The clash of duality and singularity is the overarching theme and conflict in Ursula LeGuin’s “The Left Hand of Darkness.” Many things on Gethen seem to exist in a state of oneness rather than parity, and while the contrasting of Genly Ai’s dualistic worldview against this new “norm” is how this idea is predominantly played out, many fail to notice that there do exist examples of pairing within the Gethenian society and planet, and I feel there to be yet another overarching theme that can be derived out of this clash.

Genly comes from Terra, if I’m not mistaken also known as our own planet Earth, and brings with him a mind preconditioned to seeing things in opposition. For example, he tells his companion Therem Harth rem ir Estraven, a native Gethenian of the Yin and Yang symbol, telling Estraven that “Light is the left hand of darkness… how did it go? Light, dark. Fear, courage. Cold, warmth. Female, male,” (267). This very clearly demonstrates how Genly tries to view things, in pairs. Similarly, Genly often tries to classify the Gethenians into the paired sexual confines he is used to, male and female, when describing them in his self-proclaimed story-report, telling of “[His] landlady, a voluble man,” and of another, “wiping the sweat from his dark forehead the man – man I must say, having said he and his,” (47, 5). To us the first description seems a strange contradiction, and the second an unnecessary attempt at explaining pronoun selection, yet his struggle is not without merit. He finds it very difficult on Gethen to split people, places, and other thing into their Terran dualalities, and finds that the Gethenians themselves see things in quite a contrasting manner due to the strangeness of their planet.

Of course the greatest reason that Gethen and its inhabitants defy division into pairs stems from the physiological design of the Gethenian people. They are for the greater part of their lives, androgynous beings incapable of separation into male or female, and often exhibiting characteristics typical of both, evidenced by the voluble male landlady. Also, the planet is in an almost perpetual state of winter without really any other strong seasons, meaning the weather almost everyday is “snowy”, and the inhabitants are comprised of the same race rather than the many different peoples of Earth and other planets within LeGuin’s universe. Notice, though, that all examples but my final are conditional, revealing that pairings do in fact exist on this world of singularity.

Gethenians do split into male and female beings during their period of kemmer, much like a menstrual cycle. Genly describes how “I saw a girl, a filthy, pretty, stupid, weary girl looking up into my face as she talked, smiling timidly, looking for solace. The young Orgota was in kemmer, and had been drawn to me,” (171). During this stage, they react to their kemmer partner and their anatomy transforms to fill the roles of male and female, giving us the customary parity. Even in the absence of racial divisions one can find a substitute in governmental designations between the two Gethenian nations of Karhide and Orgoreyn. Karhide on the one hand is a monarchy, ruled by King Argaven in form very similar to a European monarchy, while Orgoreyn is almost blatantly structured as a socialist state where everyone is given a job by the government, things are shared, and dissidents and criminals are sent to “farms” as punishment, a contrast much like that between the governments of Western Europe and the Soviet Union. So, as one may note, dualism is not absent on Gethen.

All this talk of pairing and oneness I feel to be aside from the true message of the novel. If one examines a bit further, “The Left Hand of Darkness” can be seen rather as a religious or spiritual text. Both the Gethenians and the Ekumen of Known Worlds, the interplanetary league Genly works for as an Envoy, are in the end on a quest towards the same goal: Enlightenment. Now, they aren’t working towards strictly the same type of enlightenment, but ideas and principles are much the same. The Ekumen searches for Enlightenment by means of connecting all mankind to create greater and more knowledgeable beings. As Genly explains it, the Ekumen searches for “material profit. Increase of knowledge. The augmentation of the complexity and intensity of the field of intelligent life. The enrichment of harmony and the greater glory of God,” (34). This sounds very much like a spiritual journey, except instead of it being an individual’s quest, it is undertaken by all of humanity.

The Gethenians also have their goal of Enlightenment, set before them by a very Buddha-esque figure, Meshe. Followers of the Yomesh cult are “obedient to their rule of inactivity or non-interference. That rule (expressed in the word nusuth, which I have to translate as ‘no matter’) is the heart of the cult,” (60). Additionally, according to legend, “Meshe is the Center of Time… The life of every man is in the Center of Time, for all were seen in the Seeing of Meshe, and are in his Eye. We are the pupils of his Eye. Our doing is his Seeing: our being his Knowing,” (162-3). Meshe is the quintessential “enlightened being,” knowing and seeing all at once, and a similar state is sought by many of the Gethenians. So in fact, this is a book about the Duality of Gethen and the Ekumen both seeking out the goal of Oneness within the universe.