When someone arrives to somewhere new, often times they won't feel comfortable with the change of culture, attitude, etc. I think this is a lot of how Genly feels when he first arrives to Karhide. At his home planet, they all have set genders. People either identify as a woman or a male, so when Genly meets these Gethenians he finds it weird that they're genderless. On Gethen, they enter a "'sexual cycle' that averages from about 26 to 28 days" (Page 90) and in this cycle they enter different stages of sexual needs.
Genly Ai is seen as a "pervert" since he identifies himself as a male, for Gethenians only set a certain gender for themselves when they're in kemmer. Genly Ai initially finds this to be odd but he keeps an open mind to it. I believe that this shows a lot from where Genly is from because he is willing to open up to these new cultures and customs. Although, he still tries to point out feminine/masculine features of a Gethenian but this only shows that in his home world they identify themselves differently. Since Genly is so open-minded I think this also revesls a lot about himself as a person. I don't believe that the way that someone reacts to something could identify a whole group (...or planet in this case).
When Genly takes notes down on the whole idea of kemmer for Gethenians, he also mentions something they don't have in their planet, which is inconsequential sex. This tells us that back on his planet, Earth, they have that and it tells us it's common enough to be brought up as something the Gethenans don't have. These are just small things that tell us about the world that Genly Ai is from but all of these details in the book are self-explanatory.
I can relate to your response because when I first attended Mayfair HS in the second semester of my freshman year, I felt completely alone and isolated. Pretty much everyone at Mayfair already knew each other since middle school and they know all the things about their school. Mayfair is a completely different school in terms of looks, people, teachers, etc. so I had to learn the traditions and habits of Mayfair because Paramount HS does things way differently. For instance, I was concerned with sharing a campus with middle schoolers because Paramount HS has two separate campuses--one for freshmen (west campus), one for grades 10-12 (senior campus). It was something I had to get used to. When I tell people that Paramount has separate campuses, they have a hard time comprehending the idea of being on a campus with only freshmen.
ReplyDeleteI agree what you said in your post.
ReplyDeleteI would like to also mention how even though the Gethenians were not accepting to Ai’s culture, he never let that stopped him from learning more about their culture. Instead, I believe that they’re misinterpretations about humans pushed him more to continue to learn all he could about Gethenians. On the other hand though, Ai’s ignorance to Gethenians and their shifgrethor held him back from completing his mission and cause a lot of issues that could have been avoided.