Truth and Storytelling Theme Analysis

Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness is written using many different voices and styles. Ai Genly, an alien envoy sent to Gethen, and Estraven, a native of Gethen, are the primary narrators, and together the two of them present a fairly conventional, chronological story. Other chapters, however, make use of documents such as field reports, religious texts, and folktales to help tell the story. Individually, each of these texts and perspectives sheds light on a single facet of the world of Le Guin’s novel, but when taken together, the various viewpoints create an expansive, multifaceted picture of Gethen. 

Each type of story—from Ai’s report, to Estraven’s diary, to myths, field notes, and religious works—presents its own version of the truth. Each voice speaks with authority, and although different accounts sometimes come into conflict, the essential truths of the stories resonate even when the literal events they report did not occur. In the very first paragraph of the first chapter, Genly Ai explains, “I’ll make my report as if I told a story, for I was taught as a child…that Truth is a matter of the imagination.” From the beginning, then, the narrator demonstrates a keen awareness that all narratives, including his, have elements of fiction within them, suggesting that fiction and storytelling are inseparable even when the story being told is true. Early in the novel Ai also concedes that “the story is not all mine,” thereby acknowledging his limited perspective and opening the narrative to additional, occasionally contradictory, voices. By incorporating more voices in the narrative in this way, the narrative becomes richer and more complicated. Rarely is a single, authoritative, version of the truth presented, as different events and conversations are narrated both from Ai’s perspective and from Estraven’s. While the content of the interaction does not change, the two scenes imagine different subtexts, meanings, and motives, ultimately leaving it to the reader to piece together the truth.

The Left Hand of Darkness contains eight chapters that don’t deal directly with the plot of the story, but instead provide the reader with a richer sense of the history and culture of Gethen, where the story takes place. A chapter called “The Question of Sex,” taken from the field notes of an Investigator, provides detailed information about the biology and behavior of the hermaphroditic Gethenian race. Although the nature of Gethenian sexuality (or lack thereof) has already been alluded to within the primary narrative, this chapter helps provide insight into the ways in which sex and gender have influenced Gethenian culture as a whole. Another chapter, “The Place Inside the Blizzard,” gives readers a better sense of Gethenian cultural norms regarding incest and suicide. Elsewhere, folktales and myths give depth to otherwise drily anthropological accounts of the Gethenian people’s habits and customs. For instance, although ice giants likely did not create Gethen (as suggested in one Orgota creation myth), the myth provides a useful insight into Orgota culture, as it explains the culture’s ideas about the cycle of light and death, and the important role that darkness and shadows play in daily life and in mythology.   

Le Guin investigates the concept of truth through the subplot involving the Handdarata Foretellers, a group of religious men who work together to answer questions about the future. Ai initially assumes the accuracy of their predictions is the result of chance, or mindreading, but after he has his own question answered he revises his theory. Foretelling, he thinks, is “not so much a prophecy as an observation.” It has the “imperative clarity of a hunch.” That is to say, Foretelling is true, but the prophecies exist outside of the realm of empirical, verifiable fact. The Handdarta themselves see little use in telling the future or revealing life’s great truths. In their religion, and in the minds of many Gethenians, the one true constant in life is death. In the minds of the Handdarata, the only thing that allows human beings to continue to live in the face of eventual death is an ignorance of the specific facts of their future. In this way, the book establishes a key distinction between truth and fact, suggesting that truth is of greater value, and can even be found in fiction.

While Ai and Estraven never explicitly tell lies in their storytelling, their interpretations of events often differ, and each narrator shapes the narrative through his version of the truth. Ai and Estraven come from vastly different backgrounds, and therefore see the world though vastly different lenses. Their different cultural backgrounds influence how each perceives the world and tells his story, which in turn dramatically alters the reader’s interpretation of events. For example, because Genly Ai does not understand Estraven’s language or culture, he often believes Estraven’s speech to be ironic, or else actively deceptive. Early in the novel Ai describes Estraven as “faithless,” a man who cannot be trusted, only realizing months later that much of the behavior he found suspicious was the result of miscommunication. Estraven is perhaps more aware of the language and communication barrier between himself and Ai, but is no better at navigating it. He realizes late in the novel that “when I thought myself most blunt and frank with him he may have found me most subtle and unclear.” In the chapters written from Ai’s perspective, Estraven seems untrustworthy, but in the chapters drawn from Estraven’s diaries, he reveals himself to be a loyal supporter of Ai’s mission.

Finally, the language characters use to tell their stories also affects how different characters experience the world, altering not only their perception of the truth, but also the reader’s perception of truth. Ai, for example, comes from a world with both men and women, and has difficulty comprehending the sexless nature of Gethenians. He therefore makes the choice to refer to all the residents of the world using masculine pronouns—because, as an earlier Investigator noted in a field report, masculine pronouns (he, him, his) seem less defined, and less specific than female pronouns (she, her, hers) or neutral pronouns (they, them, theirs). However, this decision shapes the reader’s perception of the people of Gethen, for even though the Gethenians have no gender, Ai’s use of male pronouns creates a different perception than the use of neutral or female pronouns would.  

The Left Hand of Darkness thus posits that there is no single, objective truth about the world. By using many types of stories told from many perspectives, Le Guin weaves a complex and sometimes contradictory picture of reality, showing that a variety of viewpoints gives a more complete picture than a single viewpoint ever could. Genly Ai and earlier Investigators can provide an anthropological account of the world, its people, and their observable biology and behavior, but it is the chapters written from Estraven’s point of view, and the myths and legends of the Gethenians, that render a true depiction of the people of Gethen as fully-formed beings with complex internal lives and centuries of rich culture and tradition.