Notes on The Tombs of Atuan

Tombs of Atuan - Ursula Le Guin

-considered a modern classic (has won Newbery Honor award)
-Le Guin is an atypical Amercian author
-doesn't have the orthodox Protestant/Catholic/Christian background typical of American authors
-writes from a Taoist perspective
-still has a Western perspective but is more significantly influenced by Eastern philosophy

Taoism
-idea of balance (yin/yang) and unity
-balance is not static but always fluctuating
-"dynamic" balance
-another symbol used in Taoism is the wave
-Taoism sees life as an ongoing process

-Le Guin also had an interest/background in anthropology
-we see this in her book; she pays lots of attention to culture and evolution of beliefs, etc.
-initially, there doesn't even seem to be anything supernatural/fantastical about the book; just lots of realistic detail


Earthsea
-a figurative, metaphorical landscape
-an "archipelago" = collection of islands
-Kargad (Tenar's home country) is made up of four islands
-portrays the idea of many parts making up a whole (unity, as in Taoism)
-note also, the islands are separate on the surface, but unified under water
-cf. John Donne: "No man is an island."
-Earthsea = Earth + Sea
-land vs. water; equivalent to yin and yang - opposites making a whole
-what the sea washes away from one land, it deposits onto another - the idea of dynamic balance
-What kind of world is it?
-pre-industrial
-has developed written word
-have boats with sails (ie. technology)
-system includes peasants, merchants, priests/priestesses, kings, etc
-Le Guin deliberately creates a world with no consumerism
-Kargad empire
-set in desert
-rigid and oppressive rather than balanced and dynamic
-Le Guin questions the idea of one large empire; relationship between ruler and
the ruled is harmful to both
-Scandinavian ethnicity
-Tenar's mother is "fair"
-cf. Ged's people who are dark; they're also a bit like vikings in regards to their
mastery of sea voyage
-inversion of expectations (ie. hero is dark skinned) to challenge assumptions of ethnicity
-Earthsea is intentionally cross-cultural; Le Guin wants us to ditch our
prejudices

-some similarities to fairy tales:
-at the beginning, like the bear from "East of the Sun, West of the Moon," there is the element of someone coming up to the door and saying "Give me your daughter!" - only this time, in stead of a bear, it's a whole society
-at the end, Tenar has the choice to live like a princess (ie. perfect fairy tale ending) but she rejects it for simple, humble life instead

-story can be seen as a "coming-of-age" tale
-coming of age has two parts: discovering one's individuality and finding one's social niche
-difficult for Tenar to find a social niche in the Kargad Empire
-"bildungsroman" - German for "novel of education" (ie. coming of age novel) or simply "education"
-the book also has the idea that a child has a role in her own upbringing and sometimes must rebel
-necessary for individualism is the ability to choose; Tenar can't know who she is until she has the freedom to be who she wants to be

-two different approaches to the tragedy of losing a child
-father: tries not to feel the happiness associated with the child; distances himself
-mother: attempts to enjoy the happiness as much as possible
-father's relationships suffer (with child, with wife); Tenar only remembers her mother after

Religion
-Le Guin plays around with traditions of Ancient Greece
-gods of the earth (Nameless Ones) are male
-cf. almost all cultures on earth have a female earth goddess
-"Godking" - religion underlies political system
-the initiation ceremony whereby Tenar becomes Arha, "the eaten one"...
-effectually a reverse baptism: child loses her name
-also, while baptism marks life, the initiation marks death
-first, there is a mock execution: Tenar's head on chopping block, executioner, etc.
-then there is a mock embalming: Tenar is anointed with oils and salts
-then she is put into a dark room: mock buried
-then she lives out her life in the Tombs.
-only one priestess serves the Nameless Ones
-indicates something wrong; religion should unite, not isolate
-the role of priestess employs false pride; the role becomes her identity and she has trouble leaving it
-The Old Ones
-real, but misinterpreted
-associated with darkness, earth
-what is truly evil is the worship of the powers of darkness exclusively; such worship is a human creation which concentrates evil into one place such as the Tombs
-in the first Earthsea novel, it is said that, for a word to have any power, there must be silence, before and after
-thus, darkness is the silence of light, that comes before and after (ie. there is a night before and after every day) - darkness gives context to the light, to make it meaningful; death is the context of life, pain is the context of happiness, etc.
-reflects Taoist ideas of balance

-Tenar's upbringing at the Tombs is psychologically designed to break and remake the individual -trained to kill prisoners
-taught to dehumanize them
-actual psychological syndrome
-Tenar is encouraged to see the condemned as non-human
-in a sense, Tenar is also something not human; she is merely "the eaten one" (dinner, if you will.)

Ged
-changes Tenar's life
-up until they meet, Tenar is fated to live/die in the tombs as the priestess, never to experience anything else
-she is also tremendously passive, as trained to be
-one reviewer argues that Ged takes on a midwife role in helping Tenar be reborn
-three things about him which make him significant
1) He is a man
-Tenar's world lacks males (has women, girls and eunuchs)
-thus he is unusual by sex alone
2) He is a "hero"(in the literary sense)
-protagonist of the first Earthsea novel
-he is on a quest
-compare to the stories of the Minotaur, which the labyrinth is associated with: Tenar is a bit like the monster in the labyrinth. She could also be a type of Ariadne figure (in Greek myth, Ariadne fell in love with Theseus and helped him navigate the labyrinth)
3) He is a Mage, knows magic.
-a dragonlord; his magic is the magic of words
-words/names - identifiers
-ancient idea of names holding the essence of a thing
-idea is reflected in the English word "spell" - as a verb, it has to do with words; as a noun it has to do with magic
-names spring from an understanding of what something actually IS
-to know, acknowledge and accept a name is to respect that thing
-two reasons why Ged heals the goats near the end of the novel
a) hospitality
-cf. Kossil who maneuvers Tenar to withhold food and water from the prisoners
b) empathy with the goats
-Ged's magic is tied in with understanding and empathy
-initially, Tenar thinks magic has to do with exacting control
-in terms of who rescues who? the point is moot!
-Tenar's compassion saved Ged from starvation; Ged helps her escape the tombs
-Taoism emphasizes community (unity); the smallest community possible is two people
-reversal of roles: girl who is trained to be passive must become active and make the choice to save Ged; boy on an active quest must become passive and allow himself to be led in the dark

The Ring of Erreth-Akbe
-Tenar and Ged each hold one piece (cf. Taoism, parts of a whole)
-ring bears nine runes of power, the Bond-Rune has been lost
-"bonds" - wordplay: bonds of a community vs. bonds of oppression
-intended to bind all of Earthsea in peace
-cf. Kargad Empire which is bound by tyranny

SOURCE
Cooper, Susan. Class Lecture on The Tombs of Atuan. ENG2110: Children's Literature. University of Ottawa, Ontario, CA. 27 Mar 2010.