Even though Genly Ai has been in Gethen for about two years,
he still has yet to fully comprehend the Gethenian lifestyle. During a dinner
with Estraven, Genly reveals, “Though I had been nearly two years on Winter I
was still far from being able to see the people of the planet through their own
eyes. I tried to, but my efforts took the form of self-consciously seeing a
Gethenian first as a man, then a woman, forcing him into these categories so
irrelevant to his nature and so essential to my own (12).”
Throughout the course of the novel, Genly Ai makes distinctions
between himself and the Gethenians. The envoy differs in physical and
anatomical traits from them; he himself is a tall, dark, and single-sex male. Unlike
Genly, the Gethenians are yellow-brown or red-brown in color, short, and are
genderless. In his appointment with the
Karhide-monarch, King Argaven, Genly reveals that people come in all different
colors. The people of his home planet, Terra, not only differ in physical
appearance, but in sexuality as well.
Genly’s confusion with the androgynous qualities of the
Gethenians, especially their ability to transition from male to female during
the phases of kemmer, reveals that the people on his planet are different in
terms of their sexual physiology. Genly’s
confession hints that the people on his planet only can either be male or
female because he refers to the Gethenians by using masculine and feminine pronouns
to make his distinction. Since Genly comes from a planet of gender, he attempts
to make sense of the Gethenian sex; “A person from Cime, a female (36).” In
this passage he explains that he uses the word female because the Gethenians would
identify it as a phase of kemmer. Genly admits that Gethenian sexual physiology
is unique among human beings.
Gethenians have it right. they judge people on who they are as people, not how well they fit the roles society has developed for their gender. Genly, on the other hand, is a bit of a douchebag. Most negative traits that he correlates with his own people he calls feminine. He called Gethenians "female" solely because of their lack of their capacity for war, implying that he thinks men should be strong and aggressive and brave while women should be timid, shy, and submissive. Sounds pretty familiar, actually.
ReplyDeleteAlthough it makes me very frustrated at times I am starting to enjoy the fact that there is no gender. It honestly shows the characters for who they really are and how they treat other people. Just because someone could be female doesn't change the way they treat her, much nicer or more aggressive. Being treated fairly seems like such a perfect world that you'd want to live in.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with Tyler and Michelle. Although I was hard for me to wrap my head around at first, I am beginning to understand the positives of the Gethenians lack of gender. It allows them to be who they want to be, without slapping a gender label on them. They form a gender during kemmering for one purpose; to reproduce. This is hard for Genly to comprehend because he comes from a society that is so strict about gender. Later in the novel when Genly forms a friendship with Estraven during their journey back to Karhide, he slightly begins to understand kemmering and why they're genderless most of the time. I feel like Genly is on the brink of having an break through and hopefully I am too...
ReplyDeleteP.S. Clever title!