Mason Pocklington - The Left Hand of Darkness

The Left Hand of Darkness was an interesting read, as it dealt with the idea of sexuality and "choosing sides" in an interesting way. Through the main characters we see his distrust of the genderless people, because of his own inability to identify one specific gender per person. In turn, the genderless people innately distrust him. This conflict brilliantly highlights the current state of where we are as humans, where we have to decide how we will go into the future. A key idea of this novel is acceptance and understanding. Because Ai cannot accept that the people are not constrained by one key gender, his travels and experiences are more difficult for him. As this novel was published in 1969, we still have lessons we can take from the book.

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