The Dispossessed
The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia is a
1974 utopian science fiction novel by
Ursula K. Le Guin, set in the same fictional universe as that of
The Left Hand of Darkness (the
Ekumen universe). The book won both the
Hugo award and
Nebula award in 1975, and achieved a degree of literary recognition unusual for science fiction works.
The story takes place on the fictional planet Urras and its moon Anarres (since Anarres is massive enough to hold an atmosphere, this is often described as a
double planet system). In order to forestall an
Odonian anarchist workers' rebellion, the major Urasste states gave Anarres and a guarantee of non-interference to the revolutionaries, approximately 200 years before the events of
The Dispossessed.
The protagonist Shevek is a physicist attempting to develop General Temporal Theory. However, without obvious practical application, he finds his work unsupported and passed over in favor of more "practical" research. He therefore embarks on the risky journey to the original planet seeking the conversation with other mathematicians and physicists which will bring his theory to fruition. The novel details his struggles on both Urras and his homeworld of Anarres.
The book also explores the
Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis: on the anarchist planet the use of the possessive case is strongly discouraged. An example is given where a little girl says to Shevek: "You can share the handkerchief I use." (Le Guin 69), rather than "you may borrow my handkerchief". The idea is that the handkerchief is not owned by the girl, merely carried by her. The language spoken in Anarres,
Pravic, is a
constructed language that reflects many aspects of the philosophical foundations of utopian anarchism.
The Dispossessed is considered by some
libertarian socialists to be a good description of the mechanisms that would be developed by an anarchist society, but also of the dangers of centralization and bureaucracy that easily take over such society without the continuation of revolutionary ideology. Part of its power is that it gives us a spectrum of fairly well-developed characters, who illustrate many types of personalities, all educated in an environment that measures a person not by what he owns, but by what he can do, and how he relates to other human beings. Probably the best example of this is the character of Takver, the hero's partner, who exemplifies many virtues: loyalty, love of life and living things, perseverance, and desire for a true partnership with another person.
The work is sometimes said to represent one of the few modern revivals of the
utopian genre, though it is notable that one of the major themes of the work is the ambiguity of different notions of utopia.
In the afternoon, when he cautiously looked outside, he saw an armored car stationed across the street and two others slewed across the street at the crossing. That explained the shouts he had been hearing: it would be soldiers giving orders to each other.
Atro had once explained to him how this was managed, how the sergeants could give the privates orders, how the lieutenants could give the privates and the sergeants orders, how the captains... and so on and so on up to the generals, who could give everyone else orders and need take them from none, except the commander in chief. Shevek had listened with incredulous disgust. "You call that organization?" he had inquired. "You even call it discipline? But it is neither. It is a coercive mechanism of extraordinary inefficiency â€" a kind of seventh-millennium steam engine! With such a rigid and fragile structure what could be done that was worth doing?" This had given Atro a chance to argue the worth of warfare as the breeder of courage and manliness and weeder-out of the unfit, but the very line of his argument had forced him to concede the effectiveness of guerrillas, organized from below, self-disciplined. "But that only works when the people think they're fighting for something of their own â€" you know, their homes, or some notion or other," the old man had said. Shevek had dropped the argument. He now continued it, in the darkening basement among the stacked crates of unlabeled chemicals. He explained to Atro that he now understood why the Army was organized as it was. It was indeed quite necessary. No rational form of organization would serve the purpose. He simply had not understood that the purpose was to enable men with machine guns to kill unarmed men and women easily and in great quantities when told to do so. Only he still could not see where courage, or manliness, or fitness entered in.
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Anarchism in the arts *
Libertarian Socialism *
Pravic*
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Study Guide for Ursula LeGuin: The Dispossessed (1974) ISBN 0061054887
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Review of The Dispossessed 
