The King is Pregnant: The Left Hand of Darkness and Gender as a Power Issue

Abstract

The King is Pregnant : The Left Hand of Darkness and Gender as a Power Issue ABSTRACT Ursula Le Guin’s masterpiece The Left Hand of Darkness is based on the story of an Investigator, Ai, who has been sent to the planet of winter, Gethen, to convey the message of an interplanetary Council. Gethen is dominated by royal families and little kingdoms, Karhide and Ortogeyn. The book consists of short legends told by anonymous characters and accounts of Ai’s journey in Karhide, then to Orgoteyn and then back to Karhide. Gethenians were sexually inactive except for a certain period that they called kemer, and they remained androgynous rest of the year. Their outstanding sexual character inevitably has social, political and cultural consequences. Ursula Le Guin experiments with the sexual and gendered qualities of human societies to understand to what extent they influence our cultural and political behaviors. This paper, therefore, will investigate the effects of gender and sexuality on the cultural and political construction of society with particular references to feminist theory and traditions of fantastic fiction written by women. Keywords: gender, power, fantastic fiction, Ursula Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness, American fiction OZ KRAL HAMILE: KARANLIĞIN SOL ELI VE BIR IKTIDAR SORUNU OLARAK TOPLUMSAL CINSIYET Ursula Le Guin’in basyapiti Karanligin Sol Eli, kis gezegeni Gethen’e yolu dusen ve gezegenlerarasi konseyin mesajini ulastirmakla gorevlendirilmis bir elcinin, Ai’nin, hikayesini anlatir. Gethen asil aileler ve Karhide ve Ortogeyn isimli iki kucuk krallik tarafindan kontrol edilmektedir. Kitap, her bir bolumde farkli bir anlatici tarafindan anlatilan kisa oykulerden olusmustir. Gethen sakinlerinin en carpici ozelligi, Kemer adini verdikleri bir ciftlesme donemi disinda cinsiyetsiz varliklar olmalaridir. Bu carpici biyolojik ozelliklerinin elbette toplumsal, kulturel ve politik sonuclari da olacaktir. Ursula Le Guin, bu romaninda insan toplumlarinin cinsiyet ve cinsiyetlendirilmis kimliklerinin, ne olcude kulturel ve politik davranislarini etkileyecegini anlamak uzere bir deney yurutmektedir. Bu makale, bu dogrultuda, cinsellik ve toplumsal cinsiyet kavramlarinin toplumun kulturel ve politik yapisi uzerindeki etkilerini, feminist kuram ve kadin yazarlarin olusturdugu fantastik edebiyat gelenegi isiginda tartismayi amaclamaktadir. Anahtar kelimeler: toplumsal cinsiyet, fantastik kurgu, iktidar, Ursula Le Guin, Karanligin Sol Eli, Amerikan romani.