A Taoist Utopia

Ursula K. Le Guin is an outstanding American contemporary writer, especially known as a science fiction writer. Her science fiction works are called "soft science fiction" for exploring social practical problems, differing from the traditional "hard science fiction", and have won her appreciation of mainstream literature. Known as a highly respected award-winning author, Le Guin is productive and versatile. In nearly fifty years, she has published lots of works written in different genres, such as science fiction novels, fantasy, poetry, essay, drama, literary criticism and so on. Her works are unique, and always have obvious Taoist characteristics due to her fascination with Taoism. This fascination began even when she was a child. Le Guin has studied Tao Te Ching since the age of fourteen, and has worked forty years in translating it. Besides, she always adopts Taoism in her works, which makes her works famous for embodying Taoist thoughts.The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia, one of Le Guin's science fiction masterpieces, is an immediate success when published in 1974, and has won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards of that year which are the top two awards for science fiction. In this novel, the author creates an attractive Utopia, and juxtaposes two contrasting planets by alternating chapters. It vividly pictures the virtues and flaws of the Utopia through the protagonist's experiences on the two worlds. This novel, like her other works, also has obvious Taoist features.This dissertation consists of five parts. Apart from the introduction and conclusion, it is divided into three chapters in order to analyze Le Guin's conception of Taoism in this novel from different perspectives.The first chapter explores Le Guin's idea of Cycle and Return in The Dispossessed. In this novel, the protagonist Shevek, a genius physicist on Anarres, first leaves Anarres to Urras in order to break the ignorance between the sister planets and reconcile the two contrasting planets, and ultimately returns to Anarres after witnessing the dark side of Urras. Accompanied with his interstellar journey, his attitude to Anarres, from blind love, to criticizing and eventually to reacceptance, also forms a cycle, suggesting the theme of return. Hence, his journey, both physical and emotional, is a cycle and a return. Besides, at the end of the book, another character Ketho, a Hainish on the spaceship Shevek takes, decides to take his trip to Anarres, which means the beginning of a new journey. From the perspective of the structure, The Dispossessed is also a cycle. It is written in alternating chapters, depicting Shevek's experiences on Urras with a successive chapter providing a description of Shevek's life on Anarres. The first chapter of the novel begins with Shevek's departure from Anarres, while the last chapter ends with his return to Anarres. It ends where it begins. In the form, this novel is a cycle, representing a return. This idea can also find expression in the content of the novel. The social philosophy of the Anarres is Odonianism, which Le Guin considers to be a kind of Taoist anarchist communism. Both the shape of the letter "o" and the two "o"s in this word symbolize the cycle and return. It can be seen that according to Le Guin, everything, developing cyclically, finally returns to the place it begins. Therefore, life is also full of cycles. However, the developing process is not a simple repetition, but is an evolutional return. Le Guin's thought of Return is the embodiment of Taoist insight of Return. Lao Tzu contends that "Things proliferate, and each again returns to its root." Therefore, everything ends where it begins, developing cyclically. "'Returning' is how way-making (dao) moves."The second chapter analyzes the author's thoughts of wholeness and balance in The Dispossessed. Le Guin's thoughts of wholeness and balance, balancing and uniting the opposites which is vastly different from western dichotomy separating and isolating opposites, are revealed in this novel in three aspects: the Sequency and Simultaneity Theory, the Female and Male as well as Anarres and Urras. Sequency Theory explains our usual sense of time, the arrow of time, while Simultaneity refers to a vastly different understanding of time, the cycle of time. They, though contrasting, are finally yoked together to be a more comprehensive theory, the General Temporal Theory, which will leads to the immediate communication between any two places in the universe. The breakthrough of Shevek's scientific research lays firm foundation for the fulfillment of his mission to reconcile the contrasting Anarres and Urras. Living in a Utopia, people are free of gender discrimination on Anarres. There man and woman are free and equal, in sharp contrast to the distorted relationship between the two genders on Urras. In the anarchist Utopia, man and woman are in harmony. At the end of the novel, the protagonist eventually comes to accept both the virtues and flaws of Anarres and Urras. He accepts them as they are. By broadcasting his theory to the whole world, there is a hint for the breach of the ignorance between planets. In this novel, Le Guin illustrates that the dichotomies, though contrasting, are interdependent. They could be balanced and yoked together. Le Guin's theme of wholeness and balance derive from Taoist Theory of Yin and Yang. According to Lao Tzu, "Everything carries yin on its shoulders and yang in its arms and blends these vital energies (qi) together to make them harmonious (he)". Yin and Yang, though opposing, can be balanced and yoked together. The unity of yin and yang represents wholeness and balance.The third chapter deals with Le Guin's idea of Utopia. In The Dispossessed, Le Guin creates a Utopian society Anarres, based on Odonianism, which is a kind of Taoist anarchism. It is an anarchist Utopia, with no laws, no police, no power structure, no hierarchies, and no discrimination. Everyone is equal and free. Harmony has been established between man and man, between man and society as well as between man and nature. Le Guin's Utopia echoes Lao Tzu's ideal society. In Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu creates a Utopia known as "a small state with a minimal population". In his Utopia, man is free, equal, but self-disciplined. The sage, the governor of a country, rules by resignation, also called non-action or wuwei, for "It is simply in doing things noncoercively (wuwei) that everything is governed properly." In the Utopia, man and nature are in harmony, as they advocate "unity of man and heaven".Le Guin's Utopia is ambiguous. It is also the case in The Dispossessed. The themes are argumentative, which has been studied by many people, whereas the Taoism permeating in it has been widely acknowledged. This paper attempts to offer an overall study about Le Guin's conception of Lao Tzu's Taoism in The Dispossessed and provide a different approach in order for readers to better understand this masterpiece.