The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. LeGuin Essay

Racism was a major issue during Ellen’s time period, and remains so today. In Ellen Foster, Gibbons uses Ellen’s experience with Starletta and other African-Americans to suggest the idea that racism can be transcended by looking at oneself before judging others. She communicates this through several elements of the story, including motifs, characters, the setting, and the overall plots.

Coates says,“I tell you now that the question of how one should live within a black body, within a country lost in the Dream, is the question of my life, and the pursuit of this question, I have found, ultimately answers itself” (12). Black people begin to abandon their natural demeanor and their heritage to become accepted in this culture. They will change their tone of voice to be able to have “normal” conversations or get a job in this country. If a white man was told to change how he acted, or societal pressures forced him into acting a certain way, we would never hear the end of it. There would be an uproar because we are being forced to be something we are not. This is exactly what is happening with the black man. According to Coates, this is the problem with the dream and I agree wholeheartedly.

A personally interesting incident in the book is when Howard looks in the mirror after changing the color of his skin and sees a black man looking back, Howard panics due to the fact that could have lost his identity. As he decides to explore the Negro world, Griffin anticipates racial oppression, poverty hardship and prejudice based on racial grounds. The extent of the prejudice shocks Griffin, which serves to symbolize the prejudice and discrimination that the black community during the Jim Crow era. The next incident in the book that is personally interesting is the switching of races

Segregation had had many effects on the black nation, to the point that it started building up ones character, “See the depressing clouds of inferiority begin to form in her little mental sky and see her begin to distort her little personality by unconsciously developing a bitterness towards white people”, King shows readers that segregation is even affecting little children, that it is starting to build up a young girls character and is contributing to the child developing hatred “bitterness” towards the white Americans. King makes readers imagine a black cloud settling in a young girls brain mentally, when instead she should have an image of a colorful blue sky with a rainbow, isn’t that suppose to be part of a 6 year-old’s imagination? King gives readers an image of destruction civil disobedience had created in the black community, especially in the young innocent little children.

In contrast to John’s newly crafted dreams, Alfonso, Alexandra’s aunt, also had dreams that did not become reality. She relates her love story and dream of a future with Gustavo Madero. She eventually concludes: “What is constant in history is greed and foolishness and a love for blood and this is a thing that even God-who knows all that can be known-seems powerless to change” (239). According to Alfonso, dreams are “foolishness”. Furthermore, if the all-knowing God can not change destiny then dreams certainly have no role in the crafting of destiny. God’s inability to change destiny, further highlights conflict between John Grady’s destiny and his aspirations. Through out the novel he makes decisions based on his dreams. Alfonso insinuates the necessity for John to acknowledge the consequences of his actions as a result of his fantasies: “…if it were fate that ruled our houses it could perhaps be flattered or reasoned” (231). The decisions that John makes based on his fantasies affect his destiny.

Racism is a big part of this book. It shows the absurdity of what people thought back then, which is an important lesson. It is important for us to learn what people’s views used to be, and how important it is not to go back to that mindset.

The novel The Garies and their Friends is a realistic examination of the complex psychology of blacks who try to assimilate through miscegenation and crossing the color barrier by “passing as white.” Frank J. Webb critiques why blacks cannot pass as being white through the characters Mr. Winston and Clarence Jr.

What I also found to be quite interesting and perhaps a weakness of the film, was the sense of performative racism that four of the main white characters utilize and how the makers of the film appeal to such a phenomenon through symbolisms as well. In the movie, there seems to be two main kinds of racism the characters exhibit, one of them being blatant racism and another being subtle racism through microaggressions. For example, Katherine experiences blatantly racist and misogynistic behavior from her coworkers, especially from Paul Stafford, the lead engineer (making groupthink much easier) and Ruth, the only other woman working in the office. On the other hand, Al Harrison and John Glenn appeal to the subtler sides of racism and performative white pity, Glenn going out of his way to shake the hands of the computers as the film attempted to paint a positive, “not-all-whites” picture of inclusion, acceptance and tolerance, a kind of racism that almost all of the white people in the film come to, by its end. Examples of this can be seen in scenes like the one in which Al Harrison smashes down the “coloreds” and “whites” restroom signs as if implying that doing so will abolish all racial inequalities with a couple of blows of blunt force. One could infer it seems, that paired with the groundbreaking stories of these three women, white people being decent human

Is there such a place where ideal perfection exists? Can our views on social, political, and moral issues ever concur with one another? The answer to these questions is simple - no. The world we live in today is full of social, political, and moral imperfections that hinder our ability to live a life free of evil. In Ursula LeGuin's The Lathe of Heaven, this imperfect lifestyle is the foundation on which the desire for a utopian society sits. The American Heritage Dictionary defines reality as the totality of all things possessing actuality, existence, or essence . For George Orr, the protagonist in the novel, his dreams actually become reality. Through his gift of effective dreaming,

What will happen in a couple of days? a month ? a year? or twenty years from now? The answer is not known. Author Ursula K. LeGuin gives us the answers about the future from her point of view which can be seen through her article Science Fiction and the Future and her novel, The Lathe of Heaven. Ursula K. LeGuin believes people try to control the future they may have when in reality they have no control over the future. Every single day we see examples of people trying to control the future and see the situation fail every single time.

In the film we see issues of race and racism as being a "white" problem, contrary to what we see in society as race and racism as being a "colored" problem. Victor and David Lee both make the statement that to be "American" is to be white. In society we usually see racism as individual acts of violence or discrimination towards others, but as David Lee points out, racism is an invisible system conferring unsought racial dominance by am oppressive group, mainly whites. "White power secures its dominance by seeming not to be anything in particular" (Lipsitz, 135). Victor says how he could get things his mother couldn't get just because his skin was a lighter black than hers. Lee then brings in a picture of Victor and his mother where the difference in skin color can be seen. Lee often brings in pictures of the participants of when they were young, and when they are with their families. This helps the viewers to draw more of identification with the characters.

When George turns 18 he feels as though he has explore the land, so he simply packs up and leaves, without a clue of where he’s heading. After a train ride or two he ends up in Mexico where he is all confused because whites and blacks are eating and talking together, and catching the same buses and trains together as well. After living and dealing with segregation all his life this is something completely different for him and he struggles to adjust to the new style of life.

The man recognizes how easy it is to surrender to the mirage of good dreams, where the richness of color and variety of detail provides a dangerous contrast to the grey monotony of both his and his son’s reality. Often, he awakens “in the black and freezing waste out of softly colored worlds of human love, the songs of birds, the sun,” (272). Those dreams are an invitation to rest in some nonexistent land. The man recognizes this as a dangerous temptation so he forces himself to wake up and face the cruel world rather than deteriorate in a world that no longer exists. His philosophy is that “the right dreams for a man in peril were dreams of peril and all else was the call of languor and of death.” (18). Only bad dreams belong in his mind because all good dreams are a reminder of valuable days that cannot be lived

Georges inaction to prevent Haber from using effective dreaming on his own and simultaneously Habers action of doing so is the climax of the book. While George did advise Haber to consult with the aliens, who have more experience then humans “At dreaming - at what dreaming is an aspect of.” (161) However, Haber quickly blows this advise off as George being psychotic. George then leaves, allowing Haber to have his own effective dream - nearly destroying the world.

     There are two conflicts that coexist in this short story. On a minor scale, the conflict lies between the main character and her inability to accept her true stance towards the issue of racism. This is quickly identified through her obsession with insuring the host of how accepting she is of the African America race, when in reality her comments say otherwise. Looking at the big picture, such a problem doesn’t only exist in the mind of the lady with the pink velvet poppies, but in many of society’s members. After the eradication of the institution of slavery, many of its former followers still rejected the African American people and their new place in the American society. The real tragedy lies in the narrow-minded views that still exist today in the minds of many individuals. In this way, the lady with the pink velvet poppies is simply a caricature of people that share her similar views; making the story’s conflict one that the humans of the 21st century continue