Abstract Book of the 9th International Conference on New Trends in Social Sciences
Year: 2026
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Representations of Education in Le Guin’s Rocannon’s World (1966)
Zoe Keating
ABSTRACT:
The second section of this chapter is an examination of how Le Guin uses her world building to reflect on and examine her real-life referents for educational systems and structures. She uses the generic conventions of both SF and High Fantasy within this text to subvert the expectations of the reader to the end of reflection and examination; she does this to mirror the expectations of education levels, Rocannon is a highly educated and experienced protagonist, he approaches his role as Envoy from this perspective which is enforced and upheld by the Ekumen as the superior position. Rocannon is then forced into situations where his intellect does not serve him and he must rely on the strength of others or the generic expectations of the people of the planet, such as leaning into the mage role and implying that his sufficiently advanced technology is actually magic. Le Guin uses his uncomfortability in this position to reinforce her stance that the educational frameworks are not the most vital aspect to community, he learns and grows as a person in ways that are dissonant to the teachings of the Ekumen but still serve to help grow his community and his connections to his companions. Ruth Levitas reflects on the education of desire, suggesting that “The utopian experiment disrupts the taken-for-granted nature of the present. It creates a space in which the reader may, temporarily, experience an alternative configuration of needs, wants and satisfaction” (Levitas, 4). She suggests through this theory that education comes from the presentation of an other. Le Guin reflects on the disposition to conflate knowledge and the source of that knowledge, she uses Rocannon’s initial position as aloof and detached to reflect on the academic superiority that can be found in high status universities, such as her personal experience with UC Berkley and her fathers’ history with the same institution. She again affirms that this source of knowledge is not vital to a person’s morality but instead can be adjusted to best serve an individual’s community. Le Guin spends her inaugural text undermining genre conventions, reader expectations, and the unwritten laws of the educated author; she does this in such a way that it can be easily read as a dissatisfaction with her educational framework and given the educational reform happening around her at this time, it is inevitable. Education theorist Paolo Freire suggests that “the oppressed, who have adapted to the structure domination in which they are immersed, and have become resigned to it, are inhibited from waging the struggle for freedom so long as they feel incapable of running the risks it requires” (Freire, 21). He posits that education is used as a weapon to justify superiority. Le Guin is an educated author, but her personal ideological framework with regards to the theory she pulls from is underdeveloped within this work, showing her convictions despite a lack of knowledge to support it as yet, this is something that continues to develop as Le Guin develops as an academic writer as well as an author.
Keywords: Science Fiction, Education, Genre, Le Guin, Paolo Freire, Ruth Levitas,