A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin

First published: 1968

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Fantasy

Time of work: The distant past

Locale: The world of Earthsea

Principal Characters:

• Ged, a wizard’s student who is also known as Duny and Sparrowhawk
• Ogion, an aged hermit, wizard, and teacher
• Vetch, a fellow wizard of limited talent who befriends Ged

Form and Content

Speaking in Sweden in 1989, Ursula K. Le Guin explained why she found it necessary to write Tehanu: The Last Book of Earthsea (1990). She said that she conceived of the Earthsea trilogy, of which A Wizard of Earthsea is the first book, as a subverted heroic tale. In the 1960’s, when she was composing the stories, she thought of herself as transcending gender insofar as she was a woman successfully writing in a masculine genre for children, but she came later to see that, to a significant degree, she was writing as an “honorary or artificial man.” Furthermore, she realized that by giving her lead male characters dark skins, she was doing more than simply subverting the Anglo-European conventions of heroic fantasy; she also was associating her heroes with that other, larger group from the cultural margins, women.

A Wizard of Earthsea is a heroic fantasy told as a historical legend. As a young child, Ged shows an extraordinary talent for magic and soon attracts the attention of an obscure opposing force, associated finally with the Stone of Terrenon on the island of Osskil. Characters connected with this stone tempt Ged, during various stages of his training, to gratify his vanity and pride by summoning the spirits of the dead to appear among the living, thus exerting power over death. The story of his coming to terms with the dark side of himself, his shadow, may be seen as structured by temptations and crises.

The first major temptation during his boyhood comes from a young girl, the daughter of an enchantress from Osskil. She encourages him to try a spell of transformation, but when he goes to Ogion’s books in search of the spell, he is transfixed by one for summoning, and this first evokes his shadow. He receives his quest as a result of his second main temptation. In a foolish contest on Roke, he summons a departed spirit and releases his shadow into the world. This strange entity is presented as an emissary from a realm of nonbeing, the opposite and opponent of all that is. To understand the shadow thoroughly, one must turn to Le Guin’s worldview as expressed in her essay collections, The Language of the Night (1979) and Dancing at the Edge of the World (1989), where her discussions of Carl Jung and of Taoism help to clarify her understanding of the relations between being and nonbeing. Le Guin’s epigraph to the novel and the series makes clear, however, that order in this fantasy world depends not upon the defeat of the shadow, but rather upon a kind of balance between light and shadow, between being and nonbeing: “Only in silence the word,/ only in dark the light,/ only in dying life:/ Bright the hawk’s flight/ on the empty sky.” Therefore, Ged sets out on a quest after releasing the shadow, to determine his proper relationship to this entity.

Ged’s quest is both literal and spiritual. He must travel to certain places, overcome certain obstacles, and finally meet his shadow in the right circumstances, but he also must discover who he is, the extent of his powers, and what he is to do with his life. Should the shadow, which is blind in the world of being, find him before he knows himself, then it will possess him, transforming him into an evil wizard. On these parallel journeys, Ged coerces a dragon to give up predation upon humans, resisting the temptation to free the dragon in exchange for the name of the shadow. In the magical economy of his world, knowing the true name of a thing gives one power over it. Attempting to save the life of a dying child, Ged travels spiritually to the border between death and life, and there the shadow finds him and begins to pursue him. This pursuit drives him to Osskil and the Stone of Terrenon, where Ged almost subordinates himself to the forces of nonbeing in order to gain power over the shadow; this is his most threatening temptation. When he takes shelter with Ogion, the wizard advises him to turn on and pursue the shadow, to attempt to possess it. In the final crisis, Ged confronts his shadow and gives it his own name. So named, the shadow and Ged merge, making him a powerful adult hero.

Context

Although Le Guin was not to articulate and publish her main feminist ideas until well after the appearance of the Earthsea books, the directions her thought would take are implicit in those books. The Taoist worldview of A Wizard of Earthsea differs from the Christian worldview that is implicit in much heroic fantasy, such as J. R. R. Tolkien’s trilogy The Lord of the Rings (1955). One main difference is that Le Guin’s worldview sees the universe as continuous, without beginning or end; therefore, human history contains no fall or last judgment. This has several implications for how women are portrayed in her work.

Although women hold inferior social and political positions, there is no ancient religious justification for this state of affairs. In The Tombs of Atuan (1971) and Tehanu, Le Guin makes it clear that the oppression of women in Earthsea results from an age of imbalance in political life, in which men have come to dominate politics and magic. It appears at the end of Tehanu that, as a new age begins, a woman will lead in the realm of magic, a man will lead in the realm of politics, and the two will cooperate in governing a unified Earthsea.

The worldview of the Earthsea books tends to be inclusive rather than exclusive. As the main characters, through their adventures and learning, come into line with that worldview, they are more inclined to act cooperatively, to think of community as a structure for including all who share a locale rather than as a set of concepts for including the like-minded and excluding the different. Ged’s final self-integration is inclusive rather than exclusive, and his missions in the later books become communitarian rather than individualistic. He always rejects even the most needed personal gains if accepting them will harm the community.

A Wizard of Earthsea won a Boston Globe/Horn Book Award in 1969, the same year in which Le Guin published The Left Hand of Darkness, which won both of the most prestigious science-fiction awards, the Nebula and the Hugo. The Tombs of Atuan won a Newbery Honor Book citation, and The Farthest Shore (1972) won a National Book Award for children’s literature. Such success, at a time when few women published science fiction or fantasy under their own names, was decisive in drawing women openly into these areas, so that within twenty-five years, dozens of women had established reputations in a field dominated by men since its beginnings, first in medieval and later in romantic fantasy and continuing into the twentieth century development of science fiction and new fantasy as highly popular genres.

Another important contribution of the Earthsea books is that they were important in changing the reputation of fantasy and science fiction as genres. Although Le Guin did expect children to read these books, they are not simple. Her admirers quickly saw that her themes were as serious socially and philosophically as her writing was beautiful and subtle. By this means, Le Guin was influential in bringing serious critical attention to these genres. She was among those writers who initiated a sort of renaissance in fantasy and science fiction, both in their production and in their recognition as important cultural products.

Bibliography

Bittner, James W. Approaches to the Fiction of Ursula K. Le Guin. Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI Research Press, 1984. Bittner concentrates on examining Le Guin’s characteristic themes and styles.

Bucknall, Barbara J. Ursula K. Le Guin. New York: Frederick Ungar, 1981. This book gives special attention to relations between Le Guin’s life and her fiction. Includes an extensive bibliography.

Le Guin, Ursula K. Dancing at the Edge of the World. New York: Grove, 1988. This important collection of Le Guin’s later essays, speeches, and book reviews is very important to understanding the evolution of her feminism as it relates to her thinking about the Earthsea books and the eventual composition of Tehanu. See, especially, the “Bryn Mawr Commencement Address.”

Le Guin, Ursula K. Earthsea Revisioned. Cambridge, Mass.: Children’s Literature of New England, 1992. This short book presents a revised version of Le Guin’s 1989 lecture in Sweden on feminist ideas in the Earthsea books.

Le Guin, Ursula K. The Language of the Night. Edited by Susan Wood. New York: Putnam, 1979. This collection of Le Guin’s early essays and speeches includes several that are directly related to the Earthsea books, especially “The Child and the Shadow.”

Spivack, Charlotte. Ursula K. Le Guin. Boston: Twayne, 1984. This book examines all Le Guin’s work until the 1980’s—poetry, prose, and fiction—and includes an annotated bibliography.