Biases of Western philosophy and culture

Western thought structured around binary oppositions

Mind/Body Good/Evil Man/Woman Culture/Nature Self/Other

Le Guin influenced by Eastern philosophies

(particularly Taoism and Buddhism) that emphasize balance and wholeness rather than binary oppositions

 Throughout novel, Genly Ai moves from Western

(binary) perspective to non-binary perspective And I saw then again, and for good, what I had always
been afraid to see, and had pretended not to see in him: that he was a woman as well as a man. (121) It is yin and yang. Light is the left hand of darknessLight, dark. Fear, courage. Cold, warmth. Female, male. It is yourself, Therem. Both and one. (130)

 Western philosophy and culture based around

individual subject (I, ego, etc.) Subject of Western thought associated with masculine
characteristics: rational (versus emotional); strong; independent; active

Significance of Genly Ais name

From I to eye to ai As I hides his emotions, cant see beyond binaries As eye begins to see Gethenians through their own
eyes As ai (cry of pain) becomes whole person with balance of rationality and emotion how can I guess why Ai must not weep? Yet his name is a
cry of pain. (113)

 Genly Ai comes to see his own society as strange or

alien Recognizes that whether one is born a male or a female
determines ones expectations, activities, outlook, ethics, manners almost everything and that there is inequality in the division of labor between men and women (116) When Genlys ship arrives, he says that they all looked strange to me, men and women, well as I knew themThey were like a troupe of great, strange animals, of two different species: great apes with intelligent eyes, all of them in rut, in kemmer. (145)