The Word for World is Forest (4)

While reading “The Word for World is Forest,” one of the first things I noticed that was that there were clearly two different societies within the book. In the Yumen society there is a clear distinction of the inequality between the men and the women within the society. The men were seen as the dominant figures, as they ruled and made all the decisions for their kind, whereas the women were seen as mere tools for reproduction and sexual desires. However, if when we read about the Ashshean society we notice that there appears to be equality among both men and women. The men were seen making decisions, while the women took leadership and ruled over their villages. This causes me to wonder if the point behind this display of gender roles was Ursula Le Guin’s way of pointing out the inequality among society and the ideal society that we should be aiming for.

Ecological Warnings in The Word for World is Forest

The novel, The Word for World is Forest is a satire on Earth as a whole and the dire ecological impacts that industrialization can have on Earth. Throughout the novel, this horrific dystopian vision of Earth is noted as “the norm.” Earth is regarded as a post industrial desert, and try to takeover the Ashtheans’ world. Le Guin draws parallels between the two worlds, and the yemens and the Ashtheans with the quote, “Blood, the same startling red as human blood” (Le Guin 30). She draws the attention of the reader to the horrible condition of the Earth, and that they are also trying to do the same things to the Ashthean world. Le Guin writes this novel as a warning to people, and how they need to have a careful treatment of our world, or risk the potential consequences that will come.  

The Word for World is Forest(Blog #4)

While reading The Word for World is Forest, I noticed that the two societies within the novel contrasted drastically. The Yumen and Athshean societies were basically opposite from one another. In addition, what I want to note on is how the term science fiction correlates with the contrasting societies as well as identifying the differences between them. Science fiction tends to have this futuristic setting with some aspect of reality that relates with humans in an uncomfortable way. When reading Sci-fi novels such as this one, readers begin to question what exactly is human and what is foreign. The "creechies" as Davidson calls them seem to be far from human, considering that they are only one meter tall and have green fur. Yet in retrospect, they are actually quite close to human beings themselves. This brings about the differences between the two societies. Athsheans primarily live their lives as passive – they know nothing of warfare and revolt. While Yumens or humans, come from a world of war, fighting, and resistance. Gender roles are also different in the novel. In the Yumen society, men ruled and made decisions, and used women primarily for sexual desires and reproduction. In the Athshean society, gender roles were more equal – the men made decisions and the women carried out the decisions in villages. Maybe what Le Guin was trying to poke at was the gender issues during her time.

The Word for World is Forest

It is very obvious when looking at the cover of this story, not even having to open the book, that Ursula K. Le Guin intended to make a very bold statement about humanity and the effect we have on the rest of the universe.

At first I was very lost when reading this book because Le Guin creates such a vivid new world and the process of understanding all the new, hybrid terms was daunting. Once I got the gist of her new idea of the universe, it became more apparent that Le Guin had no intention of just creating a new fantastic world for us to enjoy, but instead wanted to illuminate that humans have an incredible power to destroy beautiful living things without any regard.

I thought her most powerful message resided in the characters and how they were constructed. Davidson is very obviously representative of the worst, most evil traits of humanity and, as we see in the story, evil causes the most damage. Selver is a halfway point between good and evil. He also represents innocence spoiled by human interference and disregard. Lyubov represents and innocence and caring that humans can posses but is often thrown aside just as he is in the story.

"Lyubov will be here," Selver said. "And Davidson will be here. Both of them. Maybe after I die people will be as they were before I was born, and before you came. But I do not think they will."

This quote is one of the best in the book. It represents the effects that humans and a lack of respect can have and will forever have.

Super-Frog Saves Tokyo

Haruki Murakami is well known for his use of magical realism within his stories. One such story was “Super-Frog Saves Tokyo,” a story about a man who meets a giant, talking humanoid frog that seeks his help in preventing a catastrophic earthquake by defeating Worm, the source of the earthquake. One of the standout characteristics of magical realism is that stories are usually told or narrated from a dream-like state. This is very much the case in “Super-Frog Saves Tokyo,” in which at one point Katagiri is to meet with Frog before their fight with Worm, and at another Katagiri wakes up in a hospital bed, having been shot. Frog visits Katagiri in the hospital, saying Katagiri was of much help and that their fight with Worm was over and they succeeded. Frog then proceeds to decay and melt as bugs start coming out of his body, giving the impression that Frog dies. The story jumps to Katagiri being woken up by the nurse, who says that Katagiri was having a nightmare. At this point, readers are unsure of whether or not Frog was actually there, or if Frog was a figment of Katagiri’s psyche or imagination. Was Frog real, or was Frog a manifestation or symbol of some sort that is supposed to mean something to Katagiri? With this in mind, is Frog’s supposed “death” symbolic in any way for either Katagiri or the story in general?

The Word for World is Forest:

There are many points of satirization in this novel, but the point I want to focus on is the satirizing of inhumanity and murder. As part of their culture and beliefs, the Athsheans take no part in violence and killing - that is, until the increasing threats against their home leave them no other choice than to participate in violent retaliation. Selver is considered a god, in the sense that he introduced them to a new way of life. "And the translator is the god. Selver had brought a new word into the language of his people. He had done a new deed. The word, the deed, the murder. Only a god could lead so great a newcomer as Death across the bridge between the worlds" (page 124). After the big massacre of the yumens, Selver keeps saying "The killing is done, no more killing." What he doesn't understand is that once you cross that threshold, once you have committed murder, there is no going back. There is no cleansing of your soul and no return to the nonviolent, peaceful culture. Lepennon tells Selver this at the end of the novel, "Maybe after I die people will be as they were before I was born, and before you came. But I do not think they will" (page 189). The darkening of one's heart as a result of the greatest wrong that could be committed, murder, cannot be undone, and once a society has been introduced to killing, there is no chance that it will go back to a culture of nonviolence. Selver even explains, "When he has done this, it is done. You cannot take things that exist in the world and try to drive them back into the dream, to hold them inside the dream, with walls and pretenses" (page. 189). The Athsheans are forever altered, they will never be able to return to their peaceful, untainted culture as was before the yumens came, even after the last of the yumens have left; this is because it was they that committed the murder, that killed, regardless of the yumens.

The World for World is Forest as Science Fiction

In The Word for World is Forest, the concept of the uncanny valley is relevant in the interaction between the Yumen and the Athsheans. “And finally there was the inevitable Freak Reaction, the flinching away from what is human but does not quite look so”(114).  An aspect of science fiction is the uncanny valley applied to a more broad range.  In science fiction there is always as aspect of a reality, being, or concept that is in relation to our human ideology that is taken and placed into a questioning position that creates this feeling of discomfort.  When something appears so separate from human life; however, in actuality it may be extremely similar that causes the uncanny valley in science fiction.  It is the transplanting of an idea that seems so out of reach; yet, it is actually a possibility which makes us question what being human is.  In this novel the idea that the Athsheans can be so similar to the Yumens or humans causes the hostility and discomfort because the Athsheans seem so foreign. In actuality, the Athsheans are closer to being human than many of the Yumens and may have surpassed them in humanity by subsisting with a pacifist nature. The Athsheans are more human than the humans causing them to be remote and unidentifiable to the Yumens placing them in the uncanny valley.