Monday, January 22, 2018
Wave 1: Genly sees how He sees
Genly Ai, a Mobile from the Ekumen on a diplomatic mission, displays his struggle to see Gethenians as they see themselves within the very first chapter, where he had supper with Estraven at his house. During the moment Ai addresses his subconscious behavior of “forcing him into those categories so irrelevant to his nature and so essential to my own” (12). This one experience illustrates Genly’s premature behaviour to instinctively label the people of Winter as some gender. As being from another world and coming from Terran, a world of perverts, or rather permanently gendered people, the idea of being genderless is unfathomable. Especially to an Investigator who's only knowledge of genders revolve around male and female, never once considering the possibility of androgynous beings. Moreover, where he comes from the people have a sexual drive daily, whereas the people in Winter have a cycle where their sexual drive kicks in. Also, Gethenians have “no division of humanity into strong and weak halves” (94). Where as all the other beings from the other worlds have a division between the roles of men and women. These few differences illustrate the vast difference between Terran and Winter, and being a foreigner it makes sense why Genly struggles to wrap his mind around their gender orientation. In addition, his ignorance is further displayed throughout the book as he constantly refers to the natives as “he”. Nonetheless, despite the natives alien like nature to Genly they too see him as an alien, or Envoy; and his tallness and dark complexion sets him apart from the Gethenians, so although Genly may see them as strange and his perception of them is challenged, Gethenians may too have the same attitude towards him.
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I completely agree with the statements you have made and in addition to the last line, "Gethenians may too have the same attitude towards Genly," the reason for their behavior is a response to change. With a planet of the same type of people where there isn't a gender specific basis, it's no surprise that Genly is alienated at first glance and this is on account of appearing contrastive. I feel this relates to what we go through in our own lives where we feel alienated at some points. Alienated to the point where we know that something is particularly different about us. However, being different is a beautiful thing and with a planet full of uniquely beautiful people, no two people are the same. Furthermore, the planet of Gethen shares similarities with that of Earth but also unique differences that defines Gethenian culture. In a society with very little labels, nobody cares about what other people look like because for the most part, they're the same...until Genley arrives on a diplomatic mission. All in all, being different and set apart from the rest is better than being exact copies of each other.
ReplyDeleteI agree about what you have stated, "As being from another world and coming from Terran, a world of perverts, or rather permanently gendered people, the idea of being genderless is unfathomable, because it shows that from Genly's perspective, he is hard to believe that without having a gender is really inexplicable and not considered to be "normal" for him.
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