The Dispossessed

true departure is return.

‘The Revolution is in the individual spirit, or it is nowhere. It is for all, or it is nothing. If it is seen as having any end, it will never truly begin.’ We can’t stop here. We must go on. We must take the risks.”

Those who build walls are their own prisoners.

The wall described in the opening symbolizes several of the themes of the novel. Look for other references to walls in the text. What is the meaning of this sentence: “It enclosed the universe, leaving Anarres outside, free?”

Children can be raised by all kinds of configurations of loving adults: the traditional nuclear family is not necessarily the best model for childrearing.

New ways of using language to make men and women more equal are needed.

The world had fallen out from under him, and he was left alone.

But they replaced it with marvelous clothing, gorgeous in cut and color, the women in full gowns that swept the floor, their breasts bare, their waists and necks and heads adorned with jewelry and lace and gauze, the men in trousers and coats or tunics of red, blue, violet, gold, green, with slashed sleeves and cascades of lace, or long gowns of crimson or dark green or black that parted at the knee to show the white stockings, silver-gartered. Another Iotic word floated into Shevek’s head, one he had never had a referent for, though he liked the sound of it: “splendor.”

They wanted to talk with him, but Shevek was not listening again. He was thinking of Takver. He wondered what that deep, dry, dark gaze out of the darkness would have meant to Takver. She had always known that all lives are in common, rejoicing in her kinship to the fish in the tanks of her laboratories, seeking the experience of existences outside the human boundary.

Yes, often, and larger, but what does that matter when we have machines? And even when we don’t have machines, when we must dig with the shovel or carry on the back, the men maybe work faster—the big ones— but the women work longer. . . . Often I have wished I was as tough as a woman.”