Reading Response #4
Amir Barati
The Image of Odo as A Revolutionary Leader
The characteristics of Odo presented in Ursula Le Guin’s The Dispossessed seems to be equivocally suggesting a utopian leader. The initial image the book suggests about Odo is that she has been the mastermind behind the revolution that has led to the foundation of Anarres’ philosophy. Initially, in the reader’s mind, this character resonates the Marxist ideas and the communist regime with all the catastrophes it caused. The author seems to be using this image in order to correct the reader’s perception of socialism in politics and its premises of a healthy society.
One of the main shifts the author tries to make in the mind of the reader is to alternate the image of…show more content… This portrayal of the Odo as an ideal leader is quite significant in that it stands at the contrary of the image of the contemporary popular revolutionary leaders. What the contemporary world knows from a revolutionary leader is a brutal, ignorant, vicious, rebellious, stubborn and strict hypocrite who pretends to be humble, kind-hearted, knowledgeable, freedom-lover and a wise character. The brutal nature of Stalinism has taught the contemporary mind to think of a revolutionary leader as calling others ‘Comrades’, and immediately order their executions. It has shown itself as only pretending to love humanistic values whereas believing in brutal nature of humanity deep down in the heart. These leaders loved to portray themselves as one simple member of the community with no privileges, no other than the others, living a simple life, being devoted to the betterment of the society, loving the nation and hating the supposed enemies, always doing the right thing for the nation, and clean from any flaws. On the contrary of these values, these systems have proven to be the most corrupted, fraudulent, dictatorial, and ruthful ones paying no attention to the real demands of the…show more content… (Le Guin 136) “Decentralization had been an essential element in Odo’s plans for the society she did not live to see founded” (Le Guin 130) and she has only established one administration to “work with speed and ease” (ibid) in order that “no community should be cut off from change and interchange.” (ibid) In her ideal government “there was to be no controlling center, no capital, no establishment for the self-perpetuating machinery of bureaucracy and the dominance drive of individuals seeking to become captains, bosses, chiefs of state. (ibid)
Odo is not pretending to believe, but employing the humanistic values in her society. The society she has founded is the product of a high civilization, with a diversified culture, a stable economy with highly industrialized technology, a society which maintains the balance of diversity as the characteristic of life, of natural and social ecology. (Le Guin 131) In this society “the activity going on in each place was fascinating, and mostly out in full view. (Le Guin 135)
Hence, depicting the image of Odo, being the mastermind behind the cult of Anarrestism, can be suggestive of the fact that the author is serious in her effort to re-examine the political possibility of anarchism as a vague utopian idea of a political and social ideology to
