Going Beyond Binary Opposition

Ursula K. Le Guin(1929—) is an important American author and receives innumerable literary awards and honors. Her works involve a wide range including science fiction, fantasy fiction, feministic literature, and children?s literature. The Telling(2000) is Le Guin?s first long literary piece since the publication of her translation to Tao Te Ching in 1997, which bears profound Taoist ecofeminist thought. This thesis makes a systematic research on her Taoist ecofeminist thought from the angle of binary opposition by the methods of investigation, comparison, and textual close reading.The thesis is divided into six chapters:Chapter one is the introduction to Ursula K. Le Guin and her works The Telling. Theoretical foundation of binary opposition, ecofeminism and Taoism, literature review, thesis statement, significance and structure are mentioned in this part.Chapter two discusses central culture/noncentral culture binary opposition in the culture context of Aka planet, with the purpose to reveal central culture?s rejection and repression to noncentral culture, to emphasize the urgency of saving noncentral culture and safeguarding multi-culture.Chapter three makes a comparative analysis on the body/mind binary opposition by studying Akans? body/mind conditions, reveals the perniciousness of blindly pursuing rationality and attaching importance to mind while ignoring the body, and stresses the harmony and unification between body and mind.Chapter four reveals the irrationality of gender hierarchy and the necessity of constructing a harmonious complementary gender view by investigating gender systems on Aka.Chapter five discusses human/nonhuman binary opposition from Akans? conception on nature, with the purpose to oppose anthropocentrism, to advocate ecological holism, as well as to achieve the equality and harmony between human and nonhuman.Chapter six is the conclusion part. Through comparative analysis of the above four groups of binary opposition, namely central culture/noncentral culture, mind/body, male/female, and human/nonhuman, it can be concluded that ecofeminism and Taoism are the main source of Le Guin?s creative thought, and they have internalized as her unique dualistic thought, which is inspired by ecofeminism and absorbs Taoism as ideological core. Le Guin?s dualistic thought reflects her profound cognition and meditation on social reality, and bursts out strong era significance.