The Eye of the Heron
Encyclopedia
The Eye of the Heron is a 1978 science fiction
novel
by U.S.
author
Ursula K. Le Guin
which was first published in the science fiction anthology
Millennial Women
.
novel set on the fiction
al planet
of Victoria in a speculative future, probably sometime in the 22nd century, when the planet has been colonized for about a century and has no communication with Earth
. The protagonist
is a young woman called Luz but the story is told in the third person
and the reader sees events from the point of view
of several different characters
. The Eye of the Heron is usually treated as one of Le Guin's
minor novels although it exhibits her characteristic prose style and themes.
. The characters' encounters with these animals occur at moments of significant introspection, particularly when they are considering that which they perceive as alien, or other, in relation to themselves.
founding a penal colony
and then one ship
of political exile
s. The descendants of the prisoners mostly inhabit the City. The descendants of the political exiles, the "People of Peace", inhabit Shantih Town, which is known to the City dwellers as Shanty Town. The Shantih Towners, whose primary occupation is farming, want to settle another valley further away from the City. The City "Bosses" do not want to lose the control they believe they have over the Shanty Towners and so they take action to try to prevent any settlement beyond their sphere of influence.
fiction and include the social constructions of gender
, interactions between individuals from different societies, intra-actions within societies, and contact with that which is perceived as alien or other. The novel also explores different forms of social and political organization by juxtaposing pacifist
anarchism
with violent oligarchy
. The characters' metaphorical internal journeys are reflected in literal external journeys throughout the plot.
When asked, in a 1995 interview, what role the feminist movement
had played in her writing, Le Guin
situated The Eye of the Heron in the context of her development as a writer:
reused this phrase in the title of her 1980 novel The Beginning Place
.
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
by U.S.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
Ursula K. Le Guin
Ursula K. Le Guin
Ursula Kroeber Le Guin is an American author. She has written novels, poetry, children's books, essays, and short stories, notably in fantasy and science fiction...
which was first published in the science fiction anthology
Anthology
An anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler. It may be a collection of poems, short stories, plays, songs, or excerpts...
Millennial Women
Millennial Women
Millennial Women is a 1978 science fiction anthology, edited by Virginia Kidd, in which all the stories are written by women and have a female character as the primary protagonist...
.
Plot introduction
The Eye of the Heron is a science fictionScience fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
novel set on the fiction
Fiction
Fiction is the form of any narrative or informative work that deals, in part or in whole, with information or events that are not factual, but rather, imaginary—that is, invented by the author. Although fiction describes a major branch of literary work, it may also refer to theatrical,...
al planet
Planet
A planet is a celestial body orbiting a star or stellar remnant that is massive enough to be rounded by its own gravity, is not massive enough to cause thermonuclear fusion, and has cleared its neighbouring region of planetesimals.The term planet is ancient, with ties to history, science,...
of Victoria in a speculative future, probably sometime in the 22nd century, when the planet has been colonized for about a century and has no communication with Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
. The protagonist
Protagonist
A protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...
is a young woman called Luz but the story is told in the third person
Third person limited omniscient
The third-person omniscient is a narrative mode in which the reader is presented the story by a narrator with an overarching point of view, seeing and knowing everything that happens within the world of the story, regardless of the presence of certain characters, including everything all of the...
and the reader sees events from the point of view
Point of view (literature)
The narrative mode is the set of methods the author of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical story uses to convey the plot to the audience. Narration, the process of presenting the narrative, occurs because of the narrative mode...
of several different characters
Fictional character
A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...
. The Eye of the Heron is usually treated as one of Le Guin's
Ursula K. Le Guin
Ursula Kroeber Le Guin is an American author. She has written novels, poetry, children's books, essays, and short stories, notably in fantasy and science fiction...
minor novels although it exhibits her characteristic prose style and themes.
Explanation of the novel's title
The title is a reference to a fictional animal on the planet Victoria which early colonists called heron because of some superficial similarities to Earth heronHeron
The herons are long-legged freshwater and coastal birds in the family Ardeidae. There are 64 recognised species in this family. Some are called "egrets" or "bitterns" instead of "heron"....
. The characters' encounters with these animals occur at moments of significant introspection, particularly when they are considering that which they perceive as alien, or other, in relation to themselves.
Plot summary
The planet of Victoria received two waves of colonists from Earth: first two prison shipsStarship
A starship or interstellar spacecraft is a theoretical spacecraft designed for traveling between the stars, as opposed to a vehicle designed for orbital spaceflight or interplanetary travel....
founding a penal colony
Penal colony
A penal colony is a settlement used to exile prisoners and separate them from the general populace by placing them in a remote location, often an island or distant colonial territory...
and then one ship
Starship
A starship or interstellar spacecraft is a theoretical spacecraft designed for traveling between the stars, as opposed to a vehicle designed for orbital spaceflight or interplanetary travel....
of political exile
Exile
Exile means to be away from one's home , while either being explicitly refused permission to return and/or being threatened with imprisonment or death upon return...
s. The descendants of the prisoners mostly inhabit the City. The descendants of the political exiles, the "People of Peace", inhabit Shantih Town, which is known to the City dwellers as Shanty Town. The Shantih Towners, whose primary occupation is farming, want to settle another valley further away from the City. The City "Bosses" do not want to lose the control they believe they have over the Shanty Towners and so they take action to try to prevent any settlement beyond their sphere of influence.
City characters
- Luz Marina Falco Cooper
- Luis Burnier Falco (Luz's father and a Boss)
- Herman Macmilan
- Captain Eden
Major themes
The major themes in The Eye of the Heron are themes common to much of Le Guin'sUrsula K. Le Guin
Ursula Kroeber Le Guin is an American author. She has written novels, poetry, children's books, essays, and short stories, notably in fantasy and science fiction...
fiction and include the social constructions of gender
Gender in science fiction
Gender has been an important theme explored in speculative fiction. The genres that make up speculative fiction , science fiction, fantasy, supernatural horror and related genres , have always offered the opportunity for writers to explore social conventions, including gender, gender roles, and...
, interactions between individuals from different societies, intra-actions within societies, and contact with that which is perceived as alien or other. The novel also explores different forms of social and political organization by juxtaposing pacifist
Pacifism
Pacifism is the opposition to war and violence. The term "pacifism" was coined by the French peace campaignerÉmile Arnaud and adopted by other peace activists at the tenth Universal Peace Congress inGlasgow in 1901.- Definition :...
anarchism
Anarchism
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...
with violent oligarchy
Oligarchy
Oligarchy is a form of power structure in which power effectively rests with an elite class distinguished by royalty, wealth, family ties, commercial, and/or military legitimacy...
. The characters' metaphorical internal journeys are reflected in literal external journeys throughout the plot.
When asked, in a 1995 interview, what role the feminist movement
Feminist movement
The feminist movement refers to a series of campaigns for reforms on issues such as reproductive rights, domestic violence, maternity leave, equal pay, women's suffrage, sexual harassment and sexual violence...
had played in her writing, Le Guin
Ursula K. Le Guin
Ursula Kroeber Le Guin is an American author. She has written novels, poetry, children's books, essays, and short stories, notably in fantasy and science fiction...
situated The Eye of the Heron in the context of her development as a writer:
"I gradually realized that my own fiction was telling me that I could no longer ignore the feminine. While I was writing The Eye of the Heron in 1977, the hero insisted on destroying himself before the middle of the book. "Hey," I said, "you can't do that, you're the hero. Where's my book?" I stopped writing. The book had a woman in it, but I didn't know how to write about women. I blundered around a while and then found some guidance in feminist theory. I got excited when I discovered feminist literary criticism was something I could read and actually enjoy. I read The Norton Book of Literature by WomenNorton Anthology of Literature by WomenThe Norton Anthology of Literature by Women: The Traditions in English, published by W. W. Norton & Company, is one of the Norton Anthology series for use in English literary studies. It is edited by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar...
from cover to cover. It was a bible for me. It taught me that I didn't have to write like an honorary man anymore, that I could write like a woman and feel liberated in doing so."
Allusions to other works
The Eye of the Heron contains the phrase: "A beginning place". Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin
Ursula Kroeber Le Guin is an American author. She has written novels, poetry, children's books, essays, and short stories, notably in fantasy and science fiction...
reused this phrase in the title of her 1980 novel The Beginning Place
The Beginning Place
The Beginning Place is a short novel by Ursula K. Le Guin, written in 1980. It was subsequently published under the title Threshold in 1986. The novel does not belong to any of the cycles for which Le Guin is well known. The story's genre is a mixture of realism and fantasy literature...
.
Allusions to history
The Eye of the Heron refers to a fictional historical Long March which is probably an allusion to any of several historical marches for social and political freedom.Release details
- 1978, in Millennial WomenMillennial WomenMillennial Women is a 1978 science fiction anthology, edited by Virginia Kidd, in which all the stories are written by women and have a female character as the primary protagonist...
, edited by Virginia KiddVirginia KiddVirginia Kidd was an American literary agent, writer and editor, particularly influential in science fiction and related fields. She represented some of science fiction's most important authors, including Ursula K. Le Guin, R.A. Lafferty, Anne McCaffrey, and Gene Wolfe...
, U.S., Delacorte Press (Dell PublishingDell PublishingDell Publishing, an American publisher of books, magazines and comic books, was founded in 1921 by George T. Delacorte, Jr.During the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, Dell was one of the largest publishers of magazines, including pulp magazines. Their line of humor magazines included 1000 Jokes, launched in...
), ISBN 978-0440055990, pp. 305, 1978, hardcoverHardcoverA hardcover, hardback or hardbound is a book bound with rigid protective covers... - 1979, in Millennial WomenMillennial WomenMillennial Women is a 1978 science fiction anthology, edited by Virginia Kidd, in which all the stories are written by women and have a female character as the primary protagonist...
, edited by Virginia KiddVirginia KiddVirginia Kidd was an American literary agent, writer and editor, particularly influential in science fiction and related fields. She represented some of science fiction's most important authors, including Ursula K. Le Guin, R.A. Lafferty, Anne McCaffrey, and Gene Wolfe...
, Dell PublishingDell PublishingDell Publishing, an American publisher of books, magazines and comic books, was founded in 1921 by George T. Delacorte, Jr.During the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, Dell was one of the largest publishers of magazines, including pulp magazines. Their line of humor magazines included 1000 Jokes, launched in...
, ISBN 978-0440163015, April 1979, serial? - 1980, in The Eye of the Heron and Other Stories, edited by Virginia KiddVirginia KiddVirginia Kidd was an American literary agent, writer and editor, particularly influential in science fiction and related fields. She represented some of science fiction's most important authors, including Ursula K. Le Guin, R.A. Lafferty, Anne McCaffrey, and Gene Wolfe...
, UK, Panther BooksPanther (publisher)Panther Books Ltd was a British publishing house especially active in the 1950s and 1960s, specialising in paperback fiction. It was established in May 1952 by Hamilton's Ltd and titles carried the line "A Panther Book" or "Panther Science Fiction" on the cover...
(Granada Publishing), ISBN 0586050892, pp. 251, 5 June 1980, paperbackPaperbackPaperback, softback or softcover describe and refer to a book by the nature of its binding. The covers of such books are usually made of paper or paperboard, and are usually held together with glue rather than stitches or staples... - 1982, The Eye of the Heron, UK, Victor Gollancz, ISBN 978-0575032118, pp. 122 or 144, 30 September 1982, hardcover
- 1982, The Eye of the Heron, U.S., Harper & Row (HarperCollinsHarperCollinsHarperCollins is a publishing company owned by News Corporation. It is the combination of the publishers William Collins, Sons and Co Ltd, a British company, and Harper & Row, an American company, itself the result of an earlier merger of Harper & Brothers and Row, Peterson & Company. The worldwide...
), ISBN 978-0060150860, pp. 179, December 1982, hardcover - 1984, The Eye of the Heron, Bantam BooksBantam BooksBantam Books is an American publishing house owned entirely by Random House, the German media corporation subsidiary of Bertelsmann; it is an imprint of the Random House Publishing Group. It was formed in 1945 by Walter B. Pitkin, Jr., Sidney B. Kramer, and Ian and Betty Ballantine...
(Random HouseRandom HouseRandom House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...
), ISBN 978-0553242584, pp. 179, 1 August 1984, paperback - 1988, The Eye of the Heron, U.S., J. Curley, ISBN 978-0893406516, pp. 246, 6 January 1988, large print, paperback,
- 1991, The Eye of the Heron, U.S., Harper Paperbacks (HarperCollinsHarperCollinsHarperCollins is a publishing company owned by News Corporation. It is the combination of the publishers William Collins, Sons and Co Ltd, a British company, and Harper & Row, an American company, itself the result of an earlier merger of Harper & Brothers and Row, Peterson & Company. The worldwide...
), ISBN 978-0061001383, pp. 198 or 208, 1 January 1991, paperback - 1991, The Eye of the Heron with The Word for World is ForestThe Word for World is ForestThe Word for World Is Forest is a science fiction novel by Ursula K. Le Guin, published in 1976 and based on her 1972 novella which was nominated for a Nebula Award.It is part of Le Guin's Hainish Cycle.-Setting:...
, UK, VGSF (Victor Gollancz), ISBN 978-0575050600, pp. 256 or 301, 6 June 1991, paperback - 2000, The Eye of the Heron, Thorndike Press (Thomson GaleThomson GaleGale is an educational publishing company based in Farmington Hills, Michigan, the United States, in the western suburbs of Detroit. It was part of the Thomson Learning division of the Thomson Corporation, a Canadian company, but became part of Cengage Learning in 2007.The company, formerly known...
), ISBN 978-0783888439, pp. 204, January 2000, large print?, hardcover - 2003, The Eye of the Heron, Starscape Books (Tor BooksTor BooksTor Books is one of two imprints of Tom Doherty Associates LLC, based in New York City. It is noted for its science fiction and fantasy titles. Tom Doherty Associates also publishes mainstream fiction, mystery, and occasional military history titles under its Forge imprint. The company was founded...
), ISBN 978-0765346124, pp. 192, September 2003, paperback