Tehanu

Tehanu

Cover of first edition (hardcover)
Author	Ursula K. Le Guin
Country	United States
Language	English
Series	Earthsea
Genre(s)	Fantasy novel
Publisher	Atheneum Books
Publication date	1990
Media type	Print (Hardcover & Paperback)
Pages	pp
ISBN	ISBN 0-689-31595-3
Preceded by	The Farthest Shore
Followed by	Tales from Earthsea

Tehanu was the fourth of Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea books. It won the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1990.

Plot summary

Tehanu continues the stories of Tenar, the heroine of the second book of the Earthsea series The Tombs of Atuan, and Ged, the hero of the first book, A Wizard of Earthsea. Tehanu is set almost immediately after the conclusion of the series' third book, The Farthest Shore. Tenar, who arrived on Gont some years ago, has married a farmer called Flint and had two children, Apple and Spark. Her husband now dead and children grown up, Tenar is lonely and uncertain of her own identity. She adopts the child Therru (later to become the Tehanu of the title) after the child is maimed and abused by her natural father. Later, Ged - once the Archmage, now having lost his powers of wizardry in the supreme effort of closing the hole between the worlds of the living and the dead - arrives on the island. He joins the community of Gontish villagers and ultimately marries Tenar. Together they care for the girl Therru and attempt to protect both her and themselves from her father and the misogynistic wizard Aspen. At the same time they must search for a place and an identity not only for Tenar and Ged, but for Therru herself.

Gender Issues

Le Guin's exploration in her fiction of gender power issues has grown more overt in the years between the publication of The Farthest Shore in 1978 and Tehanu in 1990. An example of this can be seen in her book Always Coming Home. Tehanu revisits the world of Earthsea with this sensibility and explores questions such as why women can't be wizards, why men are seen as superior to women in Earthsea, and what kind of power may be open / natural to woman if they are denied the power of wizardry. A criticism levelled by a number of readers is that this gender sensibility has exalted polemics over narrative, with the result that the political message is heavy-handed and the narrative has suffered. Some readers have also remarked that the book is, if anything, anti-feminist, inasmuch as the lead female characters are largely shown as victims and the story's ultimate moral resolution is delivered by an outside force (draco ex machina). [1]. For more reader opinions see the Customer Reviews on Amazon.com.

Other Themes

Being and Doing

Following the Taoist thread running through the first three books and many of Le Guin's other works, a further theme in Tehanu is Ged's transition from a man of 'doing' and action to a man of generally passive 'being'. This was foreshadowed in the first book of the trilogy, A Wizard of Earthsea, in the contrast between Ged's first teacher Ogion the Silent, and Ged himself as a young student. However, whereas Ogion's stance of 'being' is shown in the first book as a manifestation of his strength and wisdom, in Tehanu Ged is reduced to a somewhat foolish, even pitiful character. Although the overt cause of Ged's transformation in Tehanu is the loss of his magical power, which occurred at the close of the initial trilogy, his weakness is also strongly shown as one of character. In this he is very different to the person defined in the earlier series.

Magic

Magic in general has a much smaller role in Tehanu than in the previous trilogy. The book's text suggests that, to some extent at least, this is prompted by Le Guin's redefination of the world of Earthsea and the questions she asks about the differences betweeen male and female 'power'. In other words, the reduced emphasis on magic appears to be not just a difference in the kind of narrative Le Guin decided to tell, but in the actual role she felt that magic (as defined in the earlier trilogy) would play in the future of Earthsea.

Literary Style

The style of the book is also very different. Whereas the initial Earthsea trilogy was written around classic fantasy tropes such as perilous quests, heroic actions and larger-than-human forces, Tehanu is more a study of social interaction and emotional resonance. The pace is far slower, the mood much darker and more introspective. The initial trilogy focusses on the character and quests of Ged, with Tenar introduced as the central character of the second book. Tehanu uses the lens of everyday events and a strong anti-patriarchal viewpoint to not only explore the future of these two characters - and of Earthsea itself - but to reinterpret them. According to Sharada Bhanu, Le Guin sees this reinterpretation as a more balanced view of the world of Earthsea, which is written in the first three books from an implicitly patriarchal (or at least, male) viewpoint. [2]

Conclusion

Given the significant changes in style, the overt gender politics and the redefinition of both the protagonist and the world from the earlier series, the book may be appreciated less by some readers who enjoyed the earlier works. It may be appreciated more by readers who wish to read a book that deals with central female characters who experience suffering at the hands of men, and explores the power of women, children, and the earth. Tehanu was originally subtitled The Last Book of Earthsea, but Le Guin has admitted that she was premature in making that claim, and has continued the series in Tales from Earthsea and The Other Wind.

External links

• Earthsea series listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Tehanu: A Return to the Source, by Sharada Bhanu excerpt on the Ursula K. Le Guin website
• Tehanu: The Last Book of Earthsea Danny Yee's Book Reviews