47 pages • 1 hour read
Ursula K. Le GuinThe Lathe Of Heaven
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1971A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Philosophical Context: Taoist Philosophy
Critics and reviewers note that virtually all of Le Guin’s writings express elements of Taoism. The author was influenced by Lao-Tze, the sixth-century BCE Chinese philosopher who authored the seminal text Tao Te Ching (“The Book of the Way and of Virtue”), considered by many scholars to be the ultimate expression of Taoism. Lao-Tze taught that the human soul is eternal and returns to the cosmos after a person’s death. Philosophically, the primary insight of Taoism is that creation is meant to exist in harmony, a balance of yin and yang, and that attempting to overemphasize one aspect of creation causes the opposite to express itself in order to return to homeostasis. The Taoist acts upon this philosophy by living a simple, passive life of acceptance.
The Lathe of Heaven is a parable in which Le Guin compares two worldviews. One is the Taoist understanding of life—the acceptance of what is, with necessary change emerging from those engaged in day-to-day living. The other is the utilitarian philosophical understanding of life seen in philosophies such as effective altruism—the world has issues that human beings have been charged with fixing, and those in power can change them. George, the protagonist, indeed has a troubling issue: His dreams randomly change the world. Ultimately, the solution emerges not from the psychiatrist who uses him to alter reality but—in Taoist fashion—from his dreams themselves, as new friends arrive to help him. Haber embodies the utilitarian perspective, “the greatest good for the greatest number.” When George balks at letting Haber use his dreams, the doctor lists a number of things he sees as real accomplishments of their dream manipulation, though each “accomplishment” has resulted in unexpected consequences. Le Guin suggests the solutions to many of the pressing issues she writes about are not to be found in drastic changes, but rather in living in harmony with the circumstances of life as they present themselves.
Genre Context: Speculative Science Fiction
Le Guin’s first science-fiction novel Rocannon’s World was published in 1966. She was in her late 30s and decided, after a decade of rejections from mainstream publishers, that she would turn her attention to science fiction. Though Le Guin found success, science fiction was a difficult genre for women authors in the mid-1960s. As Kelly Link writes in her introduction to The Lathe of Heaven, a generation of female authors who appeared in the late-20th and early-21st centuries “are the literary descendants of Le Guin” (x).
Le Guin stands as the preeminent woman author among the noteworthy speculative fiction authors of the mid-20th century. This group—including Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Heinlein, Stanislaw Lem, Philip Dick, and Ray Bradbury—shifted the tone of science fiction to philosophical questions about human potential and the purpose of humanity’s existence. Many of the historical and scientific developments of the mid-20th century were key in this shift toward speculative fiction: Einstein’s discoveries in the realm of space/time relativity, the end of World War II and near-space exploration, advances in neurological and psychological understandings of the human mind, and philosophical shift toward questioning the meaning of existence opened new avenues for writers to explore. Le Guin’s works position her among the pioneers of the continuing speculative fiction genre.
Related Titles
By Ursula K. Le Guin
