From early on in the novel there are many mentions of cold. Genly, a foreigner, is not used to the cold at all. In Chapter 3 he refers to himself as a tropical bird. Genly mentions in Chapter 3 that the fireplace does no good. Fires in Karhide are to warm the spirit, not the flesh. There are advancements in their world, where they have central heating, but no one uses it. On page 28, Genly suggests they would “lose their physiological weatherproofing” if they were to stay warm the all the time. The cold environment is apart of them now. They’ve learned to live with it and without it, the whole order of their world would be off. On page 29 Genly notes that he’s been cold his entire time in Gethen. “Cold one way outdoors and cold another way indoors, ceaselessly and more or less thoroughly cold”, says Genly. What I believe he’s referring to is the lack of emotion or warmth in Gethen. Of course what follows lack of emotion is loneliness. I don't think the Gethenians are intentionally isolating themselves, that’s just how their world works. But for Genly who’s an outsider looking in, it's odd for him to see such a lack of emotion and lack of relationships. In comparison to our, society there's operates backwards. They go into kemmering, mate with someone who is also in kemmering, have a baby, and then decide if they want to stay together and vow kemmering to each other. In our world, we chose a partner based on our emotional connection before we start a family with them. We take into consideration our partner’s qualities and characteristics because we know that our baby will be half of their qualities and half of our own. The Gethenians reproduce without acknowledging the other person’s qualities, I’m not sure of they do this because that’s how kemmer works, or if they don't care about how the other half of their child will be.
To my dismay, I disagree, I feel that these beings demonstrate their feeling of love and affection in a narrow route. We as humans seem to demonstrate our love in various ways, friendships, romantic partnerships, marriage, etc. Yet, the Gethenians only have kemmering as their partnerships, vow kemmering as their most notably similar to one of our own practices, marriage, and we can see that it isn't so rare of an occurrence; even though in marriage you may remarry, Vow kemmering takes it to the extreme and only allows for one instance of vow keemering to occur per Gethenian, showing that these beings either have, or once had, deep feelings towards their lovers, so much so that they would refuse to remarry, or go through vow kemmering once again. Each home in Karhide does in fact have a fire at its hearth, but I see this not only as a place to give a brighter outlook to each Gethenian, bestowing a feeling of warmth to the soul of the onlooker, but as reflection to Karhide inhabitants, each having a small range of passionate love to give out, once it is snuffed out, it cannot be regained, or reignited in this case, through any means.
ReplyDeleteI think both of you are in a way right. Vowing kemmering is something beautiful and emotional that connects partners in a way that us as outsiders don't fully understand. We share this incomprehension of kemmering with Genly. It's not that the Gethenians are emotionless or passionless; they just express their devotion differently. Thorough out the book, Genly's misunderstanding of shifgrethor and kemmering probably contributes to the metaphorical coldness he feels in Karhide. Estraven is a prime example of this, as Genly initially doesn't trust him, despite Estraven's good intentions.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you both. In their world they don't seem to show the normal "affection" that we are used to. It's not that it's a bad thing necessarily it's just now what we prefer I guess. To the Gethenians it's completely fine and they seem to show their love to each other in a different manner.
ReplyDeleteIn their world, it is common to fall in love with your siblings,but to us it is very uncommon. They show love a very different way than us, and how you don't know if your going to be a boy or a girl until Kemmer.
ReplyDeleteI believe that Gethenians aren't aware of the lack of emotion they have. The cold also contributes to their way of living; cold weather and isolation go hand and hand. That is their only way of living and know of nothing else. Genly struggles on Winter because he is not used to the lack of interaction and not being able to connect with others in order to form relationships.
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