Going Beyond Binary Opposition: On Ursula

K. Le Guin\'s Science Fiction The Telling

走出二元对立的藩篱

论厄休拉

?

勒奎思的科幻小说《倾诉》

研究生姓名 谢晴宇

袁媛副教授

英语语言文学

外国语学院 Going Beyond Binary Opposition: On Ursula K. Le

Guin

’s

Science Fiction The Telling

by

Xie Qingyu

A Thesis

Submitted to the College of Foreign Studies

Of Guangxi University for Nationalities

in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

in

ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

Nanning, China

2015 This thesis, by Xie Qingyu (谢晴宇)，with Professor Yuan Yuan (袁媛)

as the academic advisor, is accepted in the present form by the College of

Foreign Studies of Guangxi University for Nationalities as satisfying the

thesis requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the academic field

of literature.

Yuan Yuan (袁媛),Academic Advisor

Qin Xiugui (覃修桂)，Dean of the College of Foreign Studies

(Signature)

Date iii

Contents

Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................... iv

Abstract in English ....................................................................................................... v

Abstract in Chinese ..................................................................................................... vii

Chapter 1 Introduction ................................................................................................ 1

1.1 Introduction to Ursula K. Le Guin and The Telling ........................................... 1

1.2 Theoretical Perspective ...................................................................................... 4

1.2.1 Binary Opposition .................................................................................... 4

1.2.2 Ecofeminism and Taoism ......................................................................... 6

1.3 Literature Review ............................................................................................ 10

1.4 Objectives, Significance and Layout of the Study ........................................... 12

Chapter 2 Criticism to Central Culture, Construction of Noncentral Culture .... 15

2.1 Criticism to Monolithic Ideology .................................................................... 16

2.2 Deconstruction of Central Culture ................................................................... 17

2.3 Co

nstruction of the “Telling System”

.............................................................. 21

2.3.1 Affirmation of the Unity of Opposites ................................................... 21

2.3.2 Emphasis on “Tao Gives Rise to the Myriad”

....................................... 23

Chapter 3 The Unity of Body and Mind ................................................................... 25

3.1 Criticism to Body/Mind Binary Opposition .................................................... 25

3.2 The Harmony Between Body and Mind .......................................................... 27

Chapter 4 Establishment of Harmonious Gender Relation .................................... 29

4.1 Deconstruction of Gender Hierarchy ............................................................... 30

4.2 Construction of Yin-Yang Harmonious Relation ............................................. 31

4.2.1 Yin-Yang Harmonious Gender Relation ................................................ 31

4.2.2 Yin-Yang Harmony Between Self and the Other ................................... 34

Chapter 5 Realization of the Harmony Between Human and Nonhuman ............ 36

5.1 Deconstruction of Anthropocentrism ............................................................... 36

5.1.1 Transcendence of Human/Nature Binary Opposition ............................ 37

5.1.2 Enhancement of Ecological Care to Animals ........................................ 43

5.2 Taoism Construction to Human/Nonhuman Relation ...................................... 46

Chapter 6 Conclusion ................................................................................................. 48

Bibliography ................................................................................................................ 50

Publications During the Postgraduate Program ...................................................... 54

Original Research Statement ..................................................................................... 55

Intellectual Property Statement ................................................................................ 55

iv

Acknowledgements

This thesis is finished under the guidance of my supervisor, Professor Yuan Yuan.

She devotes herself to the process of topic ion, frame design, and contents

modification of paper. Each step of my paper writing is filled with her painstaking

care. Her profound theoretical attainment, abundant practical knowledge, and kindly

guidance make a deep impression on me. I would like to express my gratitude to her

by taking this opportunity.

The completion of this paper is also related with the concern and help of other

teachers, schoolmates and friends. They help me a lot in data collection and learning

during my thesis writing. They also give me good suggestions during thesis proposal,

thesis presentation and thesis defense. Here, I will show my thanks to all of them.

Moreover, I would like to thank my parents, relatives and friends especially. The

successful completion of my M.A. thesis is based on their firm support and

encouragement. It is their meticulous care and attention that provide me with the

motivation to finish school satisfactorily. v

Go Beyond Binary Opposition: On Ursula K. Le Guin

’s

Science Fiction The Telling

Abstract

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929

—

) is an important American author and receives

innumerable literary awards and honors. Her works involve a wide range including

sc

ience fiction, fantasy fiction, feministic literature, and children?s literature.

The

Telling (2000) is Le Guin

?s first long literary piece since the publication of her

translation to Tao Te Ching in 1997, which bears profound Taoist ecofeminist thought.

This thesis makes a systematic research on her Taoist ecofeminist thought from the

angle of binary opposition by the methods of investigation, comparison, and textual

close reading.

The thesis is divided six chapters:

Chapter one is the introduction to Ursula K. Le Guin and her works The Telling.

Theoretical foundation of binary opposition, ecofeminism and Taoism, literature

review, thesis statement, significance and structure are mentioned in this part.

Chapter two discusses central culture/noncentral culture binary opposition in the

culture context of Aka planet, with the purpose to reveal central culture

?

s rejection and

repression to noncentral culture, to emphasize the urgency of saving noncentral culture

and safeguarding multi-culture.

Chapter three makes a comparative analysis on the body/mind binary opposition

by studying Akans

?

body/mind conditions, reveals the perniciousness of blindly

pursuing rationality and attaching importance to mind while ignoring the body, and

stresses the harmony and unification between body and mind.

Chapter four reveals the irrationality of gender hierarchy and the necessity of

constructing a harmonious complementary gender view by investigating gender

systems on Aka. vi

Chapter five discusses human/nonhuman binary opposition from Akans

?

conception on nature, with the purpose to oppose anthropocentrism, to advocate

ecological holism, as well as to achieve the equality and harmony between human and

nonhuman.

Chapter six is the conclusion part. Through comparative analysis of the above

four groups of binary opposition, namely central culture/noncentral culture, mind/body,

male/female, and human/nonhuman, it can be concluded that ecofeminism and Taoism

are the main source of Le Guin

?

s creative thought, and they have internalized as her

unique dualistic thought, which is inspired by ecofeminism and absorbs Taoism as

ideological core. Le Guin

?

s dualistic thought reflects her profound cognition and

meditation on social reality, and bursts out strong era significance.

Key Words:

The Telling; binary opposition; ecofeminism; Taoism vii

走出二元对立的藩篱

——

论厄休拉·勒奎恩的科幻小说《倾诉》

摘要

厄休拉·勒奎恩(1929—)是 20 世纪美国重要作家，著有 20 余部奇幻、科幻、

女性主义小说，还写有大量诗歌、散文、文学评论以及青少年儿童文学作品，获

得了极多的荣誉与文学奖项。《倾诉》（2000）是勒奎恩于 1997 年出版《道德经》

译著后的第一部长篇小说，蕴含作者深刻的道家生态女性主义思想。本文运用资

料调查法、对比研究法、文本细读法等，从二元对立视角窥探《倾诉》中的道家

生态女性主义思想。

本文共分六章:

第一章介绍作家作品、理论基础、国内外研究背景，以及文章的研究中心、

研究意义和行文结构。

第二章围绕阿卡星的文化背景分析中心文化与非中心文化的二元对立组，揭

示中心文化对非中心文化的排斥与压抑，强调拯救非中心文化，维护多元文化的

迫切性。

第三章以阿卡星民众的身心现状为探讨对象，通过对身体与心智二元对立组

进行比较分析，揭示一味抬高理性、重视心智而忽略身体的危害性，强调身心的

和谐与统一。

第四章管窥阿卡星的性别制度，揭示性别等级制的不合理性以及建构“阴阳

和合”的互补型性别观的必要性。

第五章围绕阿卡星民众的自然观对人类与非人类二元对立组进行论述，旨在

反对人类中心主义，主张生态整体观，实现人类与非人类的平等和谐相处。

第六章为结语，通过对上述四组二元对立关系，即中心文化/非中心文化、

心智/身体、男性/女性、人类/非人类的比较分析，可归结出生态女性主义思想

和道家思想是勒奎恩创作思想的最主要来源，并已经内化为她独特的二元性思

想，该思想以道家思想为内核，生态女性主义思想为启发，反映了勒奎恩对社会

现实问题的深刻认识与思考，具有很强的时代意义。

关键词：

《倾诉》；二元对立；生态女性主义；道家思想1

Chapter 1 Introduction

1.1 Introduction to Ursula K. Le Guin and The Telling

Ursula Kroeber Le Guin (1929

—

) is both an American female writer and literary

critic. She writes books of both fiction and nonfiction, and they are adaptable to

different reader groups, such as children, adults and scholars. The genres of her writing

are versatile, including novels, short stories, poems, essays, and children?s books, but

most of them are fantasy fiction and science fiction. Ursula Kroeber is the daughter of

Alfred L. Kroeber and Theodora Kroeber, and she has three older brothers. Her mother

is a writer and her father is an anthropologist, which makes a great influence on her.

Her parents encourage their children to read books and to come face to face with their

active friend groups. Her parents? friends generally are people of color coming from

different races. Such encouraging and happy family environment provides her with

good upbringing, fosters her interest in literature, and allows her to pay attention to

sociology and anthropology. Moreover, Le Guin is also influenced by important

figures of western literature and feminist writers such as Leo Tolstoy, Bront? sisters,

and Virginia Woolf. What needs to mention is that she is the fan of eastern tradition,

especially Tao Te Ching. As Le Guin says,

“Taoism and Anarchism fit together in some

very interesting ways and I?ve been a Taoist ever since I learned what it was” (Roberts,

2013).

When it comes to the theme of her works, Le Guin once said: “…the ta

sk of

science fiction is not to predict the future. Rather, it contemplates possible futures.

Anything at all can be said to happen without fear of contradiction from a native. The

future is a

…

laboratory for trying out ideas in a means of thinking about re

ality…”

(Gunn, 2014). In addition, her brother Karl Kroeber is a famous ecology critic and her

other two brothers are occupied in psychological and historical research. They make

an influence on her, so, her works are mainly concerned with social structures,

anthropology, psychological identity, anarchism, as well as environmentalism. The

genre of science fiction possesses the potential power of questioning the reasonability 2

of current social culture and establishing the society with reasonable order. What?

s

more, Le Guin

?

s many works are featured with eco-feminist ideology and are studied

by eco-feminist critics.

The works of Le Guin can be divided two large groups, Terrasea fantasy

series and Hainish science fiction series. Terrasea is a world full of sea and islands. It

is the place that many stories written by Le Guin occur. The series of stories happened

in Terrasea are called Terrasea Cycle. While, Hainish Cycle series is science fiction

about human civilizations set in a future or alternate history on other planets, and its

aim is to dig out anthropological and sociological ideas. So, it generally belongs to

thought experimental works. Among these planets, Hainish planet is the origin of

human beings on all planets, and also is the initiator of Ekumen which is an

organization constituted by representatives of different planets. The Telling is a science

fiction of Le Guin set in Hainish Cycle, which was published in 2000 and won both

the Endeavour Award and Locus Award. It is her first follow-up full-length novel since

the publication of her translation to Tao Te Ching in 1997. Therefore, The Telling

contains Le Guin

?s comprehensive understanding to eastern tradition especially

Taoism.

The novel includes nine chapters which can be divided three parts. The first

two chapters are the first part which illustrates the damage of monolithic culture; The

second part, from chapter three to chapter six, is about the learning process of Sutty to

the Telling, including Tree System, Mountain System and Body-Telling; The third part,

from chapter seven to chapter nine, is mainly about the

“

Telling

”

between Sutty and

the Monitor, as well as the actions people are going to do for the protection and

salvation of the Telling. The distinctive feature of the novel is that it contains so many

conversations between people with different cultural backgrounds, especially the

conversation between Sutty and maz when Sutty was learning the

“

Telling System

”

, as

well as the conversation between Sutty and the Monitor after the

Monitor?s helicopter

was crashed. 3

As the name of the novel, The Telling, says, it is about storytelling. The main

character Sutty is the teller and she tells us a story about religion and politics. In some

degree, Sutty is the mouthpiece of Le Guin as Sutty does not have any personal stake

in Aka. Thus,

Sutty?s

vision of building a good society represents that of the author.

The Telling mainly mentions two planets, one is Terra where Sutty comes from,

the other is Aka where Sutty travels to. Terra and Aka are both monolithic states, the

difference is that Terra is controlled by religious fundamentalists, while Aka is a planet

under the control of materialistic government. Here it needs to mention the fictional

Interstellar Alliance Ekumen whose purpose is to establish the communication

network between human beings on different planets. Ekumen usually initiatively

invites people from other stars to be its member, and also dispatches its members to

other stars to make communication and to collect geography, climate, biology,

language and culture materials of them. Sutty, who is a woman from Terra, is assigned

by Ekumen to Aka as an envoy. Thus, Sutty experiences two different kinds of

monolithic states, the Terra and Aka. After arriving in Aka, Sutty is strictly supervised

by the Monitor Yara of Aka. Aka is a planet that despises all old thoughts and culture.

Akan government believes that science and technology are supreme at any time and

that pure science destroys corruption. Sutty is sick of the people and the ruling

institution of Aka. While the situation has a favorable turn, Sutty receives the notice

that she is permitted to leave the monolithic modern city Dovza and to go to the

countryside Okzat-Ozkat freely without supervision. By this way, she has a chance to

come contact with the remnant culture of Aka, there, she learns the unique

religion of local people

—“

Telling System

”

and discovers the possibilities of

reconciling the monolithic and warring ideologies that people encounter in Aka. Sutty

herself also feels relieved, and understands the methods how to let people of Aka and

Terra change their monolithic ideology and become peaceful and harmonious. The

Telling discusses different thinking modes in human culture and their different

influence on society. What matters is that Le Guin offers ways to walk out of

monolithic ideology and to step in a multi-cultural and harmonious development form. 4

1.2 Theoretical Perspective

The thesis makes an analysis to the deconstruction of binary opposition contained

in Le Guin

?s science fiction

The Telling. Le Guin has a double identity, for she is not

only an ecofeminist writer and critic, but also a Taoist. It is the reason why her works

are filled with ecofeminist thoughts and Taoist thoughts. The following passages shall

make an introduction to the survey of binary opposition, and the theoretical foundation

of ecofeminism and Taoism.

1.2.1 Binary Opposition

Binary opposition is also called binary system which refers to a pair of terms that

are contrast or opposite to each other in meaning. It is the contrast between two

mutually exclusive terms, such as on and off, up and down, left and right.

Binary opposition originates in Saussurean structuralist theory. One of

structuralism?s important concepts is binary op

position. Saussure contends that the

value or meaning of the units of language is obtained through binary oppositions, and

the relationship between units of language is opposite to each other. An example of

this is that one cannot conceive of “good” if we do not understand “evil”. Binary

opposition is regarded as a powerful tool to give an interpretation to culture and

language, as well as the fundamental thought of human beings in structuralism theory.

On the contrary, post-structuralism objects to structuralism and demonstrates

different opinion about binary oppositions. Post-structuralism insists on that binary

opposition is not

the basic structure or organization of human beings? thought

, but is

just the derivant of western thought. In fact, the perceived dichotomies of male/female,

civilization/brutality, white race/colored race just supply excuses for the hegemony or

perpetuation of western civilized white men. Jacques Derrida, who is the main

character of post-structuralism, says that western-derived binary opposition is actually

“a violent hierarchy” where “one of the two terms governs the other”. It signifies that

one of the terms plays a dominant role and the other plays subordinate role, and one

devalues the other one. It is actually a pair of hiera

rchical binary opposition. What?s 5

more, one pair of binary opposition can lead to many secondary binaries, for instance,

the pair of binary opposition good/bad can contain secondary binary oppositions of

beautiful/ugly, neat/dirty, kind/vicious, progressive/degraded, positive/passive, etc..

Such thinking logic is easily to result in anthropocentrism, logos centrism,

ethnocentrism, culture hegemony, colonialism, and so on. As for binary opposition, the

purpose of post-structural criticism is not just to reverse the current oppositions, but to

deconstruct them.

Deconstructivism is a critical school founded by Jacques Derrida, the philosopher

of French post-structuralism in the field of continental philosophy and literary

criticism. It is a major force in contemporary philosophy, as well as the theory of

literary criticism. Deconstructivist school opposes structuralism. It argues that

structure is composed of a series of differences which are in change, so the structure is

changing also. Moreover, structure is not permanent and has no center, it is unstable

and on-limits. Deconstructivism is also called post-structuralism. The main analytical

method of deconstruction is to cope with binary opposition in the text. It not only

emphasizes the differences, interaction and undecidability of binary opposition, but

also presents that any pair of binary opposition is mobile and it is impossible to

segregate them completely.

Deconstruction refers to the “event” or “moment” when a pair of binary

opposition is in self-contradiction, and its authority is devalued or undermined

correspondingly, then the western-derived binary opposition would deconstruct

automatically. The critique on the exclusive logic of binary opposition by focusing on

the other abandoned end in a binary largely expands the theoretical horizon. This

process also leads to questioning about other binary oppositions, such as human/nature,

self/the other, male/female, heterosexual/homosexual, human/animal, human/machine,

white/black, white/people of color, human/nonhuman, etc.. These binary oppositions

involve fields of gender, race, colonialism, social hierarchy, etc. and have become the

hot topic of many other literary theories, including the third-wave feminism,

post-anarchism, post-colonialism, and critical race theory. These literary theoretical 6


试阅到此结束，如需查看全部内容请购买正版文献。如因学习需要阅览全文，请联系站长。