The Subaltern “Who Can Speak” In The Word For World Is Forest

Ursula K.Le Guin?1929-2018?is one of America's most significant science fiction writers of the 20^thcentury.Her representative work,The Word for World is Forest?1972?,is a story about the Athsheans'being colonized by the Earth people Terrans,their revolt with violence and their eventual reflection on the relationship between different cultures.This novel has been studied in Western scholarship from such perspectives as anthropology,post-colonialism,utopia,dystopia and ecology.In China,there are not yet close studies on The Word for World is Forest though there are a few on the other two novels of Le Guin's“The Left Hand of Darkness”trilogy.Since Antonio Gramsci initiated it,the concept of“subaltern”has been enriched,and now it commonly refers to the marginalized social groups in class,race,sex as well as culture.While Ranajit Guha stresses the resistance of the subalterns,Spivak reveals the real reason why the subalterns cannot“speak”and how to find an efficient way to speak.On the one hand,the novel The Word for World is Forest manifests how the oppression of the Terrans silences the Athsheans,and how they fail to speak in their way by counter-violence;on the other hand,it represents the Athsheans'speaking strategy to achieve cultural communication and interaction.This thesis intends to discuss,from ecology,humanity,and culture,how the subaltern in The Word for World is Forest is silenced or deprived of their right to speak,and then how they give their own voice.The first chapter is about how the Athsheans are silenced by hegemonic colonization.Under anthropocentrism,all colonial acts are rationalized and legalized.The indigenous ecological resources are exploited,cultures are assimilated,and indigenes are deprived of their qualification as human beings.The second chapter studies how the Athsheans'violence with violence does not help the Athsheans speak for themselves but only results in internecine destruction.In the process of fighting against violence with violence,the Athsheans not only lose their humanity,but their culture and ecology are also in a precarious situation.The third chapter analyzes how the Athshean spokesman Selver and the Terran anthropologist Lyubov attain an ideological consensus in affectional,verbal and cultural interaction,thus maintaining and developing the Athshean forest culture,and finding a relatively effective way for the subaltern to make a voice.In The Word for World is Forest,the subaltern can“speak”not only for their resistance to oppression,but also for the transformation after the resistance and reflection.With collision and interaction with the Terran culture that pursues expansion,conquest and profit,the original,static,and self-existent Athshean forest culture is evolving into an organic,dialogical and sustainable ecological culture.The forest culture reflects Le Guin's ecological thought of interdependence,sustainability,a partnership among cultures,humans and between humans and nature.