Alien in an Alien World: The Journey of Disillusionment in the Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin

Abstract

The appealing journeys of the protagonist in Ursula K. Le Guin’s worldsare frequently both physical and spiritual. The reader witnesses the transformation and growth of the character in the course of events while the setting also changes from the known to unknown. This journey enables the reader to understand the nature of the maturation with the hero’s process of being independent. What is emphasized here by a journey is not particularly a series of adventure, but a life-long process of changing and transformation of the self through time and experience. In the Dispossessed, the protagonist, Shevek the physicistarrives on the foreign planet and inevitably findhimself as “aliens”mostly as a result of the strange culture. Many times, we find out that Sehevek is alienated from his own society and living in isolation in a way. But it lights the way for him that leads to his disillusionment with a perspective helping him see the things outside. The Dispossessed offers us two completely different worlds with their climate, social orders and ideologies. Coming from Anarres, an apparently utopian but flawed anarchist society, Shevek grasps the realities of Urras, which seems flawless from afar, and also the cracks in her own community through his journey.