Demystifying the Heroic: Subversion of Power in the Western Shore series of Ursula K. Le Guin by Mili Eugine

Demystifying the Heroic : Subversion of Power in the Western Shore Series of Ursula K. Le Guin. Project submitted in partial fulfillment of the award of B.A. Degree in English Literature and Communication Studies

Mili Eugine Reg. No : 101150 B.A. English Literature and Communication Studies St. Teresaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s College, Ernakulam, Cochin, Kerala

Supervisor Jisha John Department of English St. Teresaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s College Ernakulam, Kerala 2012

Declaration I do hereby declare that the project entitled Demystifying the Heroic : Subversion of Power in the Western Shore Series of Ursula K. Le Guin submitted in partial fulfillment for the requirement of the award of the Bachelor of Arts Degree in English Literature and Communication Studies has not previously formed the basis for the award of any degree, diploma, fellowship or any other similar title or recognition.

Mili Eugine

Certificate I hereby certify that this project entitled Demystifying the Heroic : Subversion of Power in the Western Shore Series of Ursula K. Le Guin by Mili Eugine is a record of bonafide work carried out by her under my supervision and guidance.

Smt. Jisha John Department of English St. Teresaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s College Ernakulam

Acknowledgement I would like to acknowledge the Mahatma Gandhi University and the St. Teresa’s College, Ernakulam, for giving me the opportunity to write this project. I take this opportunity to thank the principal, Rev. Sr. Dr. Helen A. P., the Department of English at the College, the Head of the Department, Dr. Renuka S., and my research guide, Ms. Jisha John, for their support and encouragement in this endeavour. Many thanks to Dr. Priya K. Nair, my class teacher, and Ms. Vidhu Mary John, for giving me the confidence to give my best to this project. I would also like to acknowledge the Mahatma Gandhi University Library, the EMS Library, Thrikkakara, and the Eloor Lending Library, Ernakulam for providing me with research materials. I would be nowhere and nothing if it wasn’t for the relentless insistence on perfection demanded of me from my confidante, my support and the guide of my life – my mother, Dr. Laly Eugine. The constant running around for printing and material collection and the resultant overall tension were smoothed quietly in the background by my rock, my pillar of strength – my father, Eugine Augustine, without whom I’d be lost. I cannot fail to mention Joshua Eugine, my big-little brother, who had to sacrifice many backyard badminton tournaments for the sake of this project. It goes without saying that I owe fervent thanks to Ms. Le Guin, whose unique style of writing re-ignited my love for reading. I thank God for sending this muse and her gift of words down among us mortals. And last but never the least, I would like to convey my sincere gratitude to God, who wrote this project for me, overcame my hurdles, and led me every step of the way. Thank you, God.

Table of Contents

Chapter I

Introduction

Chapter II

The Hero in Progress

Chapter III

The Annals of the Western Shore

Chapter IV

Demystifying the Heroic

Chapter V

Conclusion

Bibliography

ABSTRACT Language, the fist proclaims by squeezing is for the weak only.

- Margaret Atwood These lines, a part of a collection of poems known as Power Politics (1971), portray the stereotyped image of language being the instrument of the weak. In the series Annals of the Western Shore, Ursula Kroeber Le Guin seeks to banish the notion of power being a necessity for a hero to attain success in young adult fiction; the three books of the series, Gifts, Voices and Powers, emphasizes the reversal of the element of power and highlights language as the weapon brandished by the heroes for the attainment of the ultimate victory of their quests. The project aims to analyze the subversion of power in the series, as opposed to the conventional portrayal of powerful heroes as an integral aspect of Young Adult Fiction. A traditional portrayal of a typical hero of fantasy is a weak, average, under-appreciated person whose talents or powers are either suppressed, or who is reluctant to bring forth his skills. This hero, through the journey of his Quest, later finds confidence within himself and in his dormant gifts, thus growing mature and successfully completing the Quest, whether it is to save a world or defeat an evil wizard. This achievement is attained through the process of discovering his power, or his hidden potential, and believing in his ability to use that power. In the case of the three protagonists of the Western Shore series however, Orrec, Memer and Gavir find a loss of power within themselves, a power that

they believed to have had, only to find an equally strong, if not stronger, power that they can use to attain victory â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the power of language. This complete reversal of the stereotypical powerful hero is what sets Le Guinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s books apart from other works of Young Adult Fiction.

Chapter 1

Introduction From the time when language started to be analyzed and studied as a subject, till literature became a branch of this study, fantasy has always been given a back seat. This is mainly due to a stereotype which shuns fantasy books and stories into that forgettable closet labelled ‘children’s stories’. The critics of fantasy snub it as something told to pass the time; possessing no real values or hidden meanings other than to fill a child’s head with dangerous imaginations and unattainable dreams. In the last decade, however, helped by Joanne K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, there has been a tremendous revival of the genre. Fantasy is recognised as a manifestation of the desires of the subconscious – a desire that all readers young and old experience, through an appraisal of fantasy literature. “As a literary term, a fantasy means any narrative that deals with impossibilities preternaturals” (Lewis 50) – it is an introduction to unconscious material emerging from unconscious beliefs to satisfy unconscious desires. The reader is carried off into another world, where he satisfies his need for adventure, violence, love, power and finally victory. This victory becomes a vanquishing of subconscious, childhood fears, which are ingrained in every individual, be it child or adult. However, as J. R. R. Tolkien asserts, the reader does not undergo any “willing suspension of disbelief” but experiences a “Secondary Belief” in the self-consistent “Secondary World” created by the “subcreator”. “You therefore, believe it, while you are, as it were, inside” (132). When asked what the use of fantasy was Le Guin answered; “[t]he use of it is to give you pleasure and delight” “… to deepen your understanding of your world, and your fellow men, and your feelings, and your own destiny” (66, 34-5). Here, Le Guin believes that fantasy in this sense

is true, which is why adults are afraid of it, and that fantasy's greatest role is to exercise the faculty of imagination. In contemporary as well as traditional fantasy fiction, the basic theme is the Quest of a single hero/heroine, who journeys through the story to ultimately fulfill the Quest, while also discovering who he/she really is - through the discovery of a hidden trait or power. This Quest which is sometimes metaphorical, is portrayed in fantasy fiction literally, with the hero/heroine undergoing tests and vanquishing his/her fears in the physical as well as in the psychological world and learning to exploit their powers, which may be in the form of magic, sacrifice, leadership, weapon mastery, etc. It is, as Goldstein critiques, “a genre that sometimes seems to be only about military or magical power: getting it, fighting to hold onto it” (blog 2 Nov. 2006). The Quest ends in the attainment of treasures, in the overpowering of evil, or in the fulfillment of true love. In books like the Harry Potter series, J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and Christopher Paolini’s Eragon series, this formulaic theme of fantasy prevails, whether Harry is fighting Voldemort, whether Bilbo is battling Smaug, whether Frodo is braving the barren hills of Mordor, or whether Eragon is training to be a dragon rider. Ursula Le Guin, the undisputed queen of sci-fi and high fantasy fiction, seeks to obliterate this notion of power typically considered essential to the victory of good over evil. Le Guin’s own contention is that much of fantasy writing is "about power…It's a means to examine what it does to the person who has it, and to others"(Jaggi, Guardian blog). The protagonists in her trilogy The Annals of the Western Shore, which consists of the three books Gifts, Voices, and Powers, discover towards the middle of the books that they did not actually possess the powers they once believed to have had. These stories bring a welcome change to the fantasy genre, subverting the usual norms and themes. It delves into places yet to be discovered, and lets the reader explore a new path, a path that he had not believed could have existed.

Chapter 2

The Hero in Progress Forty years before Rowling sent Harry to wizarding school, Ursula Le Guin had already founded a renowned school for wizards on the imaginary islands of Roke, thereby laying the foundations of modern fantasy. Born to an anthropologist father, Alfred Kroeber, and an author mother, Theodora Kroeber, in 1929, Ursula Kroeber Le Guin’s inspiration to be a writer, came “simply from learning the art, at age five” (www.ursulakleguin.com). She was brought up to think and to ask questions. Le Guin the teenager began to wander the hills of Berkeley, California in solitude and silence, and that’s when, she says, “I started making my soul” (www.ursulakleguin.com). After her first story was rejected at the age of eleven, Le Guin published her first novel Rocannon’s World (1966); she went on to win some of the most prestigious awards given to sci-fi and fantasy novels, including the Hugo and Nebula awards for Best Novel, first for The Left Hand of Darkness (1969), and then for The Dispossessed (1974), making her the first person to win both the awards twice for the same two books. Le Guin has published twenty-one novels, eleven volumes of short stories, four collections of essays, twelve books for children, six volumes of poetry and four volumes of translation. Her recent works include the novel Lavinia, based on Virgil’s Aeneid, the essay collections Cheek by Jowl, Wild Girls etc. Le Guin considers herself a feminist, and her works deal with gender issues, as seen in The Left Hand of Darkness, which portrays a unisexual alien race. Her works also centre around the coming-of-age theme, as seen in the Earthsea and the Western Shore series. The Annals of the Western Shore is a trilogy of the cross-over fantasy genre. Cross-over fantasy genre, which appeals to multiple age audience, is that which can be read at one level by children,

and at several by adults. In this type of cross-over fiction, the archetypal child-hero is portrayed as an ordinary child, with nothing unusual or exceptional to characterize him. He is, in fact, often under the care of surrogate parents, and is usually treated harshly and cruelly. Later, through the help of a protective figure, the child-hero discovers his true parentage, and that there is more to him than his hitherto unimportant existence- that he is the Chosen One, that he has super natural powers, that he is a saviour etc. Harry Potter, a typical Campbellian hero, is brought up by the cruel Dursleys and later approached by the half-giant Hagrid, a protective figure who tells him that he is a wizard and a hero in the wizarding world. During his process of initiation into the wizard world - which spans across seven books - the reader too journeys with Harry through childhood, adolescence, teenage and finally into adulthood. Joseph Campbell’s pattern of the child hero is stereotyped – the “despised child” (38) – unkempt, unloved, unrecognized, a target for scorn and hostility. The powers of the hero are revealed to have been undiscovered within his heart the whole time. According to Timmerman the six traits that characterize fantasy literature are the use of a traditional story, depiction of common characters and heroism, the evocation of Another World, the employment of Magic and Supernatural, the revelation of a struggle between Good and Evil, and the tracing of a Quest(1 - 4). The quest story of fantasy becomes relevant and applicable to everyday lives through characters and their everyday experience. The point of fantasy is to provide growth by experience. The quest here is one which seeks value and meaning in life and art. The task is two-fold: to discover a centre of value in the heroic character and also to revive values in others through heroic actions. The hero is called to another world of magic to perform his deeds in this frightening quest. The central theme of fantasy is the conflict between the hero and his foe and a keen

recognition of right and wrong. But at the end is certainty and joy, derived from the knowledge that the hero has made the right choice. The choice of the hero leads him to his Quest, which is often life-threatening and marked by a sense of struggle and imminent danger in which the hero must call upon all his will and power to push on. This quest is also a quest of his (and the reader’s) life – to attain a clarity of man in his present world. But the fantasy hero, unlike the existential hero, is directed by divine, supernatural aids in pursuing and reaching his goal. Once the quest is accomplished, the hero returns to reality once again. Thus the “journey in fantasy is a circular one, taking us “There and Back Again”: we lose our way in the wilderness of fantasy so that we may find our way back home” (Sachafsma 70). The first stage of the mythological journey, dubbed as the “call to adventure” signifies that destiny has summoned the hero and transferred his spiritual center of gravity from within the “pale of his society to a zone unknown”(Campbell 58). This fateful region of both treasure and danger may be variously represented as a distant land, a forest, a kingdom underground, beneath the waves, or above the sky, a secret island, lofty mountain top, or profound dream state; but it is always a place of “unimaginable torments, superhuman deeds, and impossible delight” (Campbell 58). The initial encounter the hero has is with a protective figure (often a little old crone or old man) who provides the adventurer with amulets against the dragon forces he is about to pass. The old man is an archetype – who is identified with ‘saviour’, ‘redeemer’, and ‘guru’ – and a personification of principles “representing knowledge, reflection, insight, wisdom, cleverness and intuition on the one hand, and on the other, moral qualities such as good will and readiness to help…he even tests the moral qualities of others and makes gifts dependent on this test” (Jung 217). With the personification of his destiny (that is, the protective figure) to guide and aid him,

the hero goes forward in his adventure until he comes to the threshold of the zone of magnified power. Beyond this is darkness, danger and the unknown. Once having traversed the threshold the hero moves in a dream landscape of fluid, ambiguous forms - where he must survive a succession of trials. This is a favourite phase of the myth – adventure. The hero is covertly aided by the advice, amulets and secret agents of the supernatural helper whom he had met before his entrance into this region. This is also a stage of atonement with the father - where he confronts whatever holds ultimate power in his life. The hero’s journey thus comprises of three stages: Departure, Initiation and Return. The cycle of the child hero, says Campbell, is that the “child of destiny” (326) begins in obscurity, often in a situation of extreme danger or degradation. A guide or helper comes to him – often an angel, sometimes an old woman or an animal, as can be seen in the Chronicles of Narnia, where Lucy is helped by a faun, Mr. Thomas. The child-hero is taken to a school or other special environment where he learns that he has extraordinary talents and realizes his potential. Eventually the childhero returns - acclaimed or at least recognized. Sometimes the hero’s accomplishments win him the praise of his social group. “He is…‘God’s son’, who has learned to know how much that title means” (p. 39). The hero inspires the reader to attempt to change the world one individual at a time, through the wisdom found in their stories. There are ten basic elements to a typical hero myth according to Campbell, some of them being: royal/immortal parentage, difficulties preceding conception of the hero; child’s life threatened when oracle predicts so; separation from parents; child rescued by animals/ under-lings; hero recognized by mark/wound; hero reconciles/or takes revenge on father. The hero is the person with whom the reader identifies, and for whom the reader’s concern lies. The birth of the hero is

usually mystical, or magical â&#x20AC;&#x201C; one that is ordained by the Gods. These themes of birth and rebirth are a part of understanding ourselves and our identities. These characteristics and features of a typical Quest or myth can be seen running through Le Guinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Western Shore series. In each, the central character is similar to the archetypal myth hero, who must set out on a journey to find his/her destiny. They face dangerous trials, recognize their true powers, and conquer their own fears individually in order to attain victory. They all speak of a coming-of-age story, where each hero/ heroine begins as a child. The reader matures with them as they grow and understand the adult world around them.

Chapter 3

The Annals of the Western Shore Le Guin’s series The Annals of the Western Shore opens up many similarities to the traditional mythical quest theme. The series comprises of the books Gifts, Voices, and Powers with protagonists who undergo the hassles of the quest - ending with their coming-of-age and final self-discovery. Gifts opens with a first-person narrative by the protagonist Orrec Caspro, heir and future brantor of Caspromant - his village or domain in the Uplands of the Western Shore. The Lowlanders, or the ‘calluc’ as the Uplanders derogatorily call them, do not venture into the North for fear of the Uplanders, whose brantors are said to possess mysterious powers, such as the gift of twisting, which can maim a person for life; the gift of calling, which calls animals to be hunted; the gift of slow wasting, the gift of blinding or making deaf, the gift of the knife, which can be used “to send a spell knife into a man’s heart”(Gifts 10) ; the gift of making fire, the gift of cleansing and the gift of unmaking, which is the gift of Orrec’s lineage. This gift can be used to un-make anything, be it living or non-living, using “eye and hand and breath and will” (20). After he first proves his gift by accidentally unmaking an adder, and later a dog, Orrec is troubled by the fact that he does not feel a change going through him when apparently uses it. He discusses this with his friend, Gry, the heir to neighbouring Roddemont, an ally of Caspromant, whose gift of calling animals she says felt different when she first felt its power. Orrec’s father, Brantor Canoc, believes and leads young Orrec to believe that Orrec has the gift in its most powerful form, like that of his ancestor,- the Blind Brantor- Brantor Caddard, who had to blind himself because he could not control his own power. The unruly gift, called the ‘wild gift’, possesses a person instead of being possessed by him. So, from the age of thirteen, Orrec was blindfolded, to reign in his uncontainable power.

Orrec is useless around his domain while blindfolded, as he cannot do the duties befitting an heir, like meeting the people of his domain, surveying and maintaining the farmlands etc. Instead, his sole purpose is to be a ‘scarecrow’ – someone who is feared by Caspromant’s enemies for his unruly gift. Meanwhile, Gry is found to be useless as well, as she refuses to use her gift to call animals to the hunt. Instead, she uses it to work with animals – horse-breaking, cattle calling, training, curing and healing. She sees it as “[h]onouring trust, not betraying it.” (234). However, by doing so, Orrec wonders whether she is betraying her gift. During his childhood, and the three years of blindness, Orrec finds his sole consolation in his and his mother Melle’s shared love of storytelling. He and Gry would implore his mother to tell them stories, something that was not done in the Uplands. The Uplanders are shown to be a crude, illiterate folk, who are savages in the eyes of the literate, educated Lowlanders. This stark contrast is revealed to Melle when Gry asks her “What is a book?” (56). So she takes it upon herself to teach the children how to read and write, and develops in them, especially in Orrec, a love for stories and poetry. When Melle falls ill, she and Orrec spent time together by telling each other stories, often making up parts that they had forgotten. Even after Melle’s death, Orrec secretly takes off his blindfold at night so he can read the books that Melle had written for him. He finds solace in the “wonderful word-beings”, which was a “world [he] knew and understood” (188). In the inactivity of his blindness, he lives increasingly in these stories, creating new substories and plots within a main story. His relationship with his father, which was balanced only by the presence of his mother, becomes even more strained after her death. Orrec realizes that Canoc has been deceiving himself as well as his son into believing that Orrec has the wild gift, wherein he does not have the gift at all. Canoc is subconsciously ashamed of Orrec, as he is the son of a calluc and

therefore does not possess his lineage’s power. Therefore, maybe without realizing it, it was Canoc himself casting the power as he stood behind Orrec during the three times that Orrec had allegedly ‘shown’ his gift. Orrec confronts his father and takes off the blindfold. They set out to challenge Drumme who has come to pillage their domain. In the ensuing confrontation, Canoc kills Drumme and his son, but is himself killed in the process. Orrec realizes that he is useless to his domain without his gift, and hands over Caspromant to an able serf. He leaves the Uplands with Gry, in search of a new future. Voices opens in the Lowland city of Ansul, or Ansul the Wise and Beautiful as it was known before its conquering by the Alds, a desert people. Ansul is in every way different from Caspromant, as its citizens are an educated and literate people, well-versed in trade but illprepared for war. Thus, the heroine Memer Galva is born a siege-brat, through the rape of her mother by an Ald soldier, and is orphaned when she is a baby. Her earliest memory is of opening the secret entrance to a room that is known only to herself, her mother, and she later learns, to the Waylord, an elected official, stripped of his duties with the coming of the Alds. The Alds believe the written word to be the work of a devilish being, and destroy the books of the Great Library of Ansul. However, not all the treasures of the library are lost, as Memer finds shelves of ancient books in the secret room. The Waylord, with great caution and secrecy, teaches young Memer to read and write within the sanctuary of the Room. Memer’s life seems set to continue in this monotony, never free to express her knowledge, or even the fact that she is a woman (for, under the Ald regime, women are not allowed on the streets alone), until something unexpected happens. Memer, dressed as a boy, is out in the Harbour Market to buy food for the household when she hears of a great Maker who has come to tell stories and poems – the Maker Orrec Caspro. She meets Orrec and Gry, now a grown man and woman, and invites them to stay in Galvamand. The household learns that Orrec had been

summoned by the Gand Ioratth of the Alds to entertain him. As Orrec recites to the Gand (he does not read the poems, as that would be blasphemous), he slowly gets to know the man, and sees that he is actually a knowledgeable person, interested in learning and attaining knowledge, unlike his son, Iddor, a superstitious man who seeks to overthrow his father. Memer refuses to see a humane side to the Gand, as she had vowed to herself at the age of eight that she “will always hate the Alds, and will drive them out of Ansul, and kill them all if [she] can” (Voices, 12). However, after accompanying Orrec in disguise to the Gand’s house, she is forced to change her opinion. During this time, an ex-soldier named Desac, plans a surprise attack on the Ald soldiers stationed within the city. It is when Desac requests the Waylord whether he will “ask” if it is a good time to plan an ambush, that the Waylord explains to Memer about the Oracle. He says that the people of Galva are Readers of the Oracle, who can ask it questions and read its answers. It is this ability in her that had allowed Memer to enter the Room by writing the letters in the air even when she was a child. The Waylord takes her to the dark end of the Room, of which she was scared as a child and even as a teenager, and they look for the answer to their question in one of the many oracle books. “Broken mend broken” (188) reads Memer from the book, although the Waylord sees nothing. Memer, however, feels used by the oracle and despises and fears it, because she has no control over how to use the power – rather, the oracle uses her. Neither the Waylord nor Memer can understand the meaning of the words, and the ambush fails due to miscommunication among the rebelling citizens, although it improves comditions for them. Memer ultimately realizes that what the oracle meant by the words broken mend broken, is that she, by breaking her vow of killing Alds, has helped rebuild the broken city of Ansul. The book ends with her being invited with Orrec and Gry to continue on their journey, which she gladly accepts.

In the third book of the Annals, Powers, Gavir is a household slave of the Arcamand Family in the city of Etra, one of the City States being trained as a teacher to teach the children of the household. He is known only by his first name and nothing else, as all he knows about his past is that he and his sister Sallo were taken as slaves from the Marshlands when they were too young to remember their village. He and his sister share a special bond, and he confides in her his secret of being able to “remember things that are going to happen” (Powers, 4). She warns him that this is a gift of the Marsh people, something that is frowned upon by others, and that he must never talk of it to anyone but her. Sallo is his only solace through his difficult times of being bullied by other slaves, like Hoby, the illegitimate son of the Father of Arcamand, and the second son of the Family, Torm, who call him “teacher’s pet” and envy the respect he gets from the eldest son, Yaven and their teacher, Everra. In spite of this, he is happy and content to be a slave in this household, ignorant of his enslavement, and satisfied with the hierarchy of Etran society. The siblings love their masters, especially Yaven, Astano and Sotur, son, daughter and cousin of the Family. They even accept as fact the common ritual of giving Sallo as a gift-girl to Yaven, although she will never be allowed to marry him or keep the children she has through him. Everra, his teacher, tells Gavir that he has been taken into a “great household” and given a “sacred gift” from the family – trust (53). He tells of slavery as something that they must make themselves worthy of. Slavery is the only thing they know. So when Sallo asks her friend Ris to imagine being free, the girl laughs, “I don’t know what it’s like. What would you do?” (83). However, Gavir’s absolute trust in his Family is shattered when Torm and Hoby rape and murder Sallo, and are not punished for it, even though the Father and Mother know of it. After her burial, he walks away, and without intending to, leaves Etra. He wanders endlessly in the Daneran Forest, and is saved from starvation by a crazy old hermit, Cuga. Gavir refuses to let himself think about his past, telling himself that “remembering would kill me. Forgetting kept me alive”

(179). He later meets Chamry Bern, of the Uplands, and Venne, a young hunter, who become his friends, and on a rainy night Gavir tells them a tale that he had blocked out along with the other memories of his past. This leads him to think about “what had been given back to [him]: the power of words” (183). The three reach a city located in the Heart of the Forest, which is governed by run-away slaves, and ruled by a red-bearded, giant of a man, Barna. Gavir becomes valuable to Barna and the village as he can remember stories he had learnt in the classroom of Etra, and entertains the men of the village. Here he meets Diero, Barna’s ex-mistress, and develops a close companionship with her. It is Diero who gives him the courage to open his mind again to the past that he had deliberately walled in. Soon, he realizes that although the men of this city are free, the women are still at their mercy, stolen from the neighbouring villages like commodities. He teaches a six-year old girl, Melle how to write, and grows attached to her, and she to him. Through a misunderstanding with Barna, however, Gavir’s life is endangered, and he leaves the Heart of the Forest for the East Lake Village of Ferusi, where Gavir finds his name – Gavir Aytana Sidoy. Gavir meets his mother’s sister, Gegemer, and learns that she too has visions, although the men do not value a woman with visions, merely calling her crazy. He abandons his gift of visions for his gift of words, and finally leaves for Mesun, along with the child, Melle, where he meets Orrec Caspro and trains in the power that he loves – that of language. All the three books in the Annals subvert power in its conventional heroic sense of the term and conclude with the continuing journey for the pursuit of knowledge. According to Joseph Campbell, the hero’s destiny lies in a journey that takes him from the comforts of his home to a “zone unknown” (58). In Orrec’s case, the journey he must undertake is on a mental plane, and he must face his turmoil in his own domain, Caspromant. His entire Quest of finding himself takes place within this village, and only after he realizes who he is and what he is called for does he undertake an actual physical journey, which the reader is not even

told of, as the book ends with him leaving the domain with his playmate and future spouse, Gry. Memer Galva’s mythical journey also takes place within her own city, Ansul, where she feels like an outsider. Born a siege brat, Memer believes her destiny is to kill the Alds and regain her city’s freedom - the greatest freedom being the ability to read openly, as the Alds consider books to be taboo. In the final book, Powers, however, the slave boy Gavir’s journey is very real, as he runs away from his masters after his sister’s murder, to distant lands, with kingdoms in forests and secret cities. As he undertakes this physical journey, he also traverses his mind to discover who he really is. It is through this journey that he finds that he can never truly be at home with his kin, the Marsh people, as he discovers that “the people who stole me from my people had stolen my people from me. I could never wholly be one of them” (321). So he must find his kinship with others who resembled him in mind, and not in body. In a typical myth, the hero befriends a protective figure, who provides the hero with amulets to help him face the dangers of his journey ahead. In Orrec’s story, this figure appears to be his father, Canoc. However, as Orrec matures, this perception changes. Canoc teaches Orrec how to use the gift of his lineage, that of ‘unmaking’, but this knowledge is useless as Orrec does not actually possess the gift. Canoc refuses to believe this, instead believing that it is a wild gift, which uses the possessor instead of being used. So, he pushes his son to try and reign in his gift, causing young Orrec to despise both the gift and his father. Therefore, the “amulets against the dragon forces”, provided by Canoc, that is, the working knowledge of the gift, does not aid the hero. Instead, it causes a transference of the role of the protective figure – from Orrec’s father to his mother, Melle. In Voices, Memer’s sole protective figure is the Waylord of Galvamand, a crippled leader stripped of his powers . He teaches Memer to read, at a time when the very act itself is an adventure in Ansul, as books are banned and authors tortured. Gavir, from the book Powers, on the other hand, meets many protectors, although each one’s role is brief. At his

youngest age his sister, Sallo, protects his ability to “remember” things that haven’t happened yet by telling him never to tell anyone about it, “not to anybody but me”, she says (4). When Sallo is murdered and Gavir runs away, he is saved from starvation by a crazy old hermit, Cuga and later he meets Chamry Bern and Venne. The leader of the city in the Heart of the Forest, Barna, takes a liking to him, as does Diero, an old woman and ex-mistress to Barna. Diero gives Gavir his past back, the past which he had blocked from himself and for which he could not find closure. Finally, he also finds a protector in his long-lost aunt, Gegemer. Beyond the threshold of the hero’s journey is darkness, danger and the unknown. This is literally seen in Gifts, as Canoc, in his wrong belief that Orrec possesses the wild gift, blindfolds the boy to prevent him from using it. Therefore, for three years, Orrec is cast into a world of darkness, the unknown, where he is of no use to anybody, and in which, finally, he starts to find himself. At the threshold of her journey, Memer, in Voices, is born into the darkness of enslavement and illiteracy, and must seek to find answers and a destiny, which she wrongly believes is to massacre the Alds. In Powers, too, Gavir only remembers being a slave, and he cannot even imagine freedom. However, once he inadvertently undertakes his journey, he is clueless about where the road will take him. The hero is said to have been swallowed by the threshold, and would appear to have died. In his blindfolded state, Orrec is virtually dead, as he cannot do any of the duties of a successor. He spends most of his time with his confidante, Gry, and with his mother, who teaches them to read the tales of old, although books are rarely seen in the Uplands. In Voices, Memer is invisible until the very end of the book, except to the Waylord and to their new guests, adult-Orrec and adult-Gry. The Ald soldiers mistake her for a boy because of her mousy, unkempt hair and demeanour, while the people of Ansul see her as just another siege brat. In Gavir’s case in Powers, the household of Arcamand concludes that he has killed himself as a result of the trauma

of his sister’s death. After Sallo’s death, Gavir is dead even to himself, as he refuses to think of his tragedy, or think of anything beyond the singular aim of walking away from those who had betrayed his trust. Gavir resurrects from this isolated existence only with the help of Diero, to whom he vents out his suppressed feelings of loss and anger. Once having traversed the threshold, the hero must face a number of trials. Orrec’s greatest trial would seem to be his blindfold. However, his even greater trial is his inner battle - to admit to himself who he really is. Ever since he was a child of three, he has been taught his place in the lineage of the Caspros - how to use his gift, how to protect his domain using it, how to be brantor etc. Now, he must acknowledge the fact that his gift is of no use to him, as it was never given to him. He must also acknowledge that because of this, he can no longer be heir to Caspromant. Orrec must swallow his own pride, as well as his father’s expectations, to prepare himself for a role he was never ready for. He confronts his father and accuses him of tricking him into believing he has the wild gift. All the training that he received from his father, all the “amulets”, seems to be a waste; and the only amulet worth holding on to is that which his mother nonchalantly handed to him – that of language. Along with Desac, Memer too, in Voices, prepares for a long battle with the Ald soldiers, something she has been honing herself for for her entire life. Spurred on by Caspro’s revolutionary poetry, the beginnings of war are seen by the people of Ansul. However, the weapon that had so far been left unappreciated and forgotten is the one that saves Ansul and Memer – the weapon of language. Gavir faces a number of trials on his journey to find his homeland, which includes his enmity with Hoby and Torm, his travel as a run-away slave, his tryst with the Forest Brothers, his escape from the Heart of the Forest, his encounter with the seerman Dorod etc. until he finally chooses the gift of words in exchange for the gift of foresight.

Out of the ten basic elements of fantasy that Campbell suggests, Gifts satisfies only four criteria, while Voices only five, and Powers only two. This in itself underscores the uniqueness of Le Guin’s fiction from those of other writers. We find Orrec to be heir to Caspromant, and therefore seemingly “royal”, but he is also the son of Melle, a Lowland woman with no extraordinary gifts, a ‘calluc’ as the Uplanders call them. The difficulty in conception would refer back to Orrec’s mother being a Lowlander. She was brought, albeit willingly, as ‘booty’ when Canoc raided the Lowland town of Dunet in search of a suitable bride, and is therefore an alien among the villagers of her husband’s domain. Canoc could not find an Upland bride because Ogge Drumm, of the neighbouring domain Drummant, had married off his sons to Canoc’s two prospective brides years ago. Orrec does not seem to face any physical separation from his parents until the death of his mother; however, he withdraws into himself once he starts wearing the blindfold. The only mark that separates him from the rest of his people is not a permanent blemish – it is his blindfold. In Voices Memer Galva is of the House of the Oracles, Galvamand, an ancient and respected House which is seemingly royal, though its importance is a mere mockery after the invasion of the Alds. The obvious difficulty in Memer’s conception was that Memer was not a planned baby. Her mother was raped by an Ald soldier, and so her entire hatred of the Alds, mixed with self-disgust at being born from her mother’s pain, reflects back on herself when she sees the sheep-hair and pale bony face of the Alds that she has inherited from her biological father. Memer’s life is threatened at a very young age, when she is just a toddler, and that is when she discovers the secret room. As her mother dies when she is little, Memer is brought up by the cook, Ista, and later by the Waylord. Her separation from Ista begins at a very early age, as Ista, although she loves Memer,

is a loud and rough woman. The Waylord and Memer have only each other to love and understand, and so, until the very end of the book, Memer is not fully separated from him. However, as Ansul rebuilds itself and his position is restored, Memer finds that the Waylord is always busy, and that she herself spends more time with Gry Barre than with him. Memer is indirectly rescued by an animal – a horse. The horse, which belongs to an Ald soldier, runs wild when it first sees Gry with her halflion, Shetar. It runs straight at Memer, who quiets it, which in turn leads her to meeting Gry. This friendship with Gry and Orrec ultimately leads to the liberation of Ansul. As Gavir, in Powers, is a slave, he has no knowledge of his past or his parentage, other than the fact that he was taken from the Marshlands, where there were no slaves, only free people. He later finds his past, and his people, although their kinship to him remains distant, and he cannot understand their ways and culture. He undergoes separation from his sister with her death, whom he viewed as a parental figure, and again undergoes separation from Diero and later from Gegemer. Although he is recognized as a citizen of the Marshlands, by the colour of his skin and his features, like his large nose which earns him the nickname ‘Beaky’, this resemblance or mark is only external, as he still feels a stranger among his people. From these comparisons and contrasts with the usual features of a fantasy story, it is clear that Le Guin’s series are markedly different from other stories of this genre. She lets her heroes ask moral questions, think for themselves, and choose their destinies. She deviates from the typical norm of the quest hero, and gives her characters more intelligence, more depth, more life.

Chapter 4

Demystifying the Heroic In the three books that constitute the series The Annals of the Western Shore, the continuous betrayal of the protagonists’ innate power is what strikes the reader first. In Gifts, Voices, and Powers, the three children Orrec, Memer and Gavir undergo a disillusionment of the powers that they are born with. Instead, all three discover that their true potential lies in the power of language. In traditional fantasy, the archetypal hero starts off as an ordinary child with no extraordinary powers, an under-ling not worthy of appraisal or acknowledgment. In J.K Rowling’s Harry Potter series, Harry learns and hones his magical powers, powers that he never dreamed he would have, and ultimately destroys Voldemort in a final battle of good against evil. In the Lord of the Rings Frodo Baggins of the Shire is invariably chosen to destroy the evil ring of the dark lord, Sauron. Frodo must learn to survive, and discovers a dormant endurance and courage in him that he never knew existed, thus enabling him to achieve far greater heights than he ever dreamed possible. In Christopher Paolini’s Inheritance series, also, Eragon is a farm boy who befriends a dragon and becomes a dragon rider, a warrior respected and feared by all. In all these stories, the hero discovers a power or a potential for power and develops it to be used as a weapon. Le Guin's conception of power, however, seems at first glance curiously passive.”There is only one power that is real and worth having," she concludes at the end of the Earth Sea trilogy, "and that is the power, not to take, but to accept" (The Farthest Shore, 155). Le

Guin insightfully chronicles the hero's gradual awakening to the other consequences of gifts and the pressure on each generation to manifest them. 'By not using my gift, by refusing it, not trusting it — was I betraying it?' Orrec asks himself (Gifts, 235). The series is concerned with power—or rather, the giving up of power. It's an unusual theme in a genre that sometimes seems to be only about fighting to hold on to power. The inherited gifts in the first volume are grand and terrifying—blinding, setting fires, slow wasting—and yet they seem to work against their possessors rather than for them. Constant feuding has impoverished the people, who keep to themselves and go in fear of their neighbors, and Orrec is so afraid of his inherited gift, the ability of undoing, that he voluntarily blindfolds himself. In Voices, conflicts are resolved by negotiation and storytelling rather than strength, magical or otherwise. And in Powers, too, Gavir's gift of "remembering" does him little good: he sees soldiers attacking the city and setting it on fire, but because he has no idea when these events will happen he is unable to warn anyone. Far more important to him is learning and freedom. In the end, Orrec and Memer and Gavir are able to find their places in the world. Orrec Caspro in Gifts is intensely aware of the power of his kin from a very young age, that of ‘unmaking’. He is trained by his father in the uses of that power, and is eager for it to show forth in him. When he at last sees how this power works, he is repulsed by it. Because Orrec does not display his power even at the age of thirteen, his father, unconsciously, performs it, making himself and Orrec believe that Orrec has a “wild” gift that cannot be controlled. Orrec, however, is too scared of the gift; especially after his dog is ‘unmade’ by accident and lies unmoving like a sack of cloth. He allows his father to blindfold him for three years, during which his mother dies. Orrec and Gry discuss the origin of their gifts, with Gry wondering “if all the gifts are backward” (230). To this Orrec asks her what his gift could have been. Gry replies that it could have been for healing, “if there was something wrong inside a person…something out of order, - maybe it

was a gift of untying it – setting it right” (231). Orrec also ponders about Gry’s refusal of accepting her gift and wonders whether they were betraying their powers. Orrec compares the differences in the way he feels the different powers. He says that he does not feel anything passing through him when he tries to use the Caspro gift; however, he knows it when “the power comes into [him] when [he’s] making a poem” (249). Finally, Orrec acknowledges that thought in him that has been lying dormant for years – that he does not possess the gift at all. Along with this thought comes the sure knowledge and love that he has for poetry and reading. When his mother starts teaching him, Orrec instantly falls in love with reading. He can recite the words and poems that his mother wrote for him in makeshift books, and all who listen to him marvel at the way he recites. When he forgets a line or passage, he makes the words up to fit in with the rest of the story. Thus Orrec swallows his pride and abandons the power that he never had for a power that no one in the Uplands was familiar with – the power of words. The reader finds in later books that he becomes a great Maker, a “Gand of the Makers” (Voices, 126), as the Gand Ioratth calls him. His book, the ‘Cosmologies’, and his hymn, ‘Liberty’, become common knowledge along the length and breadth of the Western Shore. Thus Orrec has to lose one power to embrace the other. In Voices, when the Waylord of Ansul asks him of his gift of speaking, Orrec replies that he was “indeed given a great gift. But it was…the wrong one. Not wrong for me. But for my people” (73). This theme of ‘mismatch’ of power is reiterated in Voices. Memer Galva discovers that she is of the great family of Galvamand, whose members, called Readers, are known for their ability to read the Oracle. Thus Galvamand is also known as the Oracle House, and is respected by the citizens of Ansul. However, Memer is ignorant of this when she first starts her reading lessons with the Waylord in the secret room. She is content with reading all the salvaged books in the

room, along with her sole companion and relative, the Waylord. Sometimes she feels the presence of the Oracle, like when she tells the Waylord that she is scared of the books in the shadow end of the room, because “they make noises” (28), although she does not know what it is then. Memer appears to be the only literate child in her generation, as books are banned under the rule of the Alds , who believe the written word to be diabolic. It is in the second book that Gry’s hypothesis of the origins of power are given a shadow of proof; when the Waylord tells them of his ancestors, some of who could cure the deaf, Gry exclaims, “backwards - as I thought!” (166). Later, when the citizens of Ansul take it upon themselves to free their city that is under siege, the Waylord explains to Memer about the work of the Oracle. They journey to a spring located at the end of the dark part of the secret room to ask the Oracle whether it is time to attack their oppressors. When they pull out one of the Oracle books, Memer reads out the prophecy. But she is shocked and feels violated to have the Oracle speaking through her, as she cannot control what she says. Again, when the son of the Gand, Iddor, comes to Galvamand in search of the Night Mouth, the Oracle speaks “Let them set free” (262) through Memer, and she has no memory that she has spoken. She despises being used by the oracle, defining it as a “thing that spoke through me, used me” (190). She refuses to ask it any more questions, though she is the only Reader left, as the Oracle no longer acknowledges the Waylord as a Reader. Memer asks the Waylord whether one can refuse to be a “tool” and the Waylord replies that one always has that choice. Thus Memer chooses the power that she loves - to read and to learn. But she also knows that the responsibility of this power is not an easy task. Seeing Orrec one night, after his recitation in the Market, with his face grey with fatigue, she understands and begins to “see the cost of his gift” (209). She has already learnt a lot within the confines of the secret room, and can quote from most of the books there, but she wishes to continue her learning with Orrec and travel with him and Gry.

The theme continues with Gavir, the slave boy of Arcamand. Starting from his earliest vision of blue-green hills and reeds in water – his village, he has strange visions of the future. He also has visions of snowfall, of an enemy attacking Etra and of a man in a dark room calling his name. However, the power is useless to him, as he can never tell where, when, how or to whom it happens, until the actual event takes place; and then, the power does not help him prevent or hinder the happenings taking place. So, he goes to the Marshlands of Ferusi in the wild hope that someone will be able to explain his power to him. He learns that the Rassiu, his kinsmen, are known for their power of “remembering” and that his clan especially, the Aytanas, are well known for their Seers. However, after a year of intense training with a seerman, Doroc, Gavir detests his power. He realizes that even though he was among his race, Ferusi wasn’t his home, and that he didn’t want to live there. He realizes that he has been born with “two gifts, two powers” (Powers, 321). One of this, he knows, is the gift of the Marsh people, to see visions. But in this, he had failed – whether it is through his teacher’s inadequacy or whether it is a “wild gift that could not be trained” he does not know (321). He also understands that his other power of words and stories was useless here. “These were not people of the word. They were people of the vision” (321). He sets out on his long-forgotten dream of going to Mesun and finding Orrec Caspro. He relinquishes his power of foresight and pursues his uncanny ability to remember any book or passage that he has read. Thus, he too, embraces his true destiny and power – that of language. Although the people of the Uplands, whether nobleman or peasant, are illiterate, Orrec’s mother Melle takes it upon herself to teach Orrec and Gry the art of reading and writing. As books are unheard of and never seen by the people of these domains, Melle uses glazed linen as paper to make a book for Orrec and writes down the stories as best as she can remember them. Orrec pores over these books until he has learnt them by heart. When he does not remember certain

stanzas, he makes up words and sentences to suit the rest of the story. Orrec is noticed and appreciated, even when he is blind and so apparently “useless”, for the way in which he recites poetry and prose. When Gry tells him about her assumptions of the origin of his gift, that it may have been for “setting straight”, he can relate to it, because, he thinks that it is like the poetry he makes in his head, “the tangled confusion of words that fell suddenly into a pattern, a clarity, and you recognized it: that’s it, that’s right” (Gifts, 231). He feels at home among books and words like he has never felt anywhere else. Orrec feels that the language lifted up his heart whenever he read it, and as he spoke it, it possessed him, singing through him. He says that all stories “are sacred to me, the wonderful word beings which, so long as I was hearing or telling them, made a world I could enter seeing, free to act: a world I knew and understood, that had its own rules, yet was under my control as the world beyond the stories was not…I lived increasingly in these stories, remembering them…speaking them into being” (188). This is what leads him to be a great Maker, as we learn in the subsequent books. In Ansul, the Gand Ioratth welcomes him as the Gand of the Makers. Poems and poetry fascinated him. He explains how he “tried to work out how they were put together, how this word returned, or this song or rhyme came back, or the beat wove through the words…[he] would try to fit words of my own into the patterns [he] had found.” That gave him “intense, pure, pleasure” (228-229). Although he loves language and the power of books, he is still ignorant when living in Caspromant. When a man from the Lowlands shows him a book with printed pages, he asks what it means, highlighting the painful illiteracy of the Uplands. He writes inspiring poetry, one of which is partly responsible for the uprising by the people of Ansul in Voices, called Liberty. Gry introduces him to the Waylord and tells of him that “he seeks the nourishment of his art and soul in books” (Voices, 62). Caspro’s Hymn is sung secretly among the slaves in their barracks of Etra in Powers. The people of the cities shout it out and sing it in victory:

As in the dark of winter night Our eyes seek dawn, As in the bonds of bitter cold The heart craves sun, So blinded and so bound, the soul Cries out to thee: Be our light, our fire, our life, Liberty! (207) In Voices, Memer is also fascinated by the written word, mainly because it is forbidden by the Alds, who fear it to be works of demons and witches. She can write the password to enter the secret room since she was a baby, for she could “see the shapes of the letters being written in the air”, and her hand would follow them (10). She is a fast and hungry learner under her teacher, the Waylord. Memer loves to read and is quick to memorize lines and phrases from the books she has read, often quoting to the Waylord. She is ignorant when she first enters the discipleship of the Waylord, calling the letters “things”; and when asked what one does with a book, she “said nothing. [She] didn’t know” (15). Even learning how to read, or indeed passively talking about a book, is very dangerous under the Ald regime. However, people often smuggled in books to Galvamand in secret, for safekeeping. Outside the house of Galvamand stands the Oracle Fountain, which has been dry for two hundred years. Even in this structure, the power of words is seen, as the Waylord explains the story to Memer, that when the city Council decided to move the library out of Galvamand, they decided that the books should be moved, and “little by little, as the books were taken out of the house, the water ceased to run” (113-114). When the Waylord banishes Iddor from entering Galvamand towards the end of the book, he brandishes a book in

his face, asking him to read it, for he claims it contains the words of the Oracle. When Memer and the Waylord are alone in the secret room, she asks him which book he showed the prince. The Waylord shows her a children’s book, and tells her that he picked the first book that he saw. When she realizes that it was not an Oracle book that set them free, but just an ordinary book, she quotes the great poet of the Western Shore, Denios: “There is a god in every leaf; you hold what is sacred in your open hand” (364.) In Powers, Gavir had always been a quick learner in Everra’s classroom, using his free time to go to the library and read the histories and philosophies of the City States. He need only read a book once to be able to recite the entire text. This allowed him to be trained to be a teacher, although it also earns him the nickname, “teacher’s pet”. As a child, his dream was to compile a history of the entire City States and be known as a great historian. However, all these fantasies are shattered when he runs away from Etra. He shuts his past away, and refuses to think about his learning or his knowledge, until he comes to Barna’s city. Although Barna appears barbaric at times, he is the only person in the city, other than Gavir, who has had any learning. Barna tells him that “even if your body is chained, if you have the thoughts of the philosophers and the words of the poets in your head, you can be free of chains, and walk among the great” (205). Thus Gavir gets back what he thought he had lost forever. This gift of words is the reason why he feels alienated among his people, the Rassiu, who have not seen a book, and have never cared for unnecessary words. When Gavir asks the men whether they tell tales and stories to each other, they say that that is only for women and children. Men do have the stories of their Gods, but that is only told in secret, after a second initiation ceremony, and never sung outside. When he speaks with Gegemer, his aunt, she tells him of his mother’s power: to memorize anything given to her. She tells Gavir to “hold to the other power, the one your mother Tano had, for it

won’t drive you crazy” (297). Thus he leaves the Marsh lands, because he feels that the gift he chose for himself is useless among his kin. Language, which is usually seen as a weapon used by the weak, is a recurrent theme in the Western Shore series. The importance that Le Guin gives to words and language is seen in all three books. A significant aspect of magic, as Le Guin sees it, is that it is connected with language. Its effectiveness depends not only on the words uttered, but on some inherent power within the user; hence the special status of the artist and the prominence of the issue of moral responsibility. Knowledge here then becomes power in a real sense, a power derived from seeing beneath the aspect of things into their substance, understanding both their true being and their place in the universe. It is such an understanding which, Le Guin suggests, gives meaning to existence. Her novels emphasize the creative power of language, its ability to summon images, to pattern experience, to change the very fabric of the world. Language is above all powerful in its ability to provide us with myths, to interpret dream and reality, and thus to make and unmake our world in its images. In the Annals of the Western Shore, “[l]anguage is again the means of realizing self-knowledge and achieving self-acceptance” (Dooley 5).

Conclusion Throughout the Annals of the Western Shore series, Ursula Le Guin has managed to create a believable world of invalidated myths. Lisa Goldstein says, “Ursula Le Guin does something I wouldn't have thought possible: she takes nearly every trope of the fantasy genre and deliberately sets them aside” (2 Nov, 2006). Le Guin’s three books, Gifts, Voices, and Powers, undermine the notion of inborn power being central to a fantasy hero’s victory. She reiterates the right of every person, be it child or adult, to question what they have been given by fate; and to choose, ultimately, whether to retain this gift or to discard it. In her stories, all the three protagonists are given a choice of two powers – to choose the gift expected of them by society, or to choose their heart’s gift. “Le Guin's detailing of the consequences of …misused power is timeless as well as timely, and has the deep, lasting ring of truth that makes for well-loved, enduring young adult literature.” (Ergenbright 29 Aug, 2004). While most archetypal fantasy stories confine the power of words to bearded old men sitting in dark rooms filled with books and scrolls, fit for advice alone and not for action, Le Guin’s heroes disregard their powers of spells and magic to embrace the power of language. They attain victory and realize fulfillment through this understanding of the might of words. As Jacques Derrida articulates, literature and art “[give] in principle the power to say everything, to break free of the rules, to displace them (Nadir 20) In Le Guin’s Annals of the Western Shore, the power of language is considered sacred, and thus the authors of old and of the present day are revered and honoured by all the citizens of the Western Shore, be they illiterate, free man, or slave. The supreme unconquerable power is always and will always be the power of language. Hence “[t]he true death, the end of the world…is the loss of language, the death of art” (Dooley 7).

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