The Lathe of Heaven

by

Ursula K. Le Guin

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Aunt Ethel Character Analysis

Aunt Ethel is Orr’s aunt who came to live with Orr and his family when he was 17, during which time she sexually harassed him. During Orr’s first session with Haber, he recalls how one of his first effective dreams caused Ethel to die in a car crash. Though Orr wanted to stop Ethel’s harassment, he regrets his complicity in her death and cites this dream as an example of the “immoral” quality of his effective dreams.
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Aunt Ethel Character Timeline in The Lathe of Heaven

The timeline below shows where the character Aunt Ethel appears in The Lathe of Heaven. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 2 
Dreams and the Limitations of Knowledge  Theme Icon
...an example. Orr pauses before recounting a time when he was 17, and his Aunt Ethel, who was around 30 at the time and going through a divorce, came to live... (full context)
Dreams and the Limitations of Knowledge  Theme Icon
In one of Orr’s particularly “vivid” bad dreams, Ethel died in a car crash in Los Angeles. When Orr awoke from his dream the... (full context)