An Ambiguous Utopia. The Concept of Utopia in Ursula K. Le Guin's "The Dispossessed"

An Ambiguous Utopia. The Concept of Utopia in Ursula K. Le Guin's Author: Wiebke Saathoff
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3668545529
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 40

Get Book Here

Book Description
Bachelor Thesis from the year 2015 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,3, University of Hannover, language: English, abstract: Ursula K. Le Guin’s" The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia" is a science fiction novel from 1974, often conceived as a blueprint for an anarchist society. "The Dispossessed" presents the reader a juxtaposition of Anarres and its sister planet Urras which houses a society based on capitalism. The aim of the present paper is to explore the location of utopia in "The Dispossessed". Is it a utopia as ambiguous as its subtitle declares? The paper argues that Le Guin's novel in many respects coincides with the concept of a critical utopia. Whereas it is true that both Urras and Anarres display many features that could be considered utopian, "The Dispossessed" equally presents the flaws of its society which, as this paper suggests, relativises their status as the ideal place. The second part of the paper reflects upon the circumstance that both planets are introduced to the reader in the course of a dual narrative, which presents the plotline in alternating chapters on Urras and Anarres. It examines the narrative focus on the protagonist Shevek and his experience of the societies in the light of Tom Moylan's and Ernst Bloch's concepts of utopia. The paper concludes that this ambiguous mode of narration, switching in time and place, firstly portrays a concept of utopia which is dynamic and embedded in historicity and secondly expresses the importance of individual action and initiative for the realisation of utopia.

The Dispossessed

The Dispossessed PDF Author: Ursula K. Le Guin
Publisher: Turtleback Books
ISBN: 9780785764038
Category : Anarchism
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
A brilliant physicist attempts to salvage his planet of anarchy.

The New Utopian Politics of Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed

The New Utopian Politics of Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed PDF Author: Laurence Davis
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 0739158201
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 353

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Dispossessed has been described by political thinker Andre Gorz as 'The most striking description I know of the seductions—and snares—of self-managed communist or, in other words, anarchist society.' To date, however, the radical social, cultural, and political ramifications of Le Guin's multiple award-winning novel remain woefully under explored. Editors Laurence Davis and Peter Stillman right this state of affairs in the first ever collection of original essays devoted to Le Guin's novel. Among the topics covered in this wide-ranging, international and interdisciplinary collection are the anarchist, ecological, post-consumerist, temporal, revolutionary, and open-ended utopian politics of The Dispossessed. The book concludes with an essay by Le Guin written specially for this volume, in which she reassesses the novel in light of the development of her own thinking over the past 30 years.

The Day Before the Revolution

The Day Before the Revolution PDF Author: Ursula K. Le Guin
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062470981
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 26

Get Book Here

Book Description
“Ursula Le Guin is more than just a writer of adult fantasy and science fiction . . . she is a philosopher; an explorer in the landscapes of the mind.” – Cincinnati Enquirer The recipient of numerous literary prizes, including the National Book Award, the Kafka Award, and the Pushcart Prize, Ursula K. Le Guin is renowned for her spare, elegant prose, rich characterization, and diverse worlds. "The Day Before the Revolution" is a short story originally published in the collection The Wind's Twelve Quarters.

An Ambiguous Utopia. The Concept of Utopia in Ursula K. Le Guin's "The Dispossessed"

An Ambiguous Utopia. The Concept of Utopia in Ursula K. Le Guin's Author: Wiebke Saathoff
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3668545529
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 40

Get Book Here

Book Description
Bachelor Thesis from the year 2015 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,3, University of Hannover, language: English, abstract: Ursula K. Le Guin’s" The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia" is a science fiction novel from 1974, often conceived as a blueprint for an anarchist society. "The Dispossessed" presents the reader a juxtaposition of Anarres and its sister planet Urras which houses a society based on capitalism. The aim of the present paper is to explore the location of utopia in "The Dispossessed". Is it a utopia as ambiguous as its subtitle declares? The paper argues that Le Guin's novel in many respects coincides with the concept of a critical utopia. Whereas it is true that both Urras and Anarres display many features that could be considered utopian, "The Dispossessed" equally presents the flaws of its society which, as this paper suggests, relativises their status as the ideal place. The second part of the paper reflects upon the circumstance that both planets are introduced to the reader in the course of a dual narrative, which presents the plotline in alternating chapters on Urras and Anarres. It examines the narrative focus on the protagonist Shevek and his experience of the societies in the light of Tom Moylan's and Ernst Bloch's concepts of utopia. The paper concludes that this ambiguous mode of narration, switching in time and place, firstly portrays a concept of utopia which is dynamic and embedded in historicity and secondly expresses the importance of individual action and initiative for the realisation of utopia.

Visible and hidden walls in Ursula K. Le Guin's utopian novel "The Dispossessed"

Visible and hidden walls in Ursula K. Le Guin's utopian novel Author: Tom Keller
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3668191204
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 19

Get Book Here

Book Description
Document from the year 2011 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 1,7, Technical University of Braunschweig (Englisches Seminar), course: Cultural Studies, language: English, abstract: In Ursula K. Le Guin ́s utopian novel "The Dispossessed", published in 1974, one of the central images are walls, which exist in different shapes and various places, separating people or enclosing them. Some function like a prison, where nobody can break through, while others offer possibilities like freedom and choice. Furthermore, having two sides, walls appear to be ambiguous, depending on the view and interpretation of the individual. The novel describes several walls of different types like hierarchy, superiority, greed, possession, lies or physical boundaries. They appear throughout the novel and get demolished one after another. Shevek, the main protagonist, faces those boundaries, identifies them and tries to tear them down. Basically, the planets in the story are clearly separated, with them their people and also their cultures. Anarres, at first sight, has just one physical wall, surrounding the port and simultaneously the whole society. Based on a revolution which had the aim of pure freedom and a brotherly society, Anarres has no governmental laws, having an anarchistic society with secretly growing boundaries. Urras is the opposite, consisting of many obvious physical and cultural walls. The people, greedy and egoistic, live between the boundaries, being disconnected by their possessions and their attitudes.

The Dispossessed :--a Novel

The Dispossessed :--a Novel PDF Author: Ursula K. Le Guin
Publisher: Follettbound
ISBN: 9780329783068
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 400

Get Book Here

Book Description


Ursula K. Le Guin: The Complete Orsinia (LOA #281)

Ursula K. Le Guin: The Complete Orsinia (LOA #281) PDF Author: Ursula K. Le Guin
Publisher: Library of America
ISBN: 1598534947
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 682

Get Book Here

Book Description
Library of America gathers for the first time the entire body of work set in the imaginary central European nation of Orsinia—the enchanting, richly imagined historical fiction series written by Hugo, Nebula, and National Book Award winner Ursula K. Le Guin. In a career spanning half a century, Ursula K. Le Guin has produced a body of work that testifies to her abiding faith in the power and art of words. She is perhaps best known for imagining future intergalactic worlds in brilliant books that challenge our ideas of what is natural and inevitable in human relations—and that celebrate courage, endurance, risk-taking, and above all, freedom in the face of the psychological and social forces that lead to authoritarianism and fanaticism. It is less well known that she first developed these themes in the richly imagined historical fiction collected in this volume, which inaugurates the Library of America edition of her works. Written before Ursula K. Le Guin turned to science fiction, the novel Malafrena is a tale of love and duty set in the central European country of Orsinia in the early nineteenth century, when it is ruled by the Austrian empire. The stories originally published in Orsinian Tales (1976) offer brilliantly rendered episodes of personal drama set against a history that spans Orsinia’s emergence as an independent kingdom in the twelfth century to its absorption by the eastern Bloc after World War II. The volume is rounded out by two additional stories that bring the history of Orsinia up to 1989, the poem “Folksong from the Montayna Province,” Le Guin’s first published work, and two never-before-published songs in the Orisinian language. LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation’s literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America’s best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.

Ameritopia

Ameritopia PDF Author: Mark R. Levin
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439173281
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Get Book Here

Book Description
In his acclaimed #1 New York Times bestseller, Mark R. Levin explores the psychology, motivations, and history of the utopian movement, its architects—the Founding Fathers, and its modern-day disciples—and how the individual and American society are being devoured by it. Levin asks, what is this utopian force that both allures a free people and destroys them? Levin digs deep into the past and draws astoundingly relevant parallels to contemporary America from Plato’s Republic, Thomas More’s Utopia, Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan, and Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto, as well as from the critical works of John Locke, Charles Montesquieu, Alexis de Tocqueville, and other philosophical pioneers who brilliantly diagnosed the nature of man and government. As Levin meticulously pursues his subject, the reader joins him in an enlightening and compelling journey. And in the end, Levin’s message is clear: the American republic is in great peril. The people must now choose between utopianism or liberty. President Ronald Reagan warned, “freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.” Levin agrees, and with Ameritopia, delivers another modern political classic, an indispensable guide for America in our time and in the future.

The Dispossessed

The Dispossessed PDF Author: Ursula K. Le Guin
Publisher: Gateway
ISBN: 1473206065
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 364

Get Book Here

Book Description
One of the very best must-read novels of all time - with a new introduction by Roddy Doyle 'A well told tale signifying a good deal; one to be read again and again' THE TIMES 'The book I wish I had written ... It's so far away from my own imagination, I'd love to sit at my desk one day and discover that I could think and write like Ursula Le Guin' Roddy Doyle 'Le Guin is a writer of phenomenal power' OBSERVER 'There was a wall. It did not look important - even a child could climb it. But the idea was real. Like all walls it was ambiguous, two-faced. What was inside it and what was outside it depended upon which side of it you were on...' Shevek is brilliant scientist who is attempting to find a new theory of time - but there are those who are jealous of his work, and will do anything to block him. So he leaves his homeland, hoping to find a place of more liberty and tolerance. Initially feted, Shevek soon finds himself being used as a pawn in a deadly political game. With powerful themes of freedom, society and the natural world's influence on competition and co-operation, THE DISPOSSESSED is a true classic of the 20th century.

The Dispossessed

The Dispossessed PDF Author: Ursula K. Le Guin
Publisher: Burns & Oates
ISBN: 9780006547891
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

Get Book Here

Book Description
Frequently reissued with the same ISBN, but with slightly differing bibliographical details.