Queering the Shadow

This article aims to challenge the dominant readings of Ursula K. Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea (1968) that are reliant on Le Guin’s interests in their approach. Focusing on Jungian readings, it uses queer theorist Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s framework of paranoid and reparative reading to diagnose both the dominant critical approaches and to read the novel itself. Consequently, it will read A Wizard of Earthsea as a text oriented around the escape of a dominant episteme, establishing a position where an individual can repair their relationship not only to themselves but also to the surrounding culture. This analysis will ultimately provide insight into fantasy’s potential as a reparative mode.