The Tombs of Atuan: Volume 2 (Earthsea Cycle)

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Le Guin, Ursula K.; Wood, Susan (1980). The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction. Ultramarine publishing. ISBN 9780399504822. Ursula K. Le Guin's universe of Earthsea first appeared in two short stories, " The Rule of Names" (1964) and " The Word of Unbinding" (1964), both published in Fantastic. These stories developed early concepts for the fictional world. [8] They were both later anthologized in Le Guin's collection The Wind's Twelve Quarters, published in 1975. [9] Earthsea was the setting for a story Le Guin wrote in 1965 or 1966, which was never published. [10] In 1967, Herman Schein (the publisher of Parnassus Press and the husband of Ruth Robbins, the illustrator of A Wizard of Earthsea) asked Le Guin to try writing a book "for older kids", giving her complete freedom over the subject and the approach. [2] [11] Drawing from her short stories, Le Guin began work on A Wizard of Earthsea. Le Guin has said that the book was in part a response to the image of wizards as ancient and wise, and to her wondering where they come from. [12] Le Guin later said that her choice of fantasy as a medium, and of the theme of coming of age, was a product of her writing for adolescents. [13] Le Guin sets the series in Earthsea: a vast and bright world, swathed with uncharted seas and islands. The islands are sparsely populated by primitive communities of fishermen, goatherders, craftsmen and the occasional fire-breathing dragon. The light of Earthsea is balanced by the claustrophobic, almost tangible darkness of the Tombs and labyrinth on the remote island of Atuan. The Tombs are the eternal resting place of the "Nameless Ones" --- "the ancient and holy powers of the Earth before the Light, the powers of the dark, of ruin, of madness." Two priestesses select Tenar as the reincarnation of the Priestess of the Tombs of Atuan (Arha) when she is just an infant. At 5, Tenar (renamed Arha according to thousands of years of tradtion) leaves her family to live among the Tombs and to protect its treasures and immortal inhabitants from intruders. Ged makes the Ring whole again using a strong Patterning magic and gives the restored arm ring to Tenar. They collect a bag, flask, and cloak when Ged wishes he had his staff. Tenar had it outside the room, intending to return it to Ged. They leave the Treasury and reach the pit. They edge across the ledge, but its stones are loose. Ged lights the area to repair it when Manan looms out of the darkness on the other side. He tries to shove Ged into the pit, but Ged blinds him with light while striking him. Manan falls into the pit without a sound.

The book is based around a girl named Tenar, renamed Arha, who is placed in the tombs of Atuan as the high priestess for the " Nameless Ones". Then a wizard, Ged Sparrowhawk, comes to steal the Tombs’ greatest hidden treasure, the Ring of Erreth-Akbe. Tenar’s duty is to protect the Ring, but Ged possesses the light of magic and tales of a world that Tenar has never known. Will Tenar risk everything to escape from the darkness that has become her domain? The dark is a powerful fictive tool, taking on a life of its own, and Le Guin makes such beautiful art of it in Tombs . Since this is Le Guin—and it’s me reading Le Guin—you bet your ass she took it beyond incredible sentences, artful descriptions, and expert use of setting and tone, by now all obvious staples of her work as a writer. Out of the darkness of the Place of the Tombs of Atuan, from Arha’s struggles with Ged and with herself in the dark of the Labyrinth, comes a powerful critique of ideology, of what it means to believe—and more daringly, what it means to be oneself in a world where one is made to believe. These are important aspects of children’s literature generally, in which protagonists often struggle to understand who they are, what the world is, and how they fit in and jibe with the world as whoever they are. Lindow, Sandra J. (2012). Dancing the Tao: Le Guin and Moral Development. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4438-3988-4.

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Now 15, Arha reflects on her life as the full Priestess of the Tombs of Atuan. Though she receives respect from others, her daily chores and religious duties remain unchanged. She fears this monotony will persist from age 6 to 15 until the end of her days. Arha confides her concerns to Manan, who surprises her with actual answers. He recounts how noble quarrels were once resolved by seeking counsel from the Nameless Ones through the Priestess of the Tombs. However, since the Godking conquered the 4 lands of the Kargad Empire, he has taken on the role of settling disputes. Each successive Godking's worship waned. Now, the only remaining ritual is the sacrifice of prisoners to the Tombs. The main protagonist of The Tombs of Atuan is a young Kargish girl named Tenar. Because she was born as the previous high priestess of the Tombs of Atuan passed away, the Kargish believe that Tenar is the reincarnation of the priestess. (There are many high priestesses, and the priestess of the Tombs of Atuan is just one of them). Renamed Arha, which translates as “the eaten one,” Tenar is forcibly removed from her family at the age of five and conscripted into the society’s patriarchal upper caste known as the Nameless Ones. Though the house she is given to live in is tiny, Tenar’s status as the future priestess is very high in Kargish society. Meanwhile, a young eunuch named Manan becomes her eternal servant. When she is fifteen years of age, Ged (Sparrowhawk) arrives at the tombs of Atuan in search for half of Erreth-Akbe's ring. Arha traps Ged, but later spares his life after he tells her of the outer world, while keeping him as a prisoner. The relationship between Sparrowhawk and Arha is well developed in such a short story, and it’s interesting to see the further development of Sparrowhawk through the eyes of a different character. He has clearly learned much since the first book, and has become both more powerful and more wise. The character or Arha was a bit annoying early on, but by the end her hero’s journey is as believable as it was nuanced. It’s at this point in drafting that I would usually begin to write the “great reveal,” the thesis statement that binds together what follows: “But it is also…” I would then attempt to describe to you how Tombs of Atuan is so much more than this, how it goes above and beyond the familiar conventions of children’s fiction. How it is true Literature, it is Art, a heartbreaking work of staggering blahblahblah. But why? Tombs need not be more. We need not call it by another name to see it as offering important insights into the world, as bringing forward the deep truths about power and mystery and religion and belief that it does. It is enough to say that Tombs does what children’s literature—and much other writing and meaning-making—does, and it does it very damn well.

She realizes the Nameless Ones give and create nothing. They only darken and destroy, but cannot leave the place because they are the place. They should not be denied or forgotten, but also should not be worshipped. Sparrowhawk admits the Earth is beautiful, bright, and kind, but also terrible, dark, and cruel. The Nameless Ones may trap many, but "You are free, Tenar. You were taught to be a slave, but you have broken free." Warming up, she asks how he knew her name. He explains the history and nature of magic comes from learning the true names of things. She clarifies how he knew her specific name. He cannot explain how his gift works. He can only liken it to a lantern they tried to cover, yet whose light still shines. Knowing the light means knowing her. Knowing her means knowing her name. Tymn, Marshall B. (1981). The Science Fiction Reference Book. Mercer Island, Washington: Starmont House. ISBN 0-916732-49-5. After this incident, she falls ill and experiences nightmares, suggesting that when she underwent the rituals that made her the "eaten one", some of her personality and her regard for life remained. [49] She questions her faith (another theme that runs through the novel), and begins to develop a sense of self apart from it, helped in this process by Ged. [49] She wrestles with her contradictory thoughts for a long time; keeping Ged alive would be contrary to all her teachings and the powers she serves, but sacrificing him would be contrary to her developing respect for life. [43] An important moment in this process is when Ged calls her by her true name, and clarifies for her the choice between remaining in the Tombs as Arha and embracing Tenar and stepping into the larger world of Earthsea. [50] Afterwards she has a nightmare about suffocating, a motif Cummins describes as being common to female coming-of-age stories. [50] To take Le Guin’s genius—please permit me this one, unironic usage—further, Tombs suggests another type of power, that of the bond. After all, in the story of Sparrowhawk’s life, the Tomb of Atuan is the setting of his great adventure to reunite the broken halves of the lost Ring of Erreth-Akbe and the novel itself ends with the ring being held aloft by Tenar as Lookfar glides into the harbors of Havnor to triumphant cheers. It is a Tolkienian scene, perhaps the only one in all of the Earthsea novels, but the ring is important. (Sadly, Le Guin does not explain how this vision of power-sharing fits with the very idea of kings and princes, still very much active in her pseudo-medieval fantasy world, but genius isn’t all-encompassing.) Whether or not Erreth-Akbe’s ring is a ring of power in the sense of Tolkien’s rings, it symbolizes (and supposedly aids) the ability of leaders to bind together the people of Earthsea not under the autocratic submission of tyrants and princes, but in peace. The ring of Erreth-Akbe is sought once lost because the broken rune, the Bond-Rune, was lost. Tenar and Ged reunite the runes through an act of solidarity and trust. Ged survives the Labyrinth because he trusts Tenar; she escapes the Tombs and her ideological enthrallment because she trusts Ged.At dusk, they reach the beach and spend the night. Tenar listens to the crashing waves, feeling alienated. In the morning, they wait for high tide. Tenar contemplates killing Ged but confesses her evil deeds instead. Ged reassures her and promises to take her to Gont. They sail to Havnor Great Port, where a crowd awaits them. Tenar proudly displays the Ring, and they are greeted with cheers. Ged invites Tenar to come with him, and she accepts. The book ends with their arrival in Havnor, leaving the celebrations and their future voyage to Ogion to our imagination. The story follows a girl named Tenar, born on the Kargish island of Atuan. Born on the day that the high priestess of the Tombs of Atuan died, she is believed to be her reincarnation. Tenar is taken from her family when five years old and goes to the Tombs. [14] Her name is taken from her in a ceremony, and she is referred to as "Arha", or the "eaten one", [24] after being consecrated to the service of the "Nameless Ones" at the age of six with a ceremony involving a symbolic sacrifice. [28] She moves into her own tiny house, and is given a eunuch servant, Manan, with whom she develops a bond of affection. Hollindale, Peter (September 2003). "The Last Dragon of Earthsea". Children's Literature in Education. 34 (3): 183–193. doi: 10.1023/A:1025390102089. S2CID 160303057. Le Guin let down a lot of folks when she couldn’t imagine a girl-wizard becoming a powerful wizardess in her first Earthsea novel. She then made the rather startling decision to write a sequel in which Ged appears only halfway through and in which he is not, in fact, the protagonist. True, Tombs ’s Arha is not a wizard and even lives in a land where wizards are barely more than a legend, but Arha is a priestess, the High Priestess of the Tombs, born into her office as First Priestess, raised believing in her continued rebirth since time began, and brought into service of the Nameless Ones who dwell below the Tombs of Atuan, who in her and the Kargs’ beliefs have dwelt so since the beginning of time. Arha, in short, is powerful beyond measure. At least in word.

Like A Wizard of Earthsea before it, Le Guin’s The Tombs of Atuan was meant for kids. Now we call it a YA novel, though recent marketing schemes for the Earthsea series seem to be aiming more for the 8-11 year old crowd (I cannot stand my books’ covers!). Of course, the novels weren’t written solely for children but for anyone, even if they happen to be quite marketable as children’s fiction. But Le Guin certainly did right by her publishers’ intended audience when she chose the setting, an underground tomb and labyrinth complex both frightening and exhilarating, an extension of Earthsea all the more exciting because it is so unspeakably mundane and exotic at once: the darkness. And, what’s more, it’s about those who dwell in the darkness, the Nameless Ones, embodiments of the great Powers we imagine and fear are there. True, we’ve no proof, but we have heard stories and would rather not chance it—so we run, we shut the door tight, we turn the lights on, we pull the covers over our heads. Kids are primed to experience the Tombs. The hold that the darkness has over her does not disappear when she escapes and the Tombs are brought down in an earthquake by the nameless ones. She contemplates killing Ged, blaming him for her pain, but eventually learns to accept her guilt over her actions, realizing that though she had no choice in her actions as a priestess, she now has a choice to move away from them; but this "freedom is a heavy load". [51] [29] Le Guin ends the novel with the reassuring sentence "Gravely she walked beside [Ged] up the white streets of Havnor, holding his hand, like a child coming home", suggesting that she has been successful in finding new connections in her life. [52] The conclusion of the novel represents the successful end of a quest that Ged undertook as a mature wizard, part of the story arc that traces his character development across the first three Earthsea books; thus The Tombs of Atuan has been described as part of Ged's coming-of-age as well. [53] Faith and belief [ edit ] Hatfield, Len (1993). "From Master to Brother: Shifting the Balance of Authority in Ursula K. Le Guin's Farthest Shore and Tehanu". Children's Literature. 21 (1): 43–65. doi: 10.1353/chl.0.0516. hdl: 10919/25443. Slusser, George Edgar (1976). The Farthest Shores of Ursula K. Le Guin. Wildside Press LLC. ISBN 978-0-89370-205-2.

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A dark hand had let go its lifelong hold upon her heart. But she did not feel joy, as she had in the mountains... Besides featuring a female protagonist, I also noticed a detail I overlooked in the first book: Sparrowhawk is described as being dark skinned. We rarely get fantasy books with non-white protagonists to this day, and a female protagonist was very rare at the time this book was written, so it’s amazing to me how far ahead of its time this series was.

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Arha's routine is disrupted by her discovery of the wizard Ged (the protagonist of A Wizard of Earthsea) in the undertomb. She traps him in the labyrinth by slamming the door on him, and through a peephole sees him unsuccessfully attempt to open the door with a spell. [29] Trapped in the labyrinth, Ged eventually collapses out of exhaustion, and Arha has him chained up while debating what to do with him. After questioning him, she learns that he has come to the Tombs for the long-lost half of the ring of Erreth-Akbe, a magical talisman broken centuries before, necessary for peace in Earthsea. [14] The other half had come into his possession by pure chance, and a dragon later told him what it was. Arha is drawn to him as he tells her of the outside world, and keeps him prisoner in the tombs, bringing him food and water. [30] However, Kossil learns of Ged's existence, forcing Arha to promise that Ged will be sacrificed to the Nameless Ones; however, she realizes that she cannot go through with it. She instructs Manan to dig a false grave underground, while she herself takes Ged to hide in the treasury of the Tombs.