Betrayal and Fidelity in The Left Hand of Darkness

Introduction: Duality as the Novel's Central Motif

The principal motif that drives the narration and the varying themes that author Ursula K. Le Guin explores within her seminal science fiction narrative, The Left Hand of Darkness, is the pervasiveness and inherent influence of duality — a quality integral to human existence. Such duality takes on many different forms in the novel, and is evinced within conceptions of light and darkness, male and female characteristics and their accordant gender roles, and — most significantly — the duality between faith and betrayal, love and hate. The vast majority of literary criticism focused on this novel has examined the effect of gender duality, which is conspicuously absent from most of the novel (LeFanu; Mahoney), since all but one character within it are androgynous, yet exceedingly prominent because of the novelty of such a situation for the novel's protagonist, Genly Ai.

However, a closer examination of the text and pertinent literary criticism reveals that, as the author herself has noted, the duality the novel is most concerned with is not that found within gender, but that found within betrayal and fidelity. Le Guin's novel ultimately frames questions of gender as a vehicle for exploring something deeper: the fragile and transformative relationship between trust and betrayal.

Estraven's Fidelity and the Politics of Suspicion

The most convincing evidence that repeatedly demonstrates this fact is the relationship between Ai and Therem Harth rem ir Estraven, who begins the story employed as the prime minister of Karhide. What is most significant about this relationship is that, despite the innate distrust with which Ai views Estraven, the latter maintains an unassailable fidelity and trust in the former for the duration of the novel — in both the best and the worst of times. This relationship is the focal point of Le Guin's novel, and though certain aspects of gender influence it, the relationship is most eminent in this work of literature for the simple fact that it displays the duality and influence of betrayal and trust.

In fact, Estraven is the only person who believes in Ai and his mission, as well as in his accounts of rapid interstellar travel and a host of other things decidedly foreign — and therefore causes of suspicion — to the majority of the inhabitants of the planet Gethen, as the following quotation, in which the King of Karhide addresses Ai, makes abundantly clear: "But I do fear you, Envoy. I fear those who sent you. I fear liars, and I fear tricksters, and worst I fear the bitter truth. And so I rule my country well. Because only fear rules men. Nothing else works. Nothing else lasts long enough" (Le Guin 40).

This quotation emphasizes the degree of suspicion with which the inhabitants of Gethen inevitably view Ai — both because he comes from a world of greater technological advancement and because he is not androgynous, as all the inhabitants of Gethen are. Shortly after this exchange, Estraven is labeled a traitor and exiled from his native country for bringing Ai before the king, and Ai's attempts to include Karhide in his federation are rejected. What is most significant, however, is that Estraven is the only inhabitant of this planet who believes in Ai's mission and the technology that fuels it — which demonstrates the height of his fidelity to Ai, even when that fidelity brands him a traitor to his own people.

Gender as a Source of Mutual Distrust

The two principal reasons for distrust of Ai and his mission to include Gethen in the Ekumen are the fact that he is not androgynous and that he speaks of a confederation governed by a technology and speed (Jordison) as foreign to the inhabitants of Gethen as his unwavering masculine gender. It is therefore interesting to note that, in this respect, even the employment of gender as a theme is subservient to the larger point that it is the cause of suspicion, infidelity, and ultimately betrayal. Yet what is most profound about this suspicion is that — in keeping with the motif of duality — it is not one-sided, as the following quotation from a review of The Left Hand of Darkness reveals:

"…a Gethenian can assume either the female or male gender at complete random (i.e. someone who was a female one month can be a male in the next monthly kemmering). Genly Ai, with his single, permanent male sexuality is branded as a 'pervert,' or an anomaly. On the most basic, fundamental level, neither the people of Gethen nor Ai can understand each other" (Thea).

This quotation underscores the fact that the question of gender, and the duality of male and female characteristics that all inhabitants of Gethen are able to equally embody, is also a reason for Ai to distrust those inhabitants. The reviewer's observation that Ai and the inhabitants of Gethen cannot "understand" one another points directly to a lack of comprehension largely engendered by differences in gender — and it is from this lack of understanding that suspicion and betrayal arise. Androgyny, as a social and biological norm on Gethen, functions less as an end in itself and more as the mechanism through which the novel's true subject — the duality of betrayal and fidelity — is dramatized.

Conclusion: Fidelity as the Novel's True Subject

The relationship between Ai and Estraven, which is integral to the plot of The Left Hand of Darkness, underscores the notion that this novel is actually about the dichotomy between faithfulness and betrayal. Because Estraven believes in Ai's cause, he is labeled a traitor and exiled from his country. His faith is able to overlook the disdain that Ai harbors for him after his fall from grace, and it is Estraven's fidelity that is responsible for warning Ai about his own betrayal at the hands of the inhabitants of Orgota. Through the worst of circumstances — including Ai's imprisonment — the fidelity on which their relationship is based never falters on Estraven's part, and eventually engenders a sense of reciprocity in Ai.