Course Hero. "The Dispossessed Study Guide." Course Hero. 20 Dec. 2019. Web. 29 Nov. 2020. <https://www.coursehero.com/lit/The-Dispossessed/>.
In text
(Course Hero)
APA
Bibliography
Course Hero. (2019, December 20). The Dispossessed Study Guide. In Course Hero. Retrieved November 29, 2020, from https://www.coursehero.com/lit/The-Dispossessed/
In text
(Course Hero, 2019)
Chicago
Bibliography
Course Hero. "The Dispossessed Study Guide." December 20, 2019. Accessed November 29, 2020. https://www.coursehero.com/lit/The-Dispossessed/.
Footnote
Course Hero, "The Dispossessed Study Guide," December 20, 2019, accessed November 29, 2020, https://www.coursehero.com/lit/The-Dispossessed/.
Overview
Author
Ursula K. Le Guin
Year Published
1974
Type
Novel
Genre
Science Fiction
Perspective and Narrator
The Dispossessed is told in the third person by an omniscient narrator.
Tense
The Dispossessed is told in the past tense.
About the Title
The title The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia expresses the sense of exile that the novel's protagonist, Shevek, feels as an inhabitant of the planet Anarres, cut off from his ancestors' history on the planet Urras. It may also be a reference to Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel The Possessed, which is likewise about anarchists. The novel is an "ambiguous utopia" because, despite its positive presentation of the ideals on which Anarres is founded, Le Guin presents the ways in which the people of Anarres struggle and sometimes fail to live up to those principles. It is thus not a total utopia, an imagined perfect society.
This study guide for Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed offers summary and analysis on themes, symbols, and other literary devices found in the text. Explore Course Hero's library of literature materials, including documents and Q&A pairs.
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