological themes. So she has been labeled

over the years as an “approximately accurate”

[

2

]

novelist, radical feminist, Taoist and

anarchist. Especially, what she has written in her works always has distinct Taoist

features in term of her fascination with Taoism. She has started to study Tao Te Ching

since 14 years old and has been translating it for 40 years. Compared with different

translations of Tao Te Ching(

道德经

), she herself translated it English in 1997.

Taoist thought is embodied in her works. The Dispossessed and The Left Hand of

Darkness are her best works, both of which made her win the Hugo and Nebula Awards,

the top two awards for science fiction. The two works show us elements concerned about

Taoism. Just as Nancy Bartends from Charleston Southern University criticized that her

typical story involves a hero’s quest for maturity and psychological integration, and her

major theme is the need for balance and wholeness. (Gale, volume 6)

As a female science fiction writer, Le Guin concerns about human survival in the

future. Taoist power tells her how to establish a world if human will have a well-being

life. Meanwhile, with a sense of hoping to build a balance world, she links Taoism and

ecology in her works. She expects to establish a non-dominant, organist world, but she is

not certain whether she can realize her dream. Therefore, she puts some opposites

elements first and then tries to unify these opposite elements in her works.

Based on Taoism and ecology, this thesis is composed of five parts. The first

chapter comes to the introduction which aims to introduce briefly Ursula Le Guin, her

[

2

]

http://dir.salon.com/people/bc/2001/01/23/le_guin/

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works and the literature reviews for The Dispossessed and The Left Hand of Darkness.

The second part focuses on Le Guin’s cyclic and returning idea of Taoism which is

articulated by the structural feature of two works. The third chapter analyzes Le Guin’s

the yin-yang balance, deconstructing the gender and uniting lightness and darkness. The

forth chapter deals with ecological Taoism in Gethenian and Anarresti world, while the

fifth chapter is the conclusion of the whole thesis.

Key words: Ecology and Taoism, Harmonious world, Balance and wholeness.

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Contents

摘

要

..................................................................................................................................I

Abstract

.................................................................................................................................. II

Chapter Introduction

Ⅰ

.................................................................................................... 1

1.1 An Introduction to Ursula K Le Guin and her Writings...................................... 1

1.2 Literature Reviews ................................................................................................... 3

1.3 Thesis Statement....................................................................................................... 6

Chapter

Ⅱ

Cyclic and Returning Pattern in Taoism

.......................................... 8

2.1 The Structural Feature of The Dispossessed and The Left Hand of Darkness .... 9

2.2 The Nature of Time. ............................................................................................... 10

2.2.1

Shevek’s Cyclic Time Theory .......................................................................10

2.2.2 Meshe’s Time Center and Gethenian Calendar ........................................ 11

2.3 The Journey of Hero .............................................................................................. 12

2.3.1

Shevek’s Journey .......................................................................................... 12

2.3.2 Genly Ai’s Journey....................................................................................... 14

Chapter

Ⅲ

. Balance and Wholeness in Le Guin’s Works

............................. 17

3.1 Le Guin’s Challenge of Dichotomy....................................................................... 18

3.2 Taoist Principle of Yin- yang ................................................................................. 19

3.3

Yin-yang Unity of Male and Female ...................................................................... 21

3.3.1

Sexual Unity in The Left Hand of Darkness................................................ 22

3.3.2 Sexual Unity in The Dispossessed................................................................ 24

3.4 Light/ Dark Pattern in Le Guin’s Novels ............................................................. 25

Chapter

Ⅳ

. Taoist Ecological Thought in Le Guin’s Works

.......................... 29

4.1

Taoism ...................................................................................................................... 29

4.2

Taoism and Ecology ................................................................................................ 30

4.2.1

Taoism and Nature ....................................................................................... 30

4.2.2 Eco-community in Taoism........................................................................... 32

4.3

Taoist Ecological Thought on Genthen ................................................................. 33

4.4 Taoist ecological thought on Anarres ................................................................... 35

Conclusion

............................................................................................................................ 39

Works Cited

........................................................................................................................ 41

Acknowledgements

........................................................................................................... 45

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Chapter

Ⅰ

Introduction

1.1 An Introduction to Ursula K Le Guin and her Writings

In 1986, Bloom Harold as a famous literary critic in western world, published a

book Ursula K Le Guin saying about “Better than Tolkien, far better than Doris Lessing,

Le Guin is the overwhelming contemporary instance of a superbly imaginative creator

and major stylist who chose (or was chosen by) ‘fantasy and science fiction’ ” (Bloom

1986: 2). Undoubtedly, Bloom affirmed that Ursula K Le Guin had played a vital role in

international literary circle.

Ursula Kroeber Le Guin is a distinguished contemporary feminist fiction writer in

America, famous for applying serious themes by the aid of science fiction and fantasy. As

one of a few female science fiction authors, she has caught the attention of many scholars

and been gained recognition by the mainstream literary writers and critics. Born on

October 21, 1929 in Berkeley, California, she was the daughter of two famed Berkeley

scholars, an outstanding anthropologist Alfred Kroeber and a writer Theodora Kroeber.

She was influenced by the methods of anthropology and often put highly detailed

descriptions of alien societies in her works. Raised in an intellectually stimulating

environment, Le Guin excelled at academics.

Just as Bloom said that “she was a child happily surrounded by people who

appreciated both other cultures and the spoken and written world as an augmentation of

life” (Ibid, 861). To some degree, Le Guin’s success originates from her family influence.

Her mother was a psychologist and writer of children’s stories and her father was the

head of UC-Berkeley’s Department of Anthropology, who published works on Native

Americans. When Le Guin was a child, her parents taught her about myths and legends

from around the world “My father studied real cultures and I make them up” she once

said. In 1947, she specialized in Renaissance French and Italian literature in Radcliffe

College, receiving her B.A. in 1951, and her master’s degree in romance languages from

Columbia University in 1952. Since 1953, Le Guin went aboard to study on a Fulbright

scholarship in France, where she met a historian named Charles Le Guin. In the same

year, they married and returned America, eventually, settled in Portland. They had two

daughters and one son. Prior to raising her family, she got a job as a French instructor at

Mercer University, in Macon and Georgia, before moving on to the University of Idaho

for a brief period, in 1956.

She didn’t start to stand on the literary stage until 1962. In that year, “April in

Paris” was issued in the magazine Fantastic and “the Maters” was also published on the

same magazine in 1963. “April in Paris” and “the Maters” are her first fantasy stories.

Since then, her imaginary worlds were set up to form several series of fantasy novels

containing Earthen series, Hainish series, Orsinia series and the West Coast series, of

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which the Hainish novels and the Earthsea fantasy novels are two series of fantasy works

to be well-known to the readers.

The Earthsea cycle includes A Wizard of Earthsea(1968); The Tombs of Atuan(1971)

which won a Newberry Silver Medal (1972); The Farthest Shore (1972) which was given

the National Book Award; Tehanu:The Last Book of Earthsea (1990) which got the

Nebula Award winner (1990) and Locus Fantasy Award winner(1991); Tales from

Earthsea (short stories), and The Other wind( 2001) which won World Fantasy Award

(2002).

Hainish cycle also called as “novels of the Ekumen”. Le Guin was the first debut on

the stage of literature in 1966 with Rocannon’s World setting in the Hainish universe.

With 2500 years of future history, the series continued through Planet of Exile (1966),

City of Illusions (1967) and The Left Hand of Darkness (1969), which won both Hugo

and Nebula awards. The fifth Hainish novel The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia was

published in 1974, and it was considered as Le Guin’s best work and was given both

Hugo and Nebula awards. The following are The Word for World is Forest (1976), Four

Ways to Forgiveness (1995), The Telling (2000) and Gifts (2004) which won PEN/USA

award and Voices (2006)

，

Powers (2007) which received the Nebula Award. In addition to

the two series of novels, in 2008, her most recent works Lavinia based on the last six

books of Vergil’s Aeneid narrates an Italian princess, who married to Aeneid (hero of the

Trojan war). Besides, she is a translator who translated Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching, a Book

about the Way and the Power of the Way (1997).

On the whole, Ursula Le Guin is a prolific and versatile author, who has published

more than 100 short stories, 17 novels, and 11 children’s books, five volumes of poetry,

two collections of essays and two volumes of translation. Owing to these achievements,

she has gained the National Book Award, five Nebulas, five Hugos, the Kafka Award, a

Pushcart Prize and several “lifetime achievement” awards among dozens of other honors.

Over the years, a few labels have been put on Le Guin: novelist, radical feminist, Taoist

and anarchist and so on.

The above described generally includes Ursula Le Guin’s achievement in writing

until now. Particularly, it is a notable feature in Le Guin’s works that she adopts Taoist

thought. Since the age of 14, she has been attracted by oriental Taoist philosophy and

translated it. Obviously, fascinated by Taoism, she makes Taoist ideas informed in all her

writing. “Le Guin’s works reflected the Taoist principles of mutuality (as in yin and yang),

interdependence, and ordered wholeness” (http://kirjasto.sci.fi/leguin.htm). She is very

successful in writing, combining the eastern philosophy with western culture.

Consequently, she has been given the fame in contemporary international literature,

especially in British and America literature.

This paper focuses on her two famous works The Left Hand of Darkness and The

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Dispossessed. The Left Hand of Darkness is a thought-experiment novel using bisexual

aliens to comment on sexual mores of human beings. It was published in 1969 and won

both the Hugo and Nebula awards. In this novel, Genly Ai is a black Terran emissary

from the human galaxy Ekuman

[3]

to a Winter planet composed mainly of two bigger

countries Karhide and Orgoreyn. He attempts to persuade the Gethenians on a snow

bound planet Gethen to join Ekuman. Gethen whose inhabitants are androgynous, is

thought of as the aliens by Genly Ai. Normally, even though Gethenians are neutral, they

are able to become either male or female at the peak of their sexual cycle. Nevertheless,

androgynous people regard Genly Ai as stranger, not trusting him. In Karhide, Estraven,

the prime minister of Karhide, is the only person believes in Genly Ai. But Genly Ai

doesn’t believe in Estraven. Failing to persuade the king of Karhide to join Ekuman,

Genly Ai enters Orgoreyn where he is trapped in danger. Fortunately, with help of

Estraven, he escapes from Orgoreyn. They start a long and tough journey across the ice

plain. Finally, Genly Ai understands his Gethenian companion, and changes his attitudes

towards the nature of sex on Gethen.

In 1974, The Dispossessed made an immediate success as soon as it was published.

As one of Le Guin’s science fiction masterpieces, it has won both the Hugo and Nebula

Awards of that year. In this novel, the author creates two contrasting planets. One is an

anarchist and attractive utopia world (Anarres), the other is a capitalist country, Urras. Le

Guin tries to juxtapose two planets through the protagonist Shevek. Shevek who is an

Anarresti physicist, travels from Anarres to Urras, developing a general Time theory

re-uniting the two estranged world. Through Shevek’s experiences on the two planets, Le

Guin points out the virtues and flaws of the utopia. Dong Hengzhuan wrote in his book

that “Many critics acclaim the novel for its full use of the Yin and Yang Theory of Taoism.

In addition, this novel is also praised for its skillful presentation of the opposing

wholeness.”

（

Dong, 2003

：

702-703

）

1.2 Literature Reviews

There is a lot of research on Ursula Le Guin in the western world, especially in the

United States. Some critics focuses on her works’ feature and themes in different phrases,

including Ursula K. Le Guin by Joseph D. Olander and Martin H. Greenberg(1979);

Ursula K. Le Guin by Barbara J.Bucknall(1981); Understanding Ursula K. Le Guin by

Elizabeth Cummins Cogell(1990); Presenting Ursula K. Le Guin by Suzanne Elizabeth

Reid(1997); “Ursula K.Le Guin: Modern Critical Views ” by Harold Bloom (2000);

Ursula K. Le Guin: A Critical Companion (1st ed.) by Susan Bernardo (2006).

Some take great interest in her science fictions and fantasy works, for example,

[3]

A council of worlds seeking the enrichment of human harmony and the advancement of humans in the universe.

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Approaches to the Fiction of Ursula K. Le Guin by James Bittner (1984); The

Encyclopedia of Science Fiction by John Clute and Peter Nicholls (1993); Winds of

Change in the Fictions of Ursula K. Le Guin by Robert Reginald eds. ( 1997); The

Rhetoric of Myth in the Fiction of Ursula K. Le Guin by Warren Rochelle (2001); Modern

Dragons and other essays on Genre Fiction by John Lennard(2007) and so on. In

addition, some study Le Guin’s children and adults’ literature, including Worlds Within:

Children’s Fantasy from the Middle Ages to Today by Sheila A.Egoff (1988); Only

Connect: Readings on Children’s Literature by Sheila Egoff (1996); From Romance to

Realism: 50 Years of Growth and Change in Young Adult Literature by Michael Cart

(1996); Disturbing the Universe: Power and Repression in Adolescent Literature by

Roberta Seelinger(2000); Ursula K. Le Guin beyond Genre: Fiction for Children and

Adults by Mike Cadden (2005) and so on.

Earlier, her two famed works The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed has

attracted many scholars and critics.

After The Left Hand of Darkness was published in 1969, a critic of the prestigious

magazine Times Literary Supplement of London (January 8, 1970), in a survey of several

science fiction books, commented that at the beginning of Le Guin’s book that it “would

kill any novel, full of strange names, numbers and hesitations…” This novel made an

immediate success, hailed as Le Guin’s best work so far as well as The Dispossessed. Not

only did it win the most important awards in the field, but also it attracted the attention of

a number of scholars. Robert Scholes said that Le Guin forces the readers to trust that

sexual stereotyping affects all personal relationships and individual personalities in his

book Structural Fabulation (1974); Barbara J. Bucknall, in Ursula k. Le Guin (1982),

thinks that the androgyny is a symbol of integration and wholeness and the coalescing of

Yin (feminine) and Yang (masculine) principles; Martin Bickman’s essay “Le Guin’s The

Left Hand of Darkness: Form and Content ”(1977), suggests ways to reconcile form and

content in the novel in a “functional, organic and aesthetically meaningful way. ”; Harold

Bloom, Ed. published a critical essay collection entitled Ursula K Le Guin’s The Left

Hand of Darkness(1986) which includes David Ketterer’s analysis of Fry’s archetype


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