Embracing the other in Ursula le Guin's Science Fiction "the left hand of Darkness": a multicultural perspective

الملخص EN

The concept of multiculturalism establishes the notion of an integrated, assimilated and pluralist society that comprises a variety of races, ethnicities as well as cultures.

But the juxtaposition of contrasting values, behavioral patterns, diverse traditions and variable cultures gives rise to profound ideological gaps and material inequalities which lead to a crisis.

Hence, what Antonio Gramsci calls "hegemony" wherein multiculturalism serves as an index of the crises of a racially hierarchized society at the same time as it seeks to incorporate racial, ethnic and class minority groups into one all- encompassing culture through a promise of equal participation and representation.

The aim of this paper is to elucidate how Ursula Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness draws borders and barriers – geographical, political, psychological, economic, social and cultural between nations as well as peoples.

It unfolds the multifaceted multicultural crisis in all its alienating and separatist results which shield a multitude of divisions, dualisms and biases within a system of supposed integration and balance.

Le Guin exposes the separation – symbioses dilemma that is the heart of multiculturalism.

The novel challenges the reader very much in the same way that the protagonist's experience has challenged him to see things from the prospective of diversity rather than opposing dualities.

Le Guin gives no solutions but raises questions about the other – the being who is different from ourselves.

This being can be different in sex, in annual income, in the manner of speech, in dress code, in skin colour or in the number of legs and heads.

For the novelist, science fiction is explanation, not technology.

This paper substantiates the fact that Le Guin's culture is a rhetorical production of multiculturalism, a complex of explanations, justifications and interrogations based on a science which conditions the sensibilities of every individual within that culture.

Jungian psychoanalysis, Claude-Levis Strauss's cultural mythology and feminist deconstruction are viable tools of analysis in this research.