The Dispossessed Analysis

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The ideals of dispossession and sharing with others are not always lived up to in the countries of The Dispossessed. The Anarresti, for instance, who reject the pursuit of power and profit, are sometimes hypocrites. Shevek realizes that it is easy to share when there is enough, but when possessions are scarce, force enters, and violence; and so the residents hid behind their walls and do not share with everyone. Living in a simple environment that avoids materialism and excess, many Anarresti become functionalists. The Dispossessed offers not only an enlightened portrayal of possessions, but also a stimulating interpretation of how the ideology of excess is excrement might be approached, and an equally suggestive account of why that promise …show more content…
At first sight it appears to Shevek as a paradise. Shevek knows how much he and other Anarresti could benefit from the bountiful environments of A-Io. Some experiences, provide a context for human enjoyment lacking on monochromatic Anarres, just as the soaring architecture lifts the spirits above the functional one story Anarresti buildings. Nonetheless, as he stays in A-Io, Shevek comes to see the limitations of its rich beauty for the Iotians. The students, pampered in their bountiful surroundings, lack initiative and imagination. The professors at the university, intelligent and productive, nonetheless seem driven and tense; not until Shevek goes to Oiee’s home does he see him relaxed and at ease. Shevek’s man-servant at the university, Efor, gains little benefit from the beauty that the professors and students could enjoy: a servant, he has learned to walk with a bowed head and lowered eyes, attentive to the needs of those for whom he works. In the vast profusion of consumer goods Shevek sees a propertarian misrepresentation of aesthetics, where ownership, fashion, and public display trump other possibilities and reduce capitalist activity. Food and drink are abundant, but cocktail party conversation is dull. From Shevek’s perspective, A-Io’s beauty, which could lead to increased knowledge and aesthetic enjoyment on Anarres, is by …show more content…
Like their fellow consumers on Earth they know no relationship but possession. By contrast, the citizens of Anarres are materially impoverished but rich in humanity. And it is no secret of course that their worst enemy is the concept of ownership, which is why in the Anarresti vocabulary there is no filthier swear word than profiteer. The severity of Anarres is a material necessity, but one given a virtuous moral gloss in this opposition. “People in the small towns wore a good deal of jewelry. In sophisticated Abbenay there was more sense of the tension between the principle of no ownership and the impulse to self-adornment, and there a ring or pin was the limit of good taste. But elsewhere the deep connection between the aesthetic and the acquisitive was simply not worried about; people bedecked themselves unabashedly.”
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