The Left Hand of Darkness
Who is the narrator and is he reliable?
Genly Ai, and not really.
Ursula K. Le Guin wrote an essay entitled: "Is Gender...
Necessary?"
Define a chiasmus.
A rhetorical or literary figure in which words, grammatical constructions, or concepts are repeated in reverse order, sort of embrace ABBA structure.
Ergodic literature mainly requires...
A. money because of its rarity and expensive book editions.
B. efforts from the reader to navigate the text.
C. knowledge about religious allegories.
D. an understanding of landscape architecture.
B. efforts from the reader to navigate the text.
What year is it in Winter when the story starts?
Year One
What was Ursula K. Le Guin's father's job?
Anthropologist
Define Magical Realism.
-Blending of the real and the fantastic: magical events occur naturally in realistic contexts.
-Cyclical or mythic sense of time: time moves in circles, connecting past, present, and ancestry.
-Strong ties to folklore or oral tradition: legends and collective memory as sources of truth (communal storytelling and singing for instance).
-Often resists Western authority, reclaiming suppressed or colonized worldviews.
-Symbolic detail.
-Lyrical tone.
In Song of Solomon, who leaps from Mercy Hospital wearing blue silk wings?
Robert Smith
The first time he meets Estraven, Genly Ai first describes him as a...
person
What was the name of the Native American Ursula K. Le Guin’s mother wrote about?
Ishi
Define a palimpsest.
A surface rewritten yet bearing traces of the past.
In “A Perfect Day for Bananafish,” what object functions as a phantom metaphor for trauma, even though it doesn’t exist?
Seymour’s imaginary tattoo
What is the real name of the planet Winter?
Gethen
In what book does Ursula K. Le Guin offer a thought experiment about anarchism?
The Dispossessed
Define narrative unreliability and give an example.
Narrative unreliability refers to a situation where the narrator’s account of events cannot be fully trusted.
Ex: Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves, Johnny Truant.
In which of these tracks is the character of Ethel Cain still alive?
A) "Sun Bleached Flies"
B) "American Teenager"
C) "Strangers"
D) "Televangelism"
B) "American Teenager"
Among the following names, which one is not a territory?
A. Gethen
B. Karhide
C. Kerm Land
D. Erhenrang
E. Kyorremy
E. Kyorremy (the upper chamber of Parliament)
What does the “K” in Ursula K. Le Guin stand for?
Kroeber
Define the unheimlich.
The uncanny, the moment when something familiar suddenly feels strange. It is the homely and the hidden, about the return of the repressed.
What’s the time of Violet Venable’s drinking ritual, and which cocktail does she have?
5 o’clock — Daiquiri