by Lena Yang
Ursula K. Le Guin’s novel The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia leaves an impressive mark in science fiction literature not only for its imaginative world-building and dynamic characters, but also for its ability to navigate the borders between dystopia and utopia, anarchism and capitalism, and, as this paper explores, modernism and post-modernism. Rather than endorsing any single framework, Le Guin uses the events of the novel to discuss the strengths and limitations of each, all the while resisting reductive conclusions that confine her—or her work—to one ideological camp. As Shevek’s journey on Urras unfolds, the novel’s alternating structure—shifting between his present on Urras and his past on Anarres—highlights the shortcomings of each society when placed in contrast to each other. The concept of freedom—along with its promises, contradictions, and limitations—is a central source of tension on both planets. This is especially evident in the pivotal conversation between Shevek and Vea, where the meaning of “freedom” is interrogated and challenged, exposing both Urrasti and Anarresti forms of oppression. These intertwined dynamics of power and freedom can be productively examined through the lenses of modern and postmodern thought—drawing on Nietzsche’s critique, Althusser’s theory of repressive and ideological state apparatuses, and the influence of Taoist philosophy on Le Guin’s vision—illustrating how these seemingly opposing frameworks can coexist, expand our ways of seeing, and reveal that truth, power, and freedom are often best understood through their plurality.
Even among scholars, the precise definition of modernism and postmodernism can be difficult to pinpoint (Madison 166), and this ambiguity extends to how scholars believe The Dispossessed—and Le Guin—should be read. For Tony Burns, Le Guin is a modern realist, citing Le Guin’s own convictions about the existence of “true laws” as proof of her ideological positioning. Others, like Lewis Call, see her work as a vital contribution to postmodern anarchism, placing her firmly within the postmodern camp. Upon closer reading, however, it is evident that Le Guin draws meaningfully from both schools of thought rather than aligning exclusively with either. By contrasting Shevek’s modern idealism with Vea’s Nietzschean postmodern skepticism, Le Guin constructs a narrative space where these opposing worldviews can confront one another in productive dialogue. By resisting rigid ideological classifications, Le Guin forges a kind of “postmodern modernism” or a negative space between the two binaries that reflects her Taoist belief of balance through paradox. This paper argues, therefore, that The Dispossessed is not a defense of modernism or postmodernism, but rather a synthesis of both: embracing contradiction, ambiguity, and unresolved tension as necessary conditions for learning to emerge.
Modernism is commonly associated with a belief in an objective, immutable Truth that can be uncovered through human progress, reason, or innovation. The pursuit may be difficult, but modernists believe that with sincere effort, ignorance and subjectivity can be transcended (Paniagua). Several key distinctions emerge with these core concepts: while modernism is grounded in the pursuit towards a single desirable end goal—postmodernism rejects the notion of absolute truths, instead emphasizing subjective interpretation and skepticism toward grand narratives (Butler). As a result, deconstruction and doubt become central tools in postmodernism to uncover the assumptions embedded in the individual and the society. For postmodern thinkers like Foucault, power is decentralized and woven into everything, from language to cultural teachings. In contrast, modern perspectives tend to locate power within more fixed and rigid categories, such as within the state, military, or formal institutions (Chomsky and Foucault 00:02:13). As we will see, these frameworks can be applied to Anarres and Urras; where Anarres is governed by internalized social conscience, Urras is governed by institutional coercion (Tunick 137).
With this preliminary understanding of modernism and postmodernism, it becomes evident that many aspects of The Dispossessed and Le Guin’s own philosophy can be situated within either framework. A primary example of this interchangeability is seen in Bedap and Tirin’s pointed exchange about the nature of truth. When Bedap asks, “Where, then, is Truth?”, Tirin responses with, “In the hill one happens to be sitting on” (Le Guin 39). According to Burns, there can only be two possible answers to Bedap’s question: “nowhere” or “somewhere.” Tirin’s answer leans toward the former, expressing the relativism central to Nietzschean and postmodern thought. Alternatively, Burns maintains that Le Guin aligns with the latter, reflecting a modern, realist orientation. He substantiates this claim by citing one of Le Guin’s essays, Dreams Must Explain Themselves, in which she writes: “‘the world is orderly, not chaotic…its order is not one imposed by man or by a personal or humane deity. The true laws—ethical and aesthetic, as surely as scientific—are not imposed from above by any authority, but exist in things and are to be found—discovered’” (Burns 101). This suggests a distinctly modern conviction regarding the existence and discoverability of universal laws that stands in contrast to Nietzsche’s relativism and constructivism (Burns 167). Alternatively, Call challenges modernist interpretations that reduce Le Guin’s anarchism to a “conventional challenge to state power and capitalism” (91), arguing instead, that The Dispossessed offers a “much richer social critique” (89). Beyond its surface themes of utopia and anarchism, the novel grapples with a longstanding tension in political theory since Rousseau: how to balance the needs of the individual with the broader social needs of the community. For Call, this tension can only be addressed and understood through a postmodern lens (Call 90-91), explaining his belief that the novel should be read as a distinctly postmodern piece of literature. Faced with such diverging readings, one begins to wonder whether this ambiguity is deliberate on Le Guin’s part. Just as how the people on Anarres and Urras are too complex to be constrained by the ideals they attempt to articulate and fail to live up to (Tunick 137), Le Guin also resists confinement, choosing instead to champion a different kind of message.
Her resistance to producing a fixed and easy answer is reflective of her Taoist influences, in which change and paradox are essential principles. These manifest in the dynamic between Urras and Anarres, along with their respective associations to modernism and postmodernism. As scholar Hilary Jones notes, Le Guin’s resistance towards “endorsing a single tao” (Jones 155)—tao meaning a way, path, method, or teaching—embodies a central tenet of Lao-tzu’s Tao Tzu Ching: to embrace flux and paradox, focusing more on the journey than the end goal. This principle is best articulated by Shevek himself: “there was no end. There was process: process was all. You could go in a promising direction or you could go wrong, but you did not set out with the expectation of ever stopping anywhere” (Le Guin 311). To assume that one path must become the only path is to foreclose the possibility of ongoing change and thoughtful critique of the flaws, strengths, and ambiguities inherent to either planet or philosophical framework (Jones 15). By engaging with the paradoxes that separate ideals from their subsequent realities on Urras and Anarres, Le Guin enables readers to adopt a systemic perspective and “discern ways to integrate and balance paradox’s contradictory terms” (Jones 10). Rather than offering direct answers, Le Guin’s Taoist-influenced methodology encourages readers to form their own conclusions—ones that may resist neat resolution or singular definition, much like the unconventional path she charts herself.
Le Guin’s synthesis of and engagement with both modern and postmodern frameworks is best illustrated in the dialogue between Shevek and Vea. In their exchange at Vea’s home, contrasting models of modern and postmodern power are explored through their lived appearance on Urras and Anarres (Le Guin 206-207). Yet any straightforward mapping of modernism onto Urras and postmodernism onto Anarres is complicated by Shevek’s and Vea’s definitions of freedom. While Vea is a citizen of Urras, a society governed by overt and institutionalized modern power structures, she simultaneously expresses a deeply postmodern skepticism toward the very idea of true freedom existing. Conversely, Shevek maintains a modernist belief in achieving ideal freedom under the right conditions—even as he comes from a society where power and internalized control operates with postmodern subtlety. These layered contradictions and complexities will be examined in the following sections, with their interplay illustrating how modern and postmodern philosophies take shape on both planets and are often inextricably intertwined rather than cleanly divided.
Power on Urras functions mainly visibly via state-controlled institutions such as the police and the government, consistent with modernist conceptions and accurate to Althusser’s description of Repressive State Apparatuses. In Althusser’s essay “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses”, he distinguishes Ideological from Repressive State Apparatuses due to the way RSA’s primarily function through violence while ISA’s function primarily through ideology (Althusser 16). This characteristic of RSAs is evident in the way the Ioti government exert their influence over the citizens of A-Io through law and order and movement control. They restrict Shevek’s access to the slums and violently disperse the rally in Capitol Square through force (Le Guin 281). The government’s overt control and influence is reinforced by Chifoilisk’s snide comment that Shevek should listen to the doctor because “[he’s] from the Government, isn’t he?” (Le Guin 68), implying that the state has the authority to influence whom they should or should not listen to. Chifoilisk and Pae are also exceedingly conscious of their roles as secret agents for their respective governments (Le Guin 129), directly supporting the preservation of this top-down system rather than only supporting it unconsciously. However, as Althusser noted, there is “no such thing as a purely repressive apparatus” or a “purely ideological apparatus” (italics added; Althusser 16), and it is evident that components of both exist on Urras. The planet’s stark gender disparities depict how ideological mechanisms work alongside repressive ones to maintain social control. For example, the exclusion of women from academia, the workforce, and political life is so deeply ingrained that when Shevek questions the absence of women in the sciences, Oiie and Pae respond with incredulity—unable to conceive of female scientists existing at all (Le Guin 71). Shevek articulates this systemic inferiority to Vea:
It seems that everything in your society is done by men. The industry, arts, management, government, decisions. And all your life you bear your father’s name and the husband’s name. The men go to school and you don’t go to school; they are all the teachers, and judges, and police, and government, aren’t they? (Le Guin 202).
Even though Vea acknowledges the imbalance, she also trivializes it, joking that “it is perfectly safe to tell them that [women run the men] because they never believe it. They say, ‘Haw haw haw, funny little women!’ and pat your head and stalk off… perfectly self-content’” (Le Guin 202). Her response shows how deeply Urras’ ideological apparatuses—likely through familial, educational, legal, and cultural means—have shaped beliefs about gender roles. These institutions normalize the exclusion of women from positions of power to the point that Vea internalizes and even defends the system. She claims that, if given the chance, Anarresti women would “love” life on Urras, associating feminine fulfillment not with freedom or autonomy, but with material indulgence: “an oil bath and a depilation…pretty sandals, and a belly jewel and perfume” (Le Guin 203). Part of the effectiveness of Urras’ patriarchal system is due to its ability to naturalize domination; when conditioning is internalized, overt repression becomes largely unnecessary.
When contrasting these different systems of power, however, Vea argues that being able to see and name the system controlling you is preferable to not being conscious of it at all—that repressive forms of control are preferred to ideological ones. She makes the postmodern argument that power resides not only in the political and economic structures of the external world, but also internally, in the psychological structure of the individual—something that Shevek and the other Odonians gradually come to recognize as the insidious manner in which power operates on Anarres (Call 99). Constraint on freedom may be imposed on Urrasti citizens through “priests and judges and divorce laws”, but Vea insists that this tangible form of oppression is better than the internalized control practiced on Anarres. At least on Urras, Queen Teaea—the symbol of authority—remains largely external, making it easier to “rebel against her” (Le Guin 207). Whereas the Odonians “just stuck [her] inside, into [their] consciences” but are still “just as much slaves as ever! [They] aren’t really free” (Le Guin 206). Here, Vea is essentially conveying the Foucauldian critique of power, suggesting that laws and punishment are somehow more honest and less intrusive when materialized physically. Of course, Shevek would largely disagree; in his perspective, the act of rebellion on Urras is still “a luxury, a self-indulgence” (Le Guin 254) compared to the defiance he is able to express on Anarres, where resistance is possible without the same fear of violent retaliation. This point is brutally made by the state’s response to the peaceful protest in A-Io near the end of the novel—a turning point that strips away the small appreciations Shevek had developed for Urras and reconfirms the Anarresti view of Urrasti society as horrific and degenerate. However, one may argue that on Anarres, where public opinion substitutes for law, power continues to operate with equal effectiveness but in a more covert manner, relying on ideological state apparatuses rather than repressive ones. It is in this sense that Tunick contends that both societies limit the freedom of the individual, just through different means (Tunick 137). Indeed, as the novel progresses and the timeline on Anarres moves closer to the novel’s present, Shevek and others increasingly recognize the hidden power structures that govern them and their own lack of freedom within them. Tirin, for instance, is ostracized and labeled as “crazy” for transgressing unspoken social norms—a label that becomes self-fulfilling. His experience demonstrates how the informal social pressures on Anarres can constrain and punish individuals as effectively as formal legal systems. All these expressions of power limit individual freedom—an ideal that Le Guin upholds as the highest aim that governments and societies ought to pursue (Benfield 134). This raises a crucial question: what does “freedom” truly entail, and how does its meaning shift when viewed through a modern versus postmodern lens?
For Shevek, the definition of freedom varies throughout The Dispossessed and is multifaceted. In his conversation with Vea, he suggests that Anarresti society is right to internalize figures like Queen Teaea and place moral limits on their freedom since that is “where she belongs” (Le Guin 206). At other points, however, Shevek’s conception of freedom is rooted in self-determination and the capacity for independent thought. He argues that the students at Ieu Eun are ultimately less free than those on Anarres because of their limited ability to think for themselves despite being in “complete freedom from want, distractions, and cares” (Le Guin 120). On Anarres, one may not be “free from anything”—including societal obligations and responsibilities—but one is, at least in principle, “free to do anything” (Le Guin 121). Yet this claim carries a degree of irony, as the events on Anarres reveal how even in an anarchist and revolutionary society, Odonians are never truly free to do “anything.” Shevek’s emphasis on moral boundaries and rational autonomy align with modernist ideals, holding such objectives as desirable and possible. In contrast, postmodernism resists such teleological thinking, with Nietzsche in particular challenging morals to be what governs boundaries when the “value of these values must itself be called into question” (Nietzsche 5). Postmodernism draws attention to the contradictions in the actual practice of such freedom—particularly on Anarres, where people are simultaneously freer than their Urrasti counterparts and yet deeply constrained. One of these subtle constraints lies in the moral conscience of the Odonians, something that Vea identifies as fundamentally at odds with genuine freedom. Vea declares that: “I don’t care about other people and nobody else does, either. They pretend to. I don’t want to pretend. I want to be free!” (Le Guin 207), framing the obligation to follow certain moral codes as a form of restriction. And if the inhabitants of the so-called freest planet in the galaxy are still confined to a degree, a postmodernist is prompted to ask whether true freedom exists at all—and if it does, whether it can ever be truly attained.
Both Shevek and Vea raise valid points about the existence and function of freedom and power on either planet, but to understand Le Guin’s key takeaway, one must go back to her Taoist roots. As Jones observes, the paradoxes and contradictions woven throughout The Dispossessed “enable [Le Guin] to illustrate how producing harmony and equilibrium may require disharmony and agitation and how achieving stability may depend upon embracing constant change” (Jones 155). These principles echo the Taoist embrace of ongoing flux and seeking truth in the contradictions of everyday situations. In foregoing a simplistic and straightforward stance, The Dispossessed privileges fluidity and complexity over fixed ideological positions in its examination of freedom and power.
This emphasis on fluidity makes it clear why The Dispossessed and Le Guin herself cannot be comfortably situated within either modern or postmodern. Instead, the diversity of characters and perspectives within the novel reflect her desire to dwell in the uninhabited space between such binaries. Through Vea and Bedap’s critique of the contradictions and limitations of Odonian life, they reveal that Anarres is far from the flawless utopia it first appears as. Their perspectives complicate any reading of Le Guin as a modern realist by announcing her own skepticism toward the possibility of a fully realized, idyllic society. And while Shevek may be aligned more closely with modernist ideals, it is a mistake to conflate his perspective entirely with Le Guin’s own. Although Shevek is often interpreted as the fictional embodiment of her values, such a reading oversimplifies the complexity of her role as an author crafting not only Shevek, but the full range of characters and ideological frameworks within The Dispossessed. A clear divergence between Shevek and Le Guin’s beliefs can be seen near the end of the novel, when Shevek adopts a more pessimistic and embittered outlook toward Urras following the A-Io protest. To equate Le Guin wholly with Shevek would mean she similarly rejects Urras in its entirety—but this is not the case. Le Guin offers a compelling counterpoint to Shevek through Keng, who advocates for a radically different outlook, asserting that “to me, and to all my fellow Terrans who have seen the planet, Urras is the kindliest, most various, most beautiful of all the inhabited world. It is the world that comes as close as any could to Paradise” (Le Guin 323). Keng represents a postmodern relativist position, emphasizing how context shapes perception in contrast to Shevek’s more absolutist stance. She ends by saying that “[Urras] is alive, tremendously alive—alive, despite all its evils, with hope” (Le Guin 323). Anarres, too, exists in a state of ambiguity and hope: too flawed to be a true utopia, yet grounded in principles strong enough to prevent it from being called a dystopia (Benfield 134). Though Shevek ultimately decides to return to Anarres—a society still resistant to individual freedom, as seen in the persecution of Takver and Sadik (Le Guin 339, 345)—he does not return in defeat. Alongside the Syndicate of Initiative, he chooses to maintain hope and keep pushing forward, committed to “shake up things, to stir up, to break some habits, to make people ask questions” (Le Guin 359). That, ultimately, is Le Guin’s intention as well: not to conform to the norm, but to provoke reflection and challenge complacency.
Several scholars help articulate the transitional, in-between state that Le Guin embraces. Despite Burns’ initial categorizing of Le Guin as a modernist, ultimately, he describes her as a proponent of the principle of change itself rather than as an advocate for any set ideology—a view that closely aligns with the foundations of a Taoist life (Jones 16). He goes on to argue that even the subtitle of The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia implies there is no straightforward paradise, only an ongoing attempt to reach greater human freedom and fulfillment. For the Odonians, as for Le Guin, there is no fixed destination, “there was process: process was all” (Le Guin 311). In this sense, it becomes less productive to ask whether The Dispossessed or Le Guin are modern or postmodern when both are full of contradiction, indeterminacy, and in a process of change. Tunick likewise notes that when measured against one-sided ideals, both Urras and Anarres reveal themselves as hypocrites. The only viable stance is one of dialectical mediation—precisely the role Le Guin adopts, existing in the uninhabited space between Urras and Anarres, modern and postmodern. Just as Takver’s sculptures of absence enable Shevek to contemplate the meaning in both presence and absence, these material structures articulate the kind of “stability-in-flux” (Jones 11) that best describes Le Guin’s vision. Bedap claims that “change is freedom, change is life—is there anything more basic to Odonian thought than that?” (Le Guin 156). Yet this is a belief the Odonians have evidently lost by the time of the events in The Dispossessed. Shevek’s journey to Urras is thus meant to “restore the possibility—on both worlds—of genuine change” (Ferns 259). And change rarely comes without friction and contention—a reality Le Guin fully understands. Any synthesis between Urras and Anarres or modern and postmodern ideals does not preclude the possibility of tension, contradiction, and conflict (Burns 58). As Burns explains:
In [Le Guin’s] view, if one wishes to grasp this truth then it is necessary that one be able to embrace the ideas associated with both sides in such a dispute, despite the fact that they contradict one another. If one does this then one has succeeded in getting at “the (objective) Truth” of the matter. For one’s views do then succeed in accurately “reflecting” the way things truly are in the world. The world itself just is a paradoxical and contradictory place (Burns 167)
Accepting such a truth may feel discomforting and strange, but, as Le Guin reminds us throughout The Dispossessed, any genuine pursuit of freedom is rarely safe or comfortable.
The Dispossessed does not offer a clear and linear ideological path, nor does it claim to. Le Guin’s use of the juxtaposing worldviews as they exist on Urras and Anarres allows for the exploration and interrogation of modernist and postmodernist philosophies as lived realities. The voices and experiences of Shevek and Vea help expose the tensions, overlaps, and contradictions within both planets, particularly in how they utilize power and freedom in modern and postmodern ways alike. Le Guin’s use of multiple perspectives throughout the novel invites open-ended engagement with these concepts—ones that appear stable but are in fact constantly shifting. Resisting the temptation to preach simple solutions to deeply rooted social and moral problems (Burns 204), Le Guin instead models the Taoist commitment to maintaining balance, paradox, and continued progress. Through the ambiguous nature that surrounds many of the conclusions in The Dispossessed, she urges readers to likewise reject tidy answers and embrace complexity, understanding that human lives and the societies they create are too intricate to be confined within singular ideologies or surface value stereotypes. Understanding the human condition, for Le Guin, is not found in certainty but in the sustained, often uncomfortable work of inquiry.
Scholars such as Tony Burns and Lewis Call may attempt to situate Le Guin and her work firmly within either modernist or postmodernist frameworks, but such reductionist conclusions fall short. The text engages with both perspectives, revealing their tensions and contradictions through the mirrored imperfections of Urras and Anarres and the voices of Shevek and Vea as they confront freedom, resistance, and control. The novel’s exploration of power and freedom is further enriched by applying Nietzschean postmodern critique, Althusser’s theory of ideological and repressive apparatuses, and the Taoist principles that inform Le Guin’s broader vision. Le Guin serves as a mediating force, bridging modern and postmodern values along with the ideological differences between Urras and Anarres. In doing so, she exposes the limits of treating these philosophical systems as merely discrete or oppositional, and frames synthesis, ambiguity, and contradiction not as failures, but necessary grounds for meaningful thought. Her Taoist impulse to balance opposites keeps the novel open to the idea that truth is not singular but shifting. In the end, The Dispossessed suggests that people and the systems they create are too complex to be confined within rigid categories—and that the most honest conclusions may be those that resist neat resolution altogether.
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