Blog #4

If I was to decide between the "long sweep westward and so up gradually onto the plateau of ice"or "climbing the ice-cliffs a mile north" (page 227), I would have definately chosen the long way, like Estraven. I would not want to risk having someone fall, because if one of the two people breaks a bone, any hope of reaching the border is gone.

I was also wondering why the sign said "Death, Death" on page 220. Some people in class said that it forshadows someone's death later on in the book. But I don't think it foreshadows anything. I was thinking that it is just saying how nothing grows in the valley that Estraven and Genly are going to. "Nothing grows here. Rock, peddle-dump, boulder-fields, clay, mud."

Also, I thought it was interesting how Genly doesn't remember what women are like, but he remembers what men are like. He says, "In a sense, women are more alien to me than you are. With you I share one sex, anyhow..." He says that he doesn't remember what women are like because he hasn't been with any of them, but he hasn't been with any men either. I also don't know why Genly says, "I share one sex," because Estraven isn't male like Genly; he's both.