Monday, January 22, 2018
An Outsider Looking In
Genly Ai is an outsider that is trying look at Gethen and Gethenian society with an openly closed mindset. He is trying to learn about Gethenian culture but can't fully grasp the nature of things because he has never been exposed to any of it. Just like in our society, we have never been able to accept things as they are but we find ways to compromise. For Genly, that compromise is mentally associating the androgynous inhabitants of Gethen to a gendered society of his own, basing it off of their personalities and physical characteristics. By doing so, Genly thinks sexist remarks to himself and it sometimes inhibits his ability to grasp some of the simple matters that trouble him. That being said, Genly is a foreigner that was handed the observations, uncertainties, and theories of the investagator team which seem to cloud his judgement at times. Genly is openly trying to adapt to the way Gethenian society is conducted but his nature is close minded but he was unconsciously transforming their society to fit what he is used to, a world that has genders, a world that has inequalities, a world in which people are in a hurry to reach new height rather than slowly improve upon what we've had. Genly won't be able to truly see the inhabitants of Gethens as they see one another because of the way he associates them to fit he's used to.
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I agree Genly is trying to adapt to the world around him and evolve his way of thinking in response to the new Genthenian race and their strange biology and customs. I also agree that he is still clutching on to his own thoughts of gendered society to make sense of them, even though this isn't truly understanding and accepting the Gethenians in front of him. These ideas of separate gender and sex are in a way holding him back from truly understanding Genthenians such as Estraven and Faxe. While Genly classifying them into gender isn't inherently bad, it's bad that he isn't making an effort to address and understand them outside the gender norms he's used to. Genly, rather than truly learn and move forward, is stuck in his old way of only "male/female" thinking.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Genly is trying to adapt to the new world because he isn’t used to the things thhst they do. His thoughts are going everywhere because the gendeess society isn’t something that he is used to because in his world they have a gender.
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