30 pages • 1 hour read
Ursula K. Le GuinThe Dispossessed
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1974A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Summary
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Character Analysis
Themes
Symbols & Motifs
Important Quotes
Essay Topics
Tools
BetaChapters 10-13Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 10 Summary
This chapter begins in a style distinct from the other chapters, recounting Shevek’s dialogue with a truck driver, but without using Shevek’s proper name. This dialogue reveals that, posted in the Southwest, Shevek’s job as worklister meant distrusting rations—and watching those who were inadequately fed die. He arrives in Chakar and greets Takver and Sadik; Sadik, however, does not recognize him. The family members reacquaint themselves with one another. Shevek asks Takver about the play that drove Tirin to an asylum, and she tells him it was funny—that the moral uproar made no sense. Shevek is increasingly concerned that there is no real freedom on Anarres, because Anarresti always comply with the PDC’s work postings; because Anarresti “don’t cooperate—[they] obey” (331). Shevek wishes to “unbuild walls,” and to create a new syndicate to print his own Principles of Simultaneity along with Tirin’s play (334).
Chapter 11 Summary
Shevek escapes from Nio to Rodarred, the seat of many foreign embassies, including the Terran embassy. Ambassador Keng grants him asylum. There, Shevek learns that Anarres has been trying to reach him. He reveals to Keng that he has developed his theory of simultaneity: it will not allow for teleportation, but it will allow for instantaneous communication. He wishes for Keng to distribute his research to all known worlds, so that no race or empire will be able to dominate the other. He also declares that he was wrong in thinking that Anarresti had anything to gain from Urras. We learn that Keng is from Earth—a future Earth that has been environmentally devastated due to the actions of mankind. She defends Urras, telling Shevek that citizens of Earth “forfeited [their] chance for Anarres centuries ago”—the Urrasti’s environmental stewardship allowed for a civilization with enough resources to tolerate new ideas (349). Shevek shares his wish to return home.
Chapter 12 Summary
On Anarres, Bedap and Shevek debate with the PDC, especially Rulag. Bedap and Shevek wish to invite revolutionary Urrasti to Anarres, but the trade treaty forbids them, so they propose to instead send an Odinian to Urras. He tells Rulag, “the duty of the individual is to accept no rule” (359). Meanwhile, Takver faces pressure at her laboratory due to the Syndicate of Initiative’s actions, and Pilun, their younger daughter, experiences bullying in her school dormitory. Nonetheless, Shevek is unwilling to leave the Syndicate, which is synonymous with his beliefs. Takver encourages Shevek to go to Urras, where he can discuss his ideas with students and colleagues—and prove to the PDC that their Syndicate is willing to follow its words with action. She also tells him they can create a new community on Anarres after his return, if it turns out to be necessary. He insists he won’t go—but as the reader knows, he will.
Chapter 13 Summary
Shevek approaches Anarres on a different aircraft, Davenant. He fascinates the Hanish and Terran crew. A Hanishman, Ketho, asks if he may accompany Shevek onto Anarres, and Shevek believes that the exchange treaty does not explicitly exclude non-Urrasti foreigners from travelling to the planet. He asks Ketho if he would be coming according to his own initiative, and when Ketho assents, he agrees to bring him along. Shevek prepares to land back on his home planet, “his hands […] empty, as they had always been” (367).
Chapters 10-13 Analysis
In these chapters, events in the novel’s present tense, on Urras, as well as in its past tense, on Anarres, reach a boiling point. Crisis breaks out on Urras when the collective rebels against the ruling class, or, as Efor calls them, “the owners.” By contrast, Shevek’s wife and daughter face bullying on Anarres when the small Syndicate of Initiative dares to think differently than the collective. This contrast stresses the need for both individual will and collective action to effect change in a society.
These chapters fully introduce Terran society, confirming that Aisenstein is Einstein, and that the imagined world in this novel exists in a future where the Earth has been devastated. As Keng recounts the history of Earth, it becomes clear that all of Cetian society is a utopia compared to Earth: whereas humankind’s destruction of the environment left no room for the evolution of new social systems, Cetian environmental stewardship enables both the rampant capitalism on Anarres, as well as the anarchic experiment on Urras. The implied message is that, while both systems are imperfect, attaining either would require more care than planet Earth is treated with, and Shevek’s utopia, in which both societies can learn from each other, is farther off still.
Nonetheless, Shevek’s return home, along with an alien companion, ends the novel with hopefulness: as long as individuals are willing to explore, change, and take risks, the society as a whole stands a greater chance of transformation. As Shevek speaks to Keng, a female Terran, and Ketho, a male Hanishman, it is implied that collaboration with individuals from different genders, cultures, and histories is necessary for forward progress. Shevek releases his theory to the world to take a collective step forward towards the end of power and dynamics of superiority/inferiority.
Related Titles
By Ursula K. Le Guin
