The Left Hand of Darkness

Called simply “Estraven,” Karhide’s onetime prime minister represents the tragic center of LeGuin’s story. Like all Gethenians, Estraven is genderless, though LeGuin uses the pronouns he/him/his to refer to Estraven throughout the novel. Rather than merely facilitating Genly’s character development and growing cultural relativism, LeGuin establishes Estraven as a secondary protagonist, portraying his own efforts to aid Genly’s mission and reconcile with his past. LeGuin’s choice to tell nearly half of the story from Estraven’s point of view means that the reader is able to understand Estraven’s reasoning for his choices, even when those choices are wholly intuitive.

Estraven is a master of shifgethor, the subtle art of interpreting the world while keeping one’s own motives hidden. This mastery makes Estraven very well suited to survive on Gethen at every level of society. LeGuin shows Estraven both at the pinnacle of Karhide society, as its prime minister, and at its nadir, as a starving refugee attempting and failing to cross a national border. Estraven understands the unique emotional and societal nuances of every situation he and Genly find themselves in, and uses his skills and knowledge to chart a careful course for survival. This facility with Gethen’s political world, however, makes communication with Genly difficult. Rather than presenting an objective lesson in how the Gethen should be more forthright, however, LeGuin slowly reveals how the concept of shifgrethor becomes the catalyst for Gethen stories and folklore. In order for the Gethen to accept the Ekumen, the Ekumen must first learn to conform to Estraven’s ways, not the other way around. Nevertheless, Estraven’s final sacrifice points to loss and compromise on both sides, and uncertain gains.

LeGuin often describes Argaven, Karhide’s king, as “mad” within the story’s framing. More often, however, Argaven is simply bored, needlessly cruel, or indifferent as a natural result of being a king with nothing to conquer. Madness and kingship are the same, in this telling, with kingship breeding not responsibility but apathy. Nevertheless, Argaven’s court scrambles to please him, and Argaven’s various prime ministers put themselves into mortal peril just to serve him for a short time. Like Karhide itself, the king is resistant to new ideas, and Genly fails to convince the arrogant, impulsive king to join the Ekumen. Yet the king poses no real danger to Genly, and, in his indifference, allows the envoy and his message to travel unimpeded through Karhide. Although the king’s indifference to the Ekumen is initially portrayed as an obstacle, it ultimately provides the better staging ground for new ideas, as opposed to the strictly regimented society in Orgoreyn. At the beginning of the novel, Argaven is pregnant, and the loss of his child later adds to the political tensions between Karhide and Orgoreyn.

No one person represents the nature of the Council of 33 oligarchs who rule Orgoreyn. The commensals, or councilmen, Obsle and Shusgis are among the people who seem most friendly to Genly and Estraven from the beginning, distinguishing themselves from Gaum, a member of the Orgota secret police who sets the political tide against Genly. However, their hospitality is soon revealed to be a cover for their attempt to tightly control news of Genly’s presence and mission on Gethen. Other commensals politely argue for or against one thing or another in relation to the Ekumen question. It appears to be the model of a deliberative body, even if it is not at all popularly democratic. In its way, however, the Orgoreyn council is more of a monolith than Argaven’s court, hiding its deliberations from the public eye and focused primarily on maintaining its own power. In its way, Orgoreyn is far more resistant to change than Karhide.