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Although much of today’s science fiction writing is still male-oriented, Ursula Le Guin has occupied a place on the American classics with her fantasy and science fiction.
1.2 The Related Researches on The Left Hand of Darkness
So far, many researches have been done on The Left Hand of Darkness abroad from different perspectives.
While Martin Bickman (1977: 42) studies form-content interrelationship in The Left Hand of Darkness, Nora Barry and Mary Prescott (1992: 154-165) look beyond words and look into the rhythm in the book, arguing that Le Guin uses rhythm “to lead readers to a certain level of perception where the duality of gender becomes irrelevant.” Concerning on image set, David J. Lake (1981: 156-162) analyze the connection of the paired images and themes in the book, arguing that Le Guin is not really optimistic with a partial victorious end and no real integration of contraries.”
As Le Guin in The Child and the Shadow writes, “myths are profoundly meaningful, and usable-practical-in terms of ethic; of insight; of growth.” myth is another main focus for researchers. Jeanne Murray Walker (1979: 180-189) suggests that the chapters in The Left Hand of Darkness which are distinctly mythic and others which are historical, corresponds to the theories of Claude Lévi-Strauss that the myth reflects the contradictions and problems in real life. Rebecca Adams (1991: 35-47) interprets how myth and language reinvented from within our present cultural order by writers attempting to represent utopia by analysis of the author’s choice of images and narrative strategies. I also agree that from the different narrative perspectives, there are relationships between the myths and the story narrated by Ai, specifically the story about two brothers who vowed kemmering to each other and the experience of Estraven.
Many researchers pay more attention to androgyny to prove Le Guin’s feminist thought. Bucknall considers The Left Hand of Darkness as Le Guin’s first contribution to feminism (quoted in Reid, 1997: 52). Gwyneth Jones, a great follower of Le Guin reads Le Guin as “hopelessly miscast as a feminist, [having] no quarrel with the reification of gender (quoted in Reid, 1997: 62).” Benjamin Gleason (1996) views the androgyny as a vehicle for Le Guin’s rhetoric concerning gender, since gendered thought processes and social roles lead to opposition and separation. Since many feminists are debating on new reproductive technologies for childbearing, Kathy Rudy (1997: 22-38) suggests that Le Guin’s novel helps “to demonstrate that practices disruptive of gender roles are likely to alleviate women’s oppression.” Alexis Lothian (2006) also argues that this novel suggests a critique of gender reification. Wendy Gay Pearson (2007: 182-196) brings together science fiction, postcolonial theory and contemporary approaches to sexuality and gender, predominantly queer theory, concluding that Le Guin sets up a thought experiment, that encourage readers to think about gender eliminated, postcolonial world. Kevin Palm (2014: 2) considers androgyny - at first strange and disturbing - as uncanny taken from Nicholas Royle’s 2003 monograph The Uncanny. Because of the unique setting of androgyny in Gethen, which is really eye-catching, researchers above focused too much on it, but this cannot be the only reason to state feminism behind the novel. More perspectives could be analyzed to improving feminist thought.
However, Stanislaw Lem (1971), a Polish science fiction author, criticizes that Le Guin’s using of gender issues is of no sense since it could be eliminated according to the story plot, and the description of the Prime Minster Estraven is more like a male rather than an androgyny (quoted in Jin, 2010). Chloe Bolan, an English fiction writer, claims that Le Guin’s use of pronoun “he” when describing Gethenians is not so proper though no other word suggested (quoted in Wang, 2011). Though their claims sound reasonable, they are still using the traditional understanding of male and female when viewing the book, accounting to the misunderstanding of author’s original purpose. Later on the revision of the novel, Le Guin tries to use “e”, “es”, “eself” as the pronoun of Gethenians. It cannot be denied that it is a masterpiece with great feminist thought. 源^自·优尔|文\论]文'网[www.youerw.com