Several times this week (and quite regularly in the last few years since I've been paying attention) I have run into the idea of dualism in the human person. It seems to be the root of a lot of what is wrong with the world. We divide up human nature somehow and label one half evil and the other good. The idea that evil is a thing in itself rather than the absence of good follows, etc. I was rereading my notes from Theology of Christian marriage the other day and found it again in a discussion of a pagan understanding of the sexes. Maleness was associated with the spiritual, rational, and noble. Femaleness was associated with the material world; the physicality of bearing children connects women to the body, matter, etc. It is very Greek. And it's messed up further by the idea that all thing material are superior to all things material. By contrast, men are intelligent, therefore women are ignorant. So you have patriarchy. This heresy has sprouted all sorts of deep seated assumptions in culture, rather like a mold you can't get rid of. We just like to put everything that gives us obvious trouble in a box and call it evil, even if we know that we should take it out and figure out how it is meant to be integrated and used for good.
I just finished reading The Tombs of Atuan. The second book in the Earthsea cycle, by Ursula LeGuin. I really liked the first book, despite its sad treatment of female characters. So I was excited to see that the second book has a female protagonist.
Le Guin knows how to handle the rich fantasy tradition with all this symbolism, archetypes and philosophy. She's really good at everything here. But here are her two central characters, tell me if this looks like dualism to you:
Tenar is a girl who has scarified her identity to become a high priestess. She lives in an all female cult that revolves around the worship of darkness. The acts of worship are often violent sacrifices of animals and people. Otherwise they involve dance, inhaling drug smoke, and chanting of meaningless words. The center of the temple is an empty throne. The high priestess, like the gods she serves, is nameless. She has been taught since she was taken from her family that her old self was eaten. The nameless gods devour their worshipers and their enemies. The priestess's main function is to explore all the ways of a labyrinth under the temple tomb of the nameless gods. She does this in the dark. She touches the walls with her fingertips. Her whole realm is designed to confuse and bewilder outsiders or those who try to comprehend. She draws no map, cannot read, and knows her way around the labyrinth by memorizing directions only. Like the chants she recites, her whole life is meaningless repetition. She is even supposed to be a reborn priestess relearning all these things she knew in her old life.
Ged is a man, and a wizard we met in the first book. He comes into the tombs of Atuan, into Tenar's realm looking for half of a magic arm ring which is buried in the deepest parts of the labyrinth. He brings his mage light into the tombs. He reveals things that have never been seen by human eyes. Tenar has all sorts of assumptions about him from the oral traditions she has memorized. He enlightens her mind as well as her eyes. He is a prisoner, lost in her labyrinth, he is deprived of food and water so that he is physically very weak. Mentally, we learn that he is constantly active, working his magic. But when Tenar comes to interrogate him, she finds that she is inferior to him in every way. Her only hope of besting him is to convince him that darkness is the final and most powerful thing in the world. Her knowledge of the darkness must in the end trump his knowledge of the rest of the world. He understands the big picture of the world, and even her own small corner of it, better even that she understands it. She is attracted to the light, the beauty of the underground chambers he lit, that she has only ever felt.
To me, that looks like women are ignorant and men are enlightened. But maybe that is just because I'm looking for her based on what I read in the first book. In any case, the story was pretty good, if you ignore that particular trend in the philosophy.
Ged makes her understand that the powers she serves are actual evil, and convinces her to escape with him. She gives him the other half of the ring he is looking for and they join the half in the palm of her hand. That's a great moment. I'm thinking, okay, they are opposite sides of the same coin; together they will get out. But that kind of equal partnership is not really what happens. Tenar is supposed to be the guide, getting them out of the labyrinth, while Ged mentally hold back the powers of darkness that wish to punish their former priestess with madness for her betrayal. What happens is Tenar panics and can't even do her part without Ged's constant support and help. Ged uses his spiritual prowess to literally hold up the walls of the caverns so that they can get through them, hold back the maddening powers of angry dark gods, and even physically pulls Tenar out of the tunnel exit. So he pretty much rescues her. She knows the way, and he doesn't, but he has to keep count for her when she looses it, repeat their last few steps to her so she will remember, and hold her hand in the dark. She looses even the small powers she had.
So this is not about the joining of two character for their mutual benefit. It is the story of Tenar's rebirth. She chooses light over darkness, and is snatched from the jaws of a satanic cult. She gets her name back and starts a new life, shaking off the residue of her old life. That's a true and beautiful story. She comes out completely dependent on Ged because she has never done or learned anything useful in her whole life. He gives her new life, she is receptive. If Ged had gone into that darkness just to rescue her it would have been a parable of the lost sheep type of story.
These two are clearly foils for each other; all their imagery is opposite. While Tenar is not exactly evil, she is deprived of everything worth having. Ged has everything good and needs Tenar briefly to take care of the physical details of his problem.
We can only feel pity for Tenar and admiration for Ged. If Tenar doesn't get to continue and complete her arch in the next books, she will be simply another feminist fail in this series.
