Absorption,Representation And Reconstruction:A Study On Ursula K.Le Guin And Taoist Thought

Ursula K.Le Guin is a famous contemporary American writer,prolific and award-winning.Although her debut as a science fiction writer,Le Guin has broken such barriers as genres,gender,mainstream literature and popular literature,Eastern and Western literature during her long and fruitful writing career,dancing at the edge of multiple worlds.Her literary works are not only rich in thoughts,but also filled with colorful imagination,delivering delicacy and mystery in harmony with the music of language.Consequently,it is unfair for the domestic researchers to classify her merely as a feminist writer or a science fiction writer.In fact,Le Guin is a versatile writer with a strong tendency of fantasy and imagination.More notable is that Le Guin and Taoist thought has the indissoluble bond:she not only takes the initiative to learn and absorb Taoist thought,but also represents Taoist thought in her ideas of writing and language style.Moreover,Le Guin even innovates and reconstructs Taoist thought in her life and literary works.Le Guin's absorption,representation and reconstruction of Taoist thought have given birth to a large number of outstanding literary works full of aesthetics and thoughts,and meanwhile,have made great contribution to the exchanges between Eastern and Western culture.This dissertation aims at studying the interaction between the famous contemporary American writer Ursula K.Le Guin and Taoist thought.Apart from Introduction,Conclusion,Bibliography,Appendix and Postscript,the main body of this dissertation is composed of six chapters.The first chapter traces the life of Le Guin,concerning her absorption of Taoist thought,from such four stages as childhood,youth,middle age and old age,pointing out that the multicultural atmosphere of Le Guin's family provided for her the rare chance to read and approach Tao Te Ching since her childhood and enhanced her keen interest in Taoist thought;the enlightenment of Taoist thought and her open-minded parents helped her survive the traumatic "A.B." event during her youth stage,which led to her experience of true and romantic love and enjoyment of "ordinary life full of wisdom and sweetness";when she was in her middle age,Le Guin's creation was on fire,and she realized,combing with her study of Tao Te Ching,that she had never tried to "become a writer",for she had "been a writer" since the very beginning,and this epiphany enlarges her creative field,and drives her to dance and slide between different literary genres;now in her old age,Le Guin is still energetic with regard to her writing,and continues to study and practice Tao,the essential element of Taoist thought,which has been manifested in her advocation to science fiction and fantasy,and her contemplation upon contemporary American literature.The second chapter focuses on the analysis of Le Guin's creative rendition of Tao Te Ching.On the basis of a brief history of Tao Te Ching's English translation,the first part of this chapter explains the inheritance and development of Le Guin's version.The second part analyzes the reasons for the popularity of Le Guin's version,namely she has critically borrowed from all other English versions to reveal those implied feminist elements and the aesthetic traits of the original text.The third part then investigates Le Guin's poetic interpretation of "Tao" and "Nonbeing",two most significant terms of Taoist thought,by close reading.In addition,due to the fact that Le Guin doesn't understand Chinese,her misreading is consequently unavailable.Therefore,the fourth part conducts a detailed analysis of Le Guin's misreading through some examples.From the above,it can safely draw the conclusion that,despite of those misreadings,Le Guin's understanding and rendition of Taoist thought proves to be unexpectedly appropriate and profound.This can be seen as partly the result of Le Guin's long devotion to studying and absorbing Taoist thought,and partly the reason for her representation of Taoist thought in her ideas of writing and her language style,and the foundation of the reconstruction of Taoist thought in literary works.The third chapter analyzes Le Guin's representation of Taoist thought in her ideas of writing from three aspects,which are the emphasis on the idea of Yin and Yang,and the concept of "Nonbeing," and the idea of the newborn baby in her six critical essays.To begin with,Le Guin's "discovery" during the unconscious exploration is similar to Taoist's introspection and comprehension of "Tao" and "Nonbeing," which also explains Le Guin's affirmation and emphasis of imagination.And meanwhile,Le Guin keenly points out such issues as discrimination encountered by science fiction and other marginalized literary genres and writers'self-censorship as the consequence of catering for the book market,and urges to recognize,respect,and affirm The Other,since Yin includes the Yang element to be itself,while Yang also includes the Yin element to be itself.Otherwise,it will turn out to be a power relationship and anyone or anything will be reduced to a "thing" by rejecting,demeaning,and denying The Other.Besides,Le Guin strongly believes in giving children full trust,since children are more able to distinguish fantasy from truth(which is not fact)than adults,and she argues to give full play to self-exploration embodied in fantasy,guiding both children and adults to face their fear and to approach truth.The fourth chapter analyzes,by virtue of her typical literature works,Le Guin's representation of Taoist thought in her language style from three aspects,namely the interaction between language and imagery,the significance and importance of simple language,and the endlessness of language,in her typical literary works.Just like Lao Tzu's usage of "water" and "baby" to explain "Tao," Le Guin also creates some typical imageries to express her artistic intuition and philosophical thinking,such as the "tree" in The Telling and the "wall" in The Dispossessed.Moreover,Le Guin's language is simple,concise,vivid,and right to the point.Whether the rare yet wonderful usage of four "dark"s in the same paragraph in A Fisherman of the Inland Sea,or the plain yet powerful description of environment in The Telling,they are all examples of Le Guin's attention to and emphasis on simple language.Le Guin also explores the limitations and endlessness of language in her works,for example,the textual holes in Always Coming Home.This style of "plain on the outside while rich on the inside" proves to be the excellent copying and representation of Taoist thought,sending forth the circumstances and sentiment of elegance,simplicity and purity.The fifth chapter mainly analyzes Le Guin's reconstruction of "Tao," one core concept of Taoist thought,in her literary works.At first,Le Guin's reconstruction of Taoist thought manifests itself in the Yin-Yang thinking."The Schrodinger's Cat,""The New Atlantis," and Always Coming Home are all continuous explorations of Taoist binary thinking,and her most important contribution is to open up this way of thinking to all other possibilities.Secondly,by tracing how the magic works in Earthsea series,it can safely draw a conclusion that,in Le Guin's literary world,the magic stems from true name,which functions as a contrast with those regular names that has been used on a daily basis.The relationship between the true name and the regular name is thus somehow similar to Saussure's signifier and signified,but much more related to the distinction between the "temporary name(the name that one can say)" and the "lasting name(real name)" indicated by Taoist thought.Only by knowing the "lasting name(real name)" can we have a good understanding of our world.Therefore,in "She Unnames Them," Le Guin boldly let Eve unname all animals and even herself.She even lets Eva return all those names to Adam,the representative of patriarchal system.Such revolutionary acts generate much more harmonious situation between animals and between herself and animals.The sixth chapter mainly analyzes Le Guin's reconstruction of "Nonbeing," the other core concept of Taoist thought,in her literary works.Firstly,by analyzing the rewriting of hero myth in Tehanu and the thought experiment in The Left Hand of Darkness,it can be seen that Le Guin has been trying to dig up the covered and devalued elements of "Nonbeing" in people's conventional cognition.Secondly,by analyzing the General Time theory that unifies the linear and cyclic time in The Dispossessed and the nonlinear narrative in Orsinian Tales,it can be seen that linearity and cyclicity has been fully imbued with each other.Thirdly,by analyzing those characters similar to Taoist sages such as the old Ged in The Farthest Shore and the Gatekeeper of the magic school called Roke in "The Finder," it can be seen that Le Guin has explored the active elements of the "acting through non-acting" thought of Taoist thought and reconstructed it into the wisdom of taking the responsibility to do what is absolutely necessary and needful.To sum up,this dissertation develops with three key words,absorption,representation and reconstruction,and it is divided into six chapters to explore the interaction between Le Guin and Taoist thought.Chapter One and Two focus on"absorption," highlighting Le Guin's studying and absorbing of Taoist thought during different stages of her life.Chapter Three and Four center on "representation",analyzing Taoist elements copied and reproduced in Le Guin's ideas of writing and language style.Chapter Five and Six concentrates on "reconstruction",Le Guin's exploratory innovation and reconstruction of "Tao" and "Nonbeing",the two core concepts of Taoist thought,in her literary works(Noted is that the above three parts are closely co-related interrelated and mutually influenced,such clear division is only for the convenience of academic discussion).Finally,the conclusion of this dissertation proves that Ursula K.Le Guin is a well-known contemporary American writer who has been actively interacted with Taoist thought both in her personal life and in her artistic creation.On one hand,she has been deeply influenced by Taoist thought and has introduced plenty of Taoist elements into her literary works.On the other hand,Taoist thought has constantly represented in her ideas of writing and her language style,which leads to her innovation and reconstruction of Taoist thought.In a nutshell,Le Guin has already produced numerous literary works full of philosophical,aesthetic and humanistic elements,which enable readers to reexamine and redefine themselves and the world that they are living in from a brand new perspective.All these not only help to enhance the communication between different cultures and civilizations,but also help to come up with some alternative ways to solve social issues and contemporary malpractices.Therefore,Le Guin has resoundingly provoked readers' contemplation on and imagination of the future of human beings,guiding them to dance within and without the literary space that has been built up with thoughts,imageries,feelings,and limitless possibilities.