In this series, I’ll be working my way through Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea works and analyzing her prose chapter by chapter. Spoilers follow.
Chapter 12: The Dry Land
Length: 16 pages, 130 paragraphs
Setting: The Dry Land
Characters introduced: None
Ged and Arren venture into the underworld to close the whole in the world created by Cob. Le Guin’s Dry Land resembles Hades, I think, more than any other afterlife, but Ged has told us that the dead enthralled to Cob, the dead they witness in the Dry Land, are shadows and that the true essence of the dead lives on in the cycle of life.
I am vaguely aware that Le Guin has some revisioning to do to the Dry Land further along in our reading. This is good, I think, because as it stands I’m not quite sure what we’re told matches what we’re shown.
But this seems like an afterthought. The story works. Cob, in his fear and greed, seeks to live forever and uses the greed and fear and ignorance of others to gain power. This attempt to hoard up life throws the very fabric of Earthsea into disorder.
Our heroes save the day by sacrifice (though Le Guin has thoughts about that for us in “Earthsea Revisioned”) and by rejection of that all-consuming greed.
Arren follows Ged’s advise here, doing only what he must in his futile battle with Cob. The violence buys just enough time for Ged to do the healing necessary to close the hole in the world.
Our antagonists thus far in Earthsea have been Ged’s shadow-self who was defeated by acceptance, Kossil who died in an earthquake cased by the Nameless Ones, and now Cob who Ged sends to death by restoring his name and freeing him from his own dark magic.
The next chapter is the last. We may take a break before I jump into Tehanu. That remains to be seen. Until next time.
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