THE DISPOSSESSED

The Dispossessed

The Dispossessed

In The Dispossessed, therefore - as in Left Hand of Darkness - communication is the central theme and motivation for producing action of novel. The metaphor of prison becomes even more closely linked to inhibition of communication when related to dominant symbol of novel - walls. The novel opens with the reference to walls:

There was the wall. It did not gaze important. It was constructed of uncut rocks approximately mortared. An adult could look right over it, and even the child could climb it. Where it crossed roadway instead of having the gate it degenerated into mere geometry, the line, an idea of the boundary. But idea was real. It was important. For seven generations there had been nothing in world more important than wall. (Moylan 120)

Like all partitions it was ambiguous, two-faced. Whead covering was interior it and whead covering was out-of-doors it depended on which edge of it you were on. (Le Guin The Dispossessed, section 1)

The wall could be seen either as enclosing universe and "leaving Anarres, outside, free" or it could be seen an enclosing Anarres and making it the "great prison camp, cut off from other worlds and other man, in quarantine" (Le Guin, The Dispossessed, Chapter 1).

It craves lightweight, like gatherings, thrives on cross-breeding, augments better for being paced on" (Le Guin, The Dispossessed, section 3). As Shevek grows and develops, he becomes dedicated to liberation of ideas and of mind; before leaving for Urras, he establishes the printing syndicate on Anarres to communicate ideas which were being inhibited. He eventually concludes to leave Urras in alignment "to go fulfil my proper function as the communal organism. I'm going to un-build partitions" (Le Guin, The Dispossessed, Chapter 10)

It is world that came as close as any could to paradise. Iunderstand it's full ...