Landscape in The Dispossessed Angeli Ylanan-Agarwala College

The landscape in The Dispossessed contributes a great deal in shaping the cultures and characters of both Urras and Anarres. Although meant to be contrasting civilizations, Urras and Anarres are alike in the sense that they both possess highly complex and highly organized ways of life. Complete with their own values of government, geography, and society, both civilizations complete the novel by providing two sides of the spectrum. While island-like Urras contributes an isolated, free spirited society, Anarres, a more spread out geography, has a stricter hold. The isolation of Urras forces its individuals to conform to the extravagant lives, which they all share. Although Anarres has a capital, Abbenay, that proves to be its pride and joy, the rest of its geography is barren and desert-like leaving no room to expand more than what the government allows. The landscape and geography in The Dispossessed influence the developmental process of the cultures and people of each respected civilization. If landscape and geography were described differently, society would most likely change drastically. Author Ursula K. LeGuin’s idea that Anarres, a Utopia built on deprivation, being an ideal society would not be clear.

The geographic...