Thursday, February 2, 2017
Wave 2
In The left Hand of Darkness the author shows a constant cold on the planet of Gethen to continue the theme of isolation and loneliness in many ways. Genly who is a foreigner is lonely on the planet because he is an alien. Some people also think of him as a pervert because to people on Gethen its weird to be stuck in what they call kemmer and what we call gender. I feel sad for him but at the same time this was his mission that he chose to take. Genly came from a planet like Earth with more advance technology, more life, and a warmer climate. Genly is seen as a pervert because he is unable to change genders like the rest of the Gethenians and that is a main reason why the planet doesn't trust him. The planet of Gethen is referred to winter and is cold there year round. Its amazing how cold it is there its so cold that there are no fruits just small growing grains and wheats. The type of food that does grow there doesn't hold as much energy which makes them eat almost constantly throught the day. After reading that part I thought as myself as Genly living in the North and south poles All day for a year. In just a day I would feel sad imagine having no friends, no family, weird tasting food, Drinking hot bitter beer all day, and feeling glaring eyes of hate everyday .The climate of Gethen contributes to the isolation because its cold mentality and physically.
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Well agreed. It's like Gethenians are lower class people, and the environment they thrive on is unbearable to them. You can easily compare this to a real life scenario, where heavy snow makes transportation impossible, therefore having people stay at home for the remainder of the period. Whereas the homeless, they are the ones who suffer the most. It is hard to imagine living in these conditions and what survival actions we must take.
ReplyDeleteI thought the same thing while reading, I was feeling sorry for Genly but then realized he had trained and worked for this mission for a long time. I also agree that his gender is one main factor in him being so lonely. Since he is so different from the Gethinians he has a lot of opportunities to be excluded from them.
ReplyDeleteYou know what I never realized that Gethen the cold planet itself symbolizes loneliness and isolation. When you think of loneliness you do think of cold and sadness, and being an outcast basically. That's actually really cool. I see your point though that Genly is basically an alien to these people and he is seen as very different do to his body and how he arrived from in there eyes a black void of endless space. It would make sense for him to feel alone and out of place. The fact that everything is so different than Genly's world is really pretrayed throughout the novel. The people and how they create life is different, they aren't as technologically advanced, and they overall just move slow as a species they see no reason for them to move fast or technologically advance any further than they have to. Cool question you guys got I never really though of how the planet and its whether tied into the story.
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