An Echo of Maya in Le Guin’s The Dispossessed

Abstract

Ursula K. Le Guin is a well-known science fiction writer in America. She often makes use of foreign cultures and philosophy in her fictions to convey her message about human civilization and values. In The Dispossessed, Le Guin blends philosophical and scientific ideas in an inextricable way. She uses the Indian philosophic concept of ‘Maya’ and shows the two different planets – Urras and Anarres – having different principles. The inhabitants of the two planets are entangled in ‘Maya’ and refuse to realize the truth. They forgot the global harmony that prevails among the people. The protagonist Shevek yields to ‘Maya’ but finds the way to redeem himself from temporal pleasures. The paper makes an attempt to eulogize the concept of ‘Maya’ and brings out the common phenomenon that binds the eastern and western mind.