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Printed Sources about The Left Hand of Darkness

Attebery, Brian. Decoding Gender in Science Fiction. New York : Rutledge, 2002. Includes a chapter on androgyny, which includes a few pages about LHD, and also references to the book as a whole throughout this study.

Barr, Marleen S. “Charles Bronson, Samurai, and Other Feminine Images and Transactive Responses to The Left Hand of Darkness .” Barr 138-56. Barr takes select passages from the novel and applies them to her own experience and life, bringing the ideas expressed in LHD from Gethen back to Terra.

--- Ed. Future Females: A Critical Anthology. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State UP, 1981. Includes two essays on LHD, one written by the editor.

Barr, Marleen and Nicholas D. Smith, Ed. Women and Utopia: Critical Interpretations . Lanham, MD: UP of America , 1983. A collection of essays on utopia and feminism including Rhodes’ article, “The Left Hand of Darkness: Androgyny and the Feminist Utopia.”

Bloom, Harold, Ed. Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkenss . New York: Chealsea House 1987. A collection of essays originally published in magazines, and an introduction by the editor in which he praises the achievements that he believes Le Guin has made in the book. The collection is organized chronologically and includes what the editor considers to be the best articles on LHD in print. I will not go into detail on each and every article, but they are as follows (title, followed by author in parentheses): “The Left Hand if Darkness: Ursula K. Le Guin’s Archetypal ‘Winter-Journey’” (David Ketterer), “World Reduction in Le Guin: The Emergence of Utopian Narrative” (Fedric Jameson), “The Art of Social Science-Fiction: The Ambiguous Utopiana Dialects of Ursula K. Le Guin” (David F. Thrall), “Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness: Form and Content” (Martin Bickman), “Myth, Exchange and history in The Left Hand of Darkness” (Jeanne Murray Walker), “Determinism, Free Will, and Point of View in Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness” (Eric S. Rabkin), “The Left Hand of Darkness: Androgyny, Future, Present and Past” (Barbara Brown), “Conversational Techniques in Ursula Le Guin: A Speech-Act Analysis” (Victoria Myers), “Optimism and the Limits of Subversion in The Dispossed and The Left Hand of Darkness” (Carol MdGuirk).

Bucholtz, Mary, A.C. Long and Laurel A. Sulton, Eds. Reinventing Identities: The Gendered Self in Discourse . Oxford: Oxford UP, 1999. See my note on Ann Livia’s “She Sired Six Children” included in this volume.

Fayad, Mona. “Aliens, Andrgienes and Anthropology: Le Guin’s Critique of Representation in The Left Hand of Darkness .” Mosaic September 1997. Fayad examines androgeny and its historical origins before analyzing androgyny in LHD, particularly the effectiveness of Le Guin’s use of a biased Ai as the main narrator.

Holland , Norman N. “You, U.K. Le Guin.” Barr 125-37. An entertaining piece of work, part essay, part letter, and part stream-of-consciousness, in which Holland humorously address Le Guin, playing on her name, and asking her questions about his assumptions about the meanings of her images. His interpretation is interesting, and his style makes the essay stand apart from the dry essays written by most scholars.

James, Edward and Farah Mendlesohn, Ed. The CambridgeCompanion to Science Fiction . Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2003. Includes a chapter entitled “Gender and Science Fiction” that includes information about LHD and its effects on the portrayal of gender in SF, as well as other very brief references.

Landon, Brooks. Science Fiction After 1900: From the Steam Man to the Stars . New York: Twayne 1997. Includes a small section entitled, “The Insistent Vision of Ursula K. Le Guin” in the chapter “Contercultures of Science Fiction—Resisting Genre” on pp. 132-35. This short article notes Le Guin’s thoughts toward character development found in her essays “Science Fiction and Mrs. Brown,” “Is Gender Necessary—Redux,” and “American SF and the Other,” and also discusses Le Guin’s reactions to criticism of LHD.

Lefanu, Sarah. Feminism and Science Fiction. Bloomington , IN: Indiana UP, 1989. Includes an entire chapter on Le Guin, her writing styles, and gender issues addressed by her books, including LHD.

Le Guin, Ursula K. Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places . New York: Harper & Row, 1989. Le Guin’s essays about her work, the science fiction genre, feminism, writing, and her reviews of books. It is a compilation of her work since her last collection of essays.

---. “Is Gender Necessary? Redux.” LeGuin Dancing 7-16. The original “Is Gender Necessary?” essay is a response to the criticism Le Guin received for using the masculine pronoun for Gethenians and for portraying her main characters in a predominantly male light. She also discusses her motivation for creating an androgynous society in LHD. In the reduce version of the essay, Le Guin includes parenthetical notes about how she would change the essay if she were writing it today.

---. The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction . New York: Putnam, 1979. Le Guin’s essays on her work, including the original “Is Gender Necessary? And the wonderful “Science Fiction and Mrs. Brown.” Also includes introductions to all of her novels written before its publication.

---. The Left Hand of Darkness. New York: Ace, 1969. Before researching the novel, you have to read it!

---. “Science Fiction and Mrs. Brown.” Language 101-20. An essay in which Le Guin asks whether Science Fiction can sustain a fully fledged character a la Virginia Woolf. The essay is a really interesting look at the intent and structure of SF.

Livia, Anna. “She Sired Six Children: Feminist Experiments with Linguistic Gender.” Mucholtz, Long, and Sulton 332-347. This essay includes a few page overview of the pronoun controversy surrounding LHD and Le Guin’s various attempts at improving the effectiveness of her portrayal of an androgynous society.

Malinowski, Sharon, Ed. Gay & Lesbian Literature. Detroit : St. James, 1994. Pp. 224-227. Gives a brief background on Le Guin, her awards, biographies about her, and a little bit about LHD itself.

Merrick, Helen. “Gender in Science Fiction.” James and Mendlesohn 241-53. Includes a few references to LHD, but not many.

Palumbo, Donald, Ed. Erotic Universe: Sexuality and Fantastic Literature . Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1986. Includes the Spector article cited below.

Peel, Ellen. Politics, Persuasion and Pragmatism: A Rhetoric of Feminist Utopian Fiction .Columbus, OH: Ohio State UP, 2002. Includes an entire chapter on LHD from pages 109-149, including basics such as plot and structure, but mostly about the significance of the novel and why the author believes that it is so effective.

Rass, Rebecca. Ursula Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkenss: A Critical Commentary . New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990. A study-guide that is very detailed. Includes character descriptions, themes in the novel, and a detailed summary.

Rhodes, Jewell Parker. “The Left Hand of Darkness: Androgyny and the Feminist Utopia.” Barr and Smith 108-20. This article argues that the Gethenians in LHD are not quite as progressive as they might at first seem, for they continue to be dependent upon one another, or even further, to need to develop a gender, in order to engage in sexual intercourse. She also talks about the historical background of the androgene, stating with Plato’s Symposium, noting that this idea of androgyny implies that a male or female in and of themselves in incomplete, and the only way to find completeness is a union. Thus, she argues that a work of fiction that stresses androgyny is not feminist, but rather perpetuating stereotypes of gender dependence.

Roberts, Adam. Science Fiction. London: Routledge, 2000. Includes a case study on LHD including a response to Le Guin’s own commentary on her novel and the supposed faults of the novel. He argues for the effectiveness of the book despite its possible flaws.

Spector, Judith. “Sexuality in Russ, Piercy and Le Guin.” Palumbo 197-207. Spector compares the approaches at feminist writing used by Le Guin in LHD, Joanna Russ in The Female Man and Marge Piercy in Women on the Edge of Time.