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영어

This science fiction sets its time to several centuries in the future. Terrans establishes a logging colony and military base on Athshe, a forest-covered planet. The plot weaves round conflict and violence that occur between Terrans and native Athsheans. In the final confrontation, the natives prevails and the Terran colonists retreat to Earth. WWF invites a cultural interpretation beyond its superficial story line. The Athshean concept of ‘dream-time' metaphorizes yin, darkness or sense which counters the forces of ‘world-time,' yang, light or reason. The Athshean culture roots in the interdependent relationship of the two forces while the West has historically privileged the latter forces. Because the western culture tends to assign goodness to light or reason, it justifies its oppression and exploitation of marginalized people and their culture. That is why colonialists like Davidson log the Athshean woods, exploit the natives' labor, and reveal sexist abuse without any stricken-conscience. In short, Le Guin criticizes cultural paranoia rooted in the westerners' mind and warns its mass- destructive practice in terms of speciesism, racism and sexism. In other words, she advocates ecological preservation, cultural diversity, and racial & sexual equality as much as she sympathizes with the Athshean society in which dream-time and world-time are well-balanced.