The Dispossessed: Chapter 1 Summary & Analysis

The narrator describes an unimportant-looking wall. It is low and made from roughly-cut rocks mortared together somewhat haphazardly. The wall is easily climbed and is really just an “idea of a boundary,” but nevertheless the wall has made that idea “real,” and for seven generations the wall has been the most important thing on this world.

From one side of the wall, it appears to enclose a large, barren field called the Port of Anarres. There is a rocket pad, a garage, and a dormitory on the field. The dormitory is abandoned and is meant, the narrator says, to function as a quarantine. The dormitory and the landing field are enclosed by the wall and are meant to keep separate everyone who arrives from anywhere else in the galaxy. In this way, the wall “enclose[s] the universe, leaving Anarres outside, free.” From the other side, the wall appears to enclose the planet of Anarres—from this view, it is Anarres which is quarantined and squared off.

Today, some people are standing along the point where the road cuts through the wall. Often people come from the nearby city of Abbenay in order to excitedly observe a spaceship, but today there is a somber mood in the air. Members of the Defense syndicate seem to be on high alert, ready to stop anyone who might try to breach the wall from getting through, though nothing exciting or dangerous ever really happens at the landing field.

The captain of the freighter departing today—the Mindful—asks the female foreman of the Defense syndicate whether a nearby mob is after his ship. The foreman sees that a large crowd has gathered at the breach in the wall. The foreman replies in “slow and limited Iotic” that the mob is simply protesting the passenger who is scheduled to leave today. The captain asks whether the mob will try to stop the passenger from boarding, or the ship itself from taking off. The foreman asks the captain whether he can look after himself, and he replies that he can. He then instructs the foreman to get the ship’s cargo unloaded and board the passenger quickly. He pats a phallic-shaped weapon holstered on his belt and tells her that he does not want any “Oddies” giving him and his crew trouble.

The foreman, angry at the way the captain has spoken to her, tells him that liftoff will take place at fourteen hours forty and then heads off to the wall, ordering her team to clear the road and make way for the trucks that will soon come through. The mob more or less complies with her orders—the mob, the narrator says, has little experience with actually being a mob—and there are “as many emotions there are there [a]re people.”

Some members of the mob have come to kill a traitor, while others have come just to catch a glimpse of him or to yell insults at him as he leaves. A few have brought knives, but no one has a gun. The mob expected that the passenger would arrive in an armored truck, and so they hardly notice him walking up the road alone and unprotected. By the time they realize who he is, he is already halfway across the field, flanked by Defense syndics. Some members of the mob hurl rocks at the passenger, clipping his shoulder and striking one of the Defense crew in the head, killing him instantly.

As the ship enters space, the passenger feels completely isolated, as if the world has fallen out from under him. He looks up at the stranger beside him, who is speaking to him in Iotic—a foreign language, but one the passenger can understand. While the stranger fumbles with the straps holding him into his seat, dislodging them, he asks the passenger whether he was hurt by the rocks. The passenger answers that he is well. The stranger says that he is a doctor and urges the passenger to follow him. The stranger addresses the passenger as Dr. Shevek. Shevek insists that he is not a doctor—he is just Shevek.

The doctor is a short, fair, and bald-headed man. Anxious, he tells Shevek that Shevek should get to his cabin quickly—there is a high risk of infection now that Shevek, in the chaos surrounding the mob’s attack, has come in contact with individuals on board the Mindful other than the doctor. Shevek follows the doctor out of the crew lounge. He is dizzy, and his shoulder hurts. He is struck by the “awful, utter silence” onboard.

The doctor brings Shevek to a room with blank walls. Shevek, exhausted from lack of sleep the night before, recalls the events of the last few days. After seeing his partner Takver and their children off to a city called Peace-and-Plenty, he busily communicated with the people on the planet Urras, and also conferred with his Anarresti friend Bedap and other members of their syndicate about the “plans and possibilities” for Shevek’s journey there. Over the last several busy days, Shevek has felt that his tasks and errands have been in control, and that his own will—despite being what “had started it all”—has not been in effect.

The doctor examines Shevek’s shoulder—Shevek hardly remembers being struck at all—and then turns to him holding a large needle. Shevek tells the doctor, in Iotic, that he does not want the shot. The doctor insists that Shevek needs a measles vaccine. Though the disease it protects against is not present on Anarres, it is common on Urras, and potentially deadly. The doctor injects Shevek with the measles vaccine, as well as several others. Shevek silently submits to the injections, knowing deep down that he has “yielded himself up to these people,” and has abandoned his Anarresti “birthright of decision.”

In the blank room, Shevek finds himself in a “wretched void without past or future” that seems to last for hours or even days. Shevek aches from his injections and runs a fever. He sleeps a long, deep sleep, and when he awakes, is confused by the time on the clock near his bed. He wonders how, in between two worlds, it can be a certain time of day, eventually deciding that the ship must keep its own time outside the boundaries of either world, and he feels refreshed by his ability to figure this information out. He sits up and stands, testing his balance—he feels that the ship’s gravity must be weak, and begins searching his room in search of a feeling of solidity.

Touching panels on the walls opens them to reveal a toilet, sink, desk, closet, and shelves. Shevek bathes and dries himself, and then gets dressed in a set of pajamas. Not knowing what the loose-fitting garments are, he wonders if this is how everyone dresses on Urras. He tries to leave his room but finds that the door is locked. Feeling a blind rage come over him, Shevek attempts to let himself out of his room. He activates an intercom panel and shouts into it, asking to be let out, and soon the door opens—the doctor is on the other side of it. The doctor explains that the locked door was a precaution meant for Shevek’s own safety, intended to keep contamination and contagion out. Shevek says that to lock in and to lock out are the same thing, and that his safety is irrelevant to this fact.

The doctor suggests that Shevek get dressed. Shevek, indicating his pajamas, says that he is dressed already, and the doctor tells Shevek that pajamas are sleepwear. Shevek is puzzled by the idea of clothes meant just for sleeping and asks where his Anarresti clothes have gone. The doctor tells Shevek that he sent them out to be sterilized, and then opens a panel in Shevek’s room to reveal his clothes hanging wrapped in green paper. The doctor removes the paper from Shevek’s suit and tosses it in a bin. Shevek asks where the paper has gone, and when the doctor tells him that it is in the trash, Shevek marvels at the idea that paper is burned up and disposed of. As Shevek dresses, he notes the doctor placing his pajamas, too, into the bin. The doctor explains that the pajamas were service-issues, and throwing them away costs less than cleaning them. Shevek contemplates these words “the way a paleontologist looks at a fossil.”

The doctor, noticing that Shevek has no luggage, assumes that Shevek lost his belongings while running to the ship from the mob, and says he hopes that Shevek didn’t have anything too valuable with him. Shevek tells the doctor that he brought nothing along with him on the journey, explaining that he is arriving on Urras as a “beggarman”—because there are neither possessions nor money on Anarres, Shevek is emptyhanded. The doctor assures Shevek that he is not a beggar, but an honored guest, and tells him that he will receive a fantastic welcome once he is on Urras. He promises Shevek that things will be “different” on Urras than they are on the ship, and Shevek tells the doctor he has no doubt things will be different indeed.

Though the journey between Urras and Anarres—known to the Urrasti as the Moon Run—normally takes about four days, the crew has given Shevek five days on board in order to adapt to his surroundings and allow his vaccinations to take effect. The captain of the Mindful orbits Urras begrudgingly, and each time he encounters Shevek onboard speaks to him with “uneasy disrespect.” The doctor assures Shevek it is nothing personal—the captain is used to seeing all foreigners as inferior. Shevek tells the doctor that the onetime leader of the Anarresti, Odo, referred to this Urrasti phenomenon as “the creation of pseudo-species.” Shevek confesses that he had hoped the many languages and nations of Urras, as well as visitors from other solar systems, would have made the Urrasti more tolerant, but the doctor—whose name has revealed to be Kimoe—explains that there are very few interstellar visitors.

Shevek tells Kimoe that the Second Officer, too, has been regarding him with a kind of fear. Kimoe explains that the officer is deeply religious, and sees Shevek—who comes from the religion-less Anarres—as a “dangerous atheist.” When Shevek protests, Kimoe, flustered, explains that he meant there was no established religion on Anarres, not necessarily a lack of belief or spirituality. Shevek notes that the two are always flustering one another with their lack of understanding of one another’s societies, and with differences in their languages. All of their conversations are “exhausting to the doctor and unsatisfying to Shevek, yet intensely interesting to both.” Shevek sees Kimoe as his only way of understanding what truly awaits him on Urras, as there are no books on board and hardly anyone will talk to him.

Shevek asks why there are no women on board the ship, and Kimoe tells him that working aboard a space freighter is not women’s work. Kimoe asks Shevek if it is true that women and men are equals in Anarresti society in terms of social status. Shevek asks Kimoe to explain the concept of status, and Kimoe, unable to do so, presses him again and asks whether there is any distinction at all between men’s work and women’s work. Shevek asks what sex has to do with division of labor, and when the doctor asserts that men are physically stronger, Shevek counters that this fact does not matter when so much of Anarresti industry is aided by machinery. Moreover, Shevek says, it’s true that men can work faster and lift more than women, but women have longer endurance and more stamina.

Kimoe laments the loss of “feminine delicacy” and “masculine self-respect” when it comes to not dividing the sexes, and asks Shevek how the men of Anarres “constantly” pretend to lower themselves to the level of women. Shevek tells Kimoe that he is not pretending anything at all. Shevek then steers the conversation away from the topic of men and women, but continues to think about how concepts of superiority and inferiority must rule Urrasti life. He wonders if women on Urras consider men inferior, just as men consider them to be, and contemplates how this power dynamic might affect Urrasti sex lives.

Shevek wonders at the fact that he is now, on this new world, ignorant about all matters of sex. He considers the sensual pleasures of the softness of his mattress on board the ship, and the almost erotic smoothness of the curves of the furniture in his bunk. He decides that he will stop worrying about his ignorance until he gets to Urras, confident that he will figure out things there soon enough.

As Shevek prepares to strap in for descent, Kimoe comes to his cabin to check on the progress of Shevek’s many immunizations. Kimoe gives Shevek a pill that will “pep [him] up” for landing, and then says farewell. He tells Shevek that it has been a great privilege to meet him, and to have been the recipient of Shevek’s deep kindness. Shevek shakes Kimoe’s hand, hoping aloud that the two will meet him again. Shevek calls Kimoe “brother” in Pravic, only realizing after the doctor has left that Kimoe does not understand the Anarresti language.

Once the ship lands, Shevek is hurried from his bunk and led down a ramp, and he feels a strange air touch his face as he disembarks the spaceship. He stumbles off the ramp onto the Urrasti earth, noting the “broad, grey” evening light all around him. The air around him is mild and fragrant, and he recognizes it as “the air of home.” Shevek realizes he is being photographed and filmed, billed as “The First Man from the Moon.” Newscasters ask Shevek for a statement, but before he can give one, he is hurried into a limousine waiting nearby.

As the car approaches the Ieu Eun university in the city of Nio Esseia, Shevek’s handlers warn him that there are a great number of people waiting to meet him—the university’s president, its chancellor, and many others. Shevek is rushed inside, where in a great hall he attends a gathering in his honor. Hundreds of people are in the room, all of whom are bald—even the women—and have adorned their totally-shaved bodies and heads with sumptuous clothing and ornate jewelry. The women’s gowns bare their breasts, while the men’s tunics and trousers are made of brightly colored fabric and cascading lace.

The President of the Senate of the Nation of A-Io makes a speech, toasting a “new era of brotherhood between the Twin Planets,” and citing Shevek himself as the harbinger of this new era. Shevek is introduced to politicians, scientists, and innumerable people of high distinction.

When the party is over, Shevek’s escorts bring him to a different building, where they show him a room which is his and his alone. Shevek, unfamiliar with the concept of possession, at first believes the room will be shared with roommates, but soon realizes that the entire giant space is just for him. Shevek tells one of his handlers that he does not know his name, and the man introduces himself as Saio Pae. Shevek recognizes the man’s name, and tells him that he read some of his scientific articles back on Anarres.

Pae brings Shevek a glass of water, while the other two men bring Shevek over to sit at the fireplace. While Shevek drinks from the golden-rimmed water glass, he observes his handlers, who eye him with a “protective, respectful, proprietary” attitude. Shevek smiles at the men and asks them what they plan to do with their anarchist now that they have him on their planet.