Abstract
The spider was one of Le Guin’s principal symbols which she used in her novels, short stories, poems and essays. Unlike Tolkien’s spiders—which are uniformly huge, black, predatory, devouring and feminized— Le Guin’s various spiders, rather, exhibit an interplay of male and female, dark and light. Le Guin’s male spider figures largely derive their characteristics from negative medieval European perceptions, while her female spider figures are largely derived from positive Native American legends of Spider Woman, the mother and nurturer of humankind. Among her multiple interpretations of the spider is also a naturalistic one of the web-spinner and innate artist, an image which seemed particularly meaningful to Le Guin, the writer, for both of their crafts required the weaving together of disparate threads to create a new and artistic pattern.
Publication Date
2024-2025
Volume
1
Issue
1
Copyright
©2024 Kris Swank
Recommended Citation
Swank, Kris
(2024)
"Weavers and Deceivers: Spiders in Le Guin’s Writings,"
UKL: The Journal of Ursula K. Le Guin Studies: Vol. 1, Article 1.
Available at:
https://scholarworks.uni.edu/ukl/vol1/iss1/1
