The Harmony Between Yin And Yang

The Left Hand of Darkness is considered one of the best works of Ursula Le Guin and has received both the Nebula Prize and the Hugo Prize shortly after its publication. The novel talks about an envoy who is sent from Terra to persuade the planet, Gethen (also called Winter) to join Ekumen, a space organization. Being limited by his own dual stereotypes, he looks down upon the androgynous people on Gethen and cannot build any relationship with them. With the help of Estraven, a prime minister from Karhide (one of the two countries on Winter), he finally completes his mission.The themes of the novel are many, complex and interwoven. There are some arguments about the necessity of androgyny and the usage of the pronoun "he." Chloe Bolan thinks that androgyny is not integral to the plot and the usage of "he" is a big mistake. Meanwhile, Barbara Brown and Barbara J. Bucknall both think that androgyny is the symbol of balance and wholeness and that Le Guin gives the reader a view of androgyny in its past, present and future aspects.The author of this thesis argues that androgyny is the embodiment of the harmony between Yin and Yang from Yin-Yang theory. Through the hero's change from misogyny to his identification of androgyny, Le Guin deconstructed the duality thought pattern and offered us a realistic path. The whole process of Genly's metamorphosis represents the harmony between Yin and Yang: an equal, complimentary, interactive and dynamic coexistence.This thesis contains four chapters, including the introduction and the conclusion.Chapter One offers a sketch of the main influences of Ursula Le Guin, her works and the previous studies on The Left Hand of Darkness. Then this paper looks at the reason why the perspective of Yin-Yang theory was chosen, which gives a direction for the next chapters.Starting from the definition of androgyny, Chapter Two summarizes the origins of the idea of androgyny and the controversies which are brought up by the definition itself. As to the reasons of Le Guin's creation of the idea of androgyny, three were found by the writer of this thesis.Chapter Three focuses on the text analysis from the theory of Yin and Yang and Tao Te Ching in order to find out the implication of the idea of androgyny by Ursula Le Guin. Section One introduces the basic content of the theory of Yin and Yang including the origin, the definition and characteristics of both Yin and Yang principles and the relationship between them with a focus on its idea of harmony. Section Two analyzes the alienation of Genly Ai and points out the reasons for his alienation is that he denied the Yin characteristics in himself and proves the necessity of Yin principle. Section Three examines the problems of Orgoreyn (one of the countries on the androgynous planet) and argues its shortcomings resulted from the lack of Yang (masculine principle) and affirms the necessity of Yang principle. In Section Four, the "talk" that happened between the hero, Genly, and Estraven, echoes with the necessity of cooperation between Yin and Yang according to the Yin Yang theory. And the author of this thesis pointed out that through the process of harmony between Yin and Yang. Le Guin realized her androgyny creation.Chapter Four summarizes the thesis and comes to the conclusion. After being analyzed by the theory of Yin and Yang and Tao Te Ching, Ursula Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness has been examined from a new angle. The harmony of Yin and Yang is both the end and the right way to go.