Le Guins Opposition to Traditional View about Children Literature - Essay Example

Le Guin’s Opposition to Traditional View about Children Literature: A Critical Analysis of “What might Provoked Le Guin to write a Wizard of Earthsea” In an age that taught its coming-of-age children to carefully hide and suppress the dark and dominating side of a man’s self to be gentle and civilized, Ursula K Le Guin’s novel, “Wizard of Earthsea” ushers in a new horizon in English literature with the idea that the youngsters of the society must explore these very dark aspects of human beings in order to achieve maturity. While writing the novel, Le Guin might have been provoked to address the society’s traditional negligence to children’s literature as something that need not deserve serious attention of the authority. In an article, “The Critics, the Monsters, and the Fantasists”, Le Guin says, “children’s books must be included in serious discussion of literature, and one reason we give is that many of the great works of imaginative fiction can be under- stood and appreciated by a child as well as by an adult and vice versa” (Guin 85). Being motivated by such concern, she has tried to endow the novel with a serious and philosophical dimension that will necessarily draw the attentions of serious readers other than the young ones. Opposing the society’s view of ignoring and suppressing the darks of human existence Le Guin puts forth the proposition that adolescent must begin with the exploration of one’s self, and this self –exploration eventually culminates in maturity and adulthood. She argues that the youngsters themselves should know what the forbidden is and why it is forbidden. Obviously Le Guin’s proposition may seem as threatening as poisoning one’s self, to know why poisons are dangerous, is. But Le Guin, as an author, is blessed with the capability to let her readers experience the forbidden and frightening part of a man’s self without endangering their psychology, keeping them free of intellectual corruption. Ursula Le Guin takes them to a world of fantasy where they are tempted to merge their selves into Ged’s self. Impulsively they participate in the protagonist’s adventure that is allegorically his exploration into his own self (Spivack 79-84). Indeed along with Ged’s struggle with his frightening, forbidden and overpowering shadow-self or anti-self, the author makes the readers perceive what ‘know thyself’ is. The question what provoked her to write the novel may engender hot debates. Apparently the simplest answer to this question is: she wants to construct the meanings of maturity and self-discovery for her coming-of-age readers. Yet the novel, “Wizard of Earthsea” is not intended for the children only. It is fairly readable for people of all ages. Some of the intended meanings and themes of the novel are meant for readers and critics with extra intellectual capabilities. In cases they are only for matured readers. Indeed Le Guin has put significant effort on making her novel readable for readers of all ages, since she believes that the “capacity of a fantasy literature to override age-boundaries is a most admirable power” (Guin 85). Here anyone may question why Le Guin chose the genre of fantasy to teach his readers where and how one’s self-discovery should begin. Indeed the answer necessarily lies in her view about what a fantasy should be. In the first place since she believes that a fantasy novel should have the capacity to “override age-boundaries”, she puts a significant effort to make her text both simplistic and imaginative for the young readers to release their creative and imaginative power. Meanwhile she endeavors to instill her philosophy of self-knowledge. Regarding the psychological influence of a fantasy literature on children Le Guin says, “The purposive, utilitarian approach to fantasy……and in general the “psychological” approach to fantasy, explaining each element of the story in terms of its archetype or unconscious source or educative use, is deeply regressive; it perceives literature as magic, it is a verbomancy” (Guin 86). Avoiding the traditional approach to a fantasy literature, she has attempted to manipulate the novel “Wizard of Earthsea” as a criticism of her contemporary writers’ attempt to a fantasy literature as a preacher of “closed moralities” that the utilitarian views and criticisms claim as an the primary element and purpose of children’s literature. Instead of proposing the base lines of morals, Le Guin has endeavored to present her novel as a source of unleashed imaginary and creative power that provokes the readers to reach the conclusion about right and wrong on their own (Mathews 67). In fact according to Le Guin, a fantasy like “Wizard of Earthsea” should not essentially be interpreted as a book for children, though the novel’s theme style and structure are ambiguously simplistic to win the youngsters’ mind. Opposing the traditional approach of the critics and reviewers to a fantasy book as well as children’s literature: There could be more to a child’s book than a brisk story and an explicit ethical lesson — that children need active imagination more than closed moralities, that they respond to beauty in language, that they read to learn how to ask questions more than to be told answers – all this sometimes seems to be a matter of utter indifference to those who judge children’s books. (Guin 86) Le Guin’s novel deals with the problem of growing up as much as the dilemma of self-discovery. She shows that the most difficult part of the process of self-discovery for the youngster Ged is his attempt to recognize his Shadow, the anti-self, a symbol which comprises of all of the aspects of a man’s being that the society teaches him or her to deny, hide and often to avoid carefully. Very often the society forcefully conceals these frightening aspects of a man’s self from its youngsters (Cadden 49-54). Here Ursula argues that being familiar with the dark and shadowy aspects of the self is safer than keeping them concealed beneath the heaps of rules, regulations and surveillances. Children are taught to hide from the forbidden and frightening parts of themselves; but according to Ursula, they should know about the true overpowering and dominating nature of these parts of the ‘self’ and eventually learn how to control them. Ursula has manipulated a number of characters, images and symbols to sketch Ged’s adventurous encounter with those frightening aspects of his shadowy anti-self and thereby, assist him to bring them under control (Spivack 34-9). Le Guin believes that a child should move into “adulthood without eventually confronting and integrating the whole complex of rejected aspects of the self, a sort of “anti-self” that she calls the Shadow” (Cadden 47). For her, the Shadow is not essentially an evil. Rather it is the source of unlimited and unrestrained power that a child possesses by birth. This power, if goes unleashed and uncontrolled, can threaten and endanger its possessor’s life. If kept hidden, it is of no use for him. Still the hidden power poses danger for its possessor since there is every possibility that it may be unleashed at any time. In contradiction, integration of the Shadow with the being and the sufficient knowledge of it can endow a child with maturity and adulthood. In Le Guin’s “Wizard of Earthsea” Ged’s success in integrating his anti-self with the self leads to adulthood that is now blessed with the release of an array of creative and imaginative powers. Indeed the novel offers “young readers a way of imaging their own desires and fears as the move from adolescence to adulthood” (Cadden 23). References Cadden, Mike. Ursula K. Le Guin Beyond Genre: Fiction for Children and Adults (1st ed.). New York, NY: Routledge. 2005 Le Guin, Ursula. A Wizard of Earthsea. New York, NY: Bentham. 2003 Le Guin, Ursula. “The Critics, the Monsters, and the Fantasists”, 20 October, 2011. Available at http://www.rc.umd.edu/reference/wcircle/leguin.pdf Mathews, Richard. Fantasy: The Liberation of Imagination (1st ed.). New York: Routledge 2002 Spivack, Charlotte. Ursula K. Le Guin (1st ed.). Boston, MA: Twayne Publishers, 1984 Read More