Art, Myth and Ritual in Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness

Art,Myth and Ritual in Le Guin's TheLeft Hand of Darkness Anna Va/dine Clemens Criticaldiscussions of Ursula K. Le Guin's novel, The Left Hand of Darkness, fallgenerally into three main areas of emphasis: political, feminist/political andanthropological. Although these are all certainly legitimate approaches, unfortunately little attention has been paid to the important issue of the work'simplications in terms of archetypal, psychological and literary theory. Politically-oriented critics generally confine themselves to a historical framework and so miss the contrast Le Guin draws between historic and pre-historic cultures in her argument against totalitarianism; they also tend toneglecther affirmation of the subversive potential of ritual and art.1 Feminist critics either minimize, denigrate or wholly ignore the implications of the archetypal content of LHD for the women's movement that was gaining momentumwhen the book was first published in 1969;they also too frequently assumethat science fiction should be overtly prescriptive, and consequently failto recognize Le Guin's ironic intent in her presentation of a protagonist with an excessively masculine point of view.2 Critics who do focus on myth and ritual usually limit their argument by using either a sociological/anthropological frame of reference or paradigms from Eastern religious practices, which exclude consideration of the significance of matriarchal culture in LHD and of the idea that art itself can be seen as a form of ritual with therapeutic potentiaP- both issues which I hope to demonstrate are central concerns in Le Guin's work. Canadian Review of American Studies, Volume 17, Number 4, Winter 1986,423-436 424 Anna Va/dine Clemens Theories of depth psychology developed by C.G. Jung, Erich Neumann and others, and studies of primitive ritual and shamanism and of their relation to contemporary art conducted by Jane Ellen Harrison, Mircea Eliade and Andreas Lommel4 can prove particularly helpful in elucidating themes of LHD that have been overlooked by most critics. Le Guin has stated that the subject of her work is not feminism nor androgyny as many feminist critics have stressed, but betrayal and fidelity,5 and one can see how this motifis repeatedly played out in all of Estraven's personal relationships and the myths associated with them; but one can also extend the theme of betrayal and fidelity-with its attendant theme of sacrifice-from the realm of the interpersonal to that of art itself. Sacrifice does not mean simply "duty"or "death" or the "givingup"of something valued; its Hebrew root means "coming nearer to God" or "making holy."6 In LHD Le Guin shows how sacrifice isa necessary condition for the experience of the transformative power of the archetypal feminine (as explored by Jung and Neumann), and that it isa part of the process which must be engaged in by the primitive shaman/prophet/ priestess, as well as by the contemporary mythic writer, in order to attain a state of extraordinary vision and power. In the words of Jane Ellen Harrison, "Art is in fact but a later and more sublimated form of ritual" (p. 225) and, as I shall demonstrate, the Foretelling ceremony in LHD presents not only a re-enactment of primitive ritual, but also a description of the process of creation experienced by a contemporary mythic artist. According to Eliade, in primitive ritual blood sacrifice wasan act of communion in which all participated in the evocation of sacred time, when the living and the dead, the flesh and the spirit, were one, and the entire cosmos was regenerated. 7 With the rise of individual consciousness, however, the awareness of collective identity diminished and ritual began to deteriorate into mere habit, mechanical repetitions lacking the emotional force and authenticity o_f the original. It was at this point in time that drama and history developed; there was a transition from action to contemplation, from participation to spectatorship. In the mythic work of art today, participation is required on both the personal-conscious· and collectiveunconscious levelsof psychological experience, forging a connection between them and evoking the emotional and psychic resonance of the eternal. 8 One can see Le Guin's concern with the relationship between shamanistic vision and literary art developed more explicitly in her recent...