BookRags.com Literature Guides Literature Guides Criticism/Essays Criticism/Essays Biographies Biographies My Bibliography Periodic Table U.S. Presidents Shakespeare Sonnet Shake-Up
Research Anything:        
History | Encyclopedias | Films | News | Create a Bibliography | More... Login | Register | Help


The Left Hand of Darkness Study Guide

Print-Friendly  Order the PDF version  Order the RTF version
by Ursula K. Le Guin
About 90 pages (26,941 words)
The Left Hand of Darkness Summary

Bookmark and Share

Themes

Growth and Development

In establishing the basic facts of life on Gethen, this novel raises the fundamental question of "nature" versus "nurture": which cultural traits are learned and passed on from generations, and which are direct results of one's immediate surroundings? Since the people on this planet have no gender distinctions, their society is less restrictive about where citizens can go and what jobs they can take; the phrase "The king is pregnant" may sound strange to Earth ears because the associations that go with the word "king" are not the same as those that go with "pregnancy," but nobody on Gethen is fazed by the announcement. What does startle them is that humans are capable of sexuality every day, instead of being on monthly cycles. The effects of having sexuality kept aside for certain.....

This is a free excerpt of 135 words. This section contains 1,086 words. This study guide contains 26,941 words (approx. 90 pages at 300 words per page).

Read the rest of this Literature Guide with our The Left Hand of Darkness Access Pass.

 
Copyrights
The Left Hand of Darkness from BookRags and Gale's For Students Series. ©2005-2006 Thomson Gale, a part of the Thomson Corporation. All rights reserved.

Join BookRagslearn moreJoin BookRags


About BookRags | Customer Service | Report an Error | Terms of Use | Privacy Policy