A Jungian Reading Of The Individuation Of Genly Ai In The Left Hand Of Darkness

Ursula K. Le Guin is one of the most important writers in the field of science fiction. The Left Hand of Darkness, as her masterpiece published in 1969, wins both the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award for its challenging ideas, themes, and concepts and so on. Decades after its original publication, the novel continues to receive a good deal of critical attention and is analyzed in various ways; however, there is still some room for in-depth research. Admittedly, Carl Jung's thoughts have a great impact on Le Guin's writing, nevertheless, there seldom explore this novel through this angle. Based on current study, the thesis mainly attempts to analyze the protagonist's psyche growth and maturity in The Left Hand of Darkness from the perspective of Jung's individuation theory in order to investigate human being's deep layer of collective unconscious, better perceive an inner world, enlarge and deepen our experience of ourselves and of life.The thesis can be divided into four parts.Chapter one gives a brief introduction to Ursula K. Le Guin and The Left Hand of Darkness, and brief introduction of this thesis.Chapter two briefly introduces the basic theoretical ideas of individuation related to four archetypes as the theoretical foundation of the research and the paper as well. Besides, it includes an introduction to science fiction and its unity of Jung, and Jung's impact on Le Guin.Chapter three centers around an analysis of character's individuation process of the novel. Proceeding from a textual analysis, Genly Ai's individuation process consists of four stages which must deal with some archetypes named the persona, the shadow, the anima and the self. It results into Genly Ai's achieving the self in harmony.Chapter four draws a conclusion that Genly Ai's arriving at his true self not only reflects his success of the personality integration, but also concretizes Jung's individuation theory.