The Dispossessed: Chapter 9 Summary & Analysis

The morning after Vea’s party, Shevek is awakened by nearby chapel bells. He feels sick and shaky, and even after a long bath he still feels vile and miserable. He has never shamed himself as badly as he did the night before, and now “look[s] at his [entire] life in the light of shame.”

On Anarres, doing his physics research—the work Shevek was called to do though it did not benefit Anarresti society in its time of need—was a rebellion in and of itself. On Urras, however, this act of rebellion is a luxury. Being a physicist in A-Io serves the State, rather than mankind, society, or truth, as he had hoped to do on Anarres. Shevek realizes that A-Io owns him now, and there is no hope for bargaining with the all-powerful State for the good of his people. Shevek has made a mistake in coming to Urras, he realizes—one that will haunt him, perhaps, for the rest of his life.

Shevek resolves to no longer do physics for the good of the Ioti state, and wonders if they will let him go home if he stops working. As he thinks about this, he begins to long for Anarres. He realizes that the State will not let him go as he has not “paid his way” by delivering the General Temporal Theory, and nor is there anywhere to run. Shevek sits in his room, wondering where to go, when suddenly there is a knock at the door.

Efor comes in with Shevek’s breakfast and sets it down. As he leaves, Pae comes in to check on Shevek. Pae, seeing newspapers on the table, laments that they will not be able to show Shevek the rest of Urras with all the unrest abroad: Ioti and Thuvian forces have clashed in Benbili, and are now fighting. Pae updates Shevek with the latest news: A-Io has “liberated” the capital of Benbili and plans to reinstall their military dictator, but Thu still holds Benbili’s two eastern provinces. The Thuvian army and the Ioti army will continue fighting their proxy war in Benbili, so as not to bring “barbarism” within the borders of A-Io.

Pae explains that because the country is at war, some “restrictions” will soon come into effect—travel will be limited, publishing papers will take longer, and Shevek will be prevented from leaving the University campus without permission from the Chancellor. Pae excuses himself, but before leaving, asks Shevek if he has seen an article in a Space Research Foundation paper—an engineer has developed plans for something called an ansible, an instantaneous communication device. According to the engineer’s research, if a temporalist can work out the necessary equations, engineers will be able to build a device and put it to use perhaps within weeks.

After Pae leaves, Shevek tells Efor to turn away any visitors and tell them he is hard at work. Shevek knows he cannot share what he does not have, and so he goes to work on filling in the cracks in the General Temporal Theory. For days, Shevek works and refuses visitors, staring at his calculations and waiting for a breakthrough. One afternoon Shevek sits alone, thinking about Pae. Shevek sees Pae as his enemy, though it was Pae who gave Shevek the translations of alien Terran work on relativity which could potentially be essential to finalizing the temporal theory. Shevek finds it ironic that he has obtained what he needed for his research not from a friend, mentor, or brother, but from an enemy.

As Shevek considers Terran theories of relativity, he experiences a major breakthrough in his own work, and realizes that he will soon be able to complete the temporal theory, which he now sees as overwhelmingly simple and clear. Shevek is joyful and yet overcome with fear—his life is at last fulfilled, and he is full of an exceedingly strange feeling. As the moment passes and Shevek regains calm, he lets the moment go by and does not attempt to possess it.

Shevek paces around his room, marveling at how now that he has “seen the foundations of the universe,” he can see little difference between Urras and Anarres. There are no more abysses, no more walls, and no more exiles. Shevek goes to bed and sleeps for ten hours, and then awakes thinking of equations that might express the breakthrough he has experienced. That afternoon he goes to class, and then to dinner, and then comes back to his room and works. For eight days thereafter, he spends at least twelve hours a day at his desk, often turning his eyes to the window and looking up at Anarres, the Moon.

In the morning, Efor brings Shevek breakfast. Shevek is running a fever, and Efor suggests calling a doctor. Shevek refuses, and Efor offers to tell visitors that Shevek is still hard at work. Shaky, weak, and panicky, Shevek has become afraid of Pae and Oiie, and paranoid that the police will raid his room to take the General Temporal Theory. Efor tells Shevek that Shevek can trust him, then brings him a glass of water and leaves, shutting and locking the door.

Over the next few days Efor cares for Shevek, bringing him food and water and helping to lower his fever. Shevek tells Efor he should have been a doctor, and asks if he ever works with the sick. Efor says he doesn’t—he doesn’t want to get mixed up in the business of hospitals and “die in one of them pest-holes.” Efor says that lower-class hospitals are as old and filthy as a “trashman’s ass-hole.” He reveals that he had a daughter die in a rat-infested hospital, and that though Efor once hoped to be an army medic, he was drafted as an orderly instead. As Efor continues to tell Shevek about his past, Shevek has trouble picturing the horrors of extreme poverty, though they are seemingly second-nature to Efor.

Efor tells Shevek to get some rest, but Shevek insists he is not tired. Efor asks Shevek if things are different on Anarres. Shevek concedes that they are: no one is ever out of work, and nobody ever goes hungry while another person eats. He describes the great famine, though, and admits that it is “not all milk and honey on Anarres.” Efor retorts that at least on Anarres there are no owners.

The next evening, Atro calls on Shevek. He warns Shevek against wearing himself out by working too hard, and updates him on the war in Benbili—it has become “a large-scale operation.” When Shevek asks if Ioti approve of the war, Atro replies that it doesn’t matter—A-Io is fighting for its status as a world power, and would not let popular opinion stand in its way. The poor—the people who must fight in Ioti wars—are “used to mass conscription,” and Atro argues that war is “what they’re for.” Shevek accuses A-Io of reaching the heights of power by “climbing up on a pile of dead children,” and Atro accuses Shevek of being soft, and as an Odonian refusing to consider “the virile side of life, blood and steel [and] love of the flag.”

After Atro leaves, Efor comes to collect Shevek’s dinner tray. Shevek hands Efor a slip of paper—on it is written the question, “Is there a microphone in this room?” Efor looks toward the fireplace. Shevek asks—again by note—if there is a microphone in the bedroom, and Efor shakes his head. The two of them file into the bedroom and then the bathroom, where they run the water and begin to speak freely. Shevek shows Efor the note he found in his coat pocket which asked him to “join with his brothers,” and asks Efor if he knows where it came from. Efor says he knows who it came from. Shevek asks how he can get to the sender, but Efor tells him it is “dangerous business.” 

Shevek begs Efor to tell him where to go and who to ask for. Efor tells Shevek that attempting to run away is a trap—Shevek will never be able to hide on the streets of A-Io. Efor says he has been approached many times by members of the unpropertied classes who want to recruit Shevek to their cause, but Efor has attempted to protect Shevek from getting involved in any trouble, as he has come to like him a great deal after working for him for eight months. Efor wants to Shevek to be able to go home freely, and escape from the “prison” of Urras.

Shevek tells Efor that he cannot return to Anarres until he meets the people searching for him. Efor tells Shevek to seek out Tuio Maedda in Joking Lane, at the grocery in Old Town. Shevek is forbidden from leaving campus, but Efor suggests that if he takes a taxi he might be able to escape anonymously. Efor gives Shevek some money, calls him a taxi, and tells him the driver will be at the back door of the dormitory in five minutes. Shevek asks Efor if Efor will be blamed when Shevek’s absence is noticed, but Efor vows to cover for Shevek for as long as he can.

Shevek takes a taxi away from the University, then transfers to a subway train to Old Town. Old Town is dark and dingy, greasy with rain and dilapidated. Shevek asks many people where Joking Lane is, as it is not on any map, but the downtrodden poor of Old Town will not answer him. Shevek continues on, encountering homeless men and beggars and becoming more and more rattled. He stops in a pawn shop, where he tells the proprietor that he is the scientist from Anarres and must get to Joking Lane that evening. The proprietor agrees to take Shevek to the grocery, and the two set out together. 

At Tuio Maedda’s grocery store, Shevek is led to a back room where he meets Tuio face to face. Tuio asks Shevek what he is doing here, and Shevek replies that he is looking for help—he escaped from the “jail” of Ieu Eun University in search of the lower classes because they seem like “people who might help each other.” Shevek tells Tuio that he has something the State needs—a scientific theory—and that he didn’t understand, when he came from Anarres, that any of his ideas would be the property of the state. Shevek wants to get out of Urras, but cannot go home, so he has come to Tuio because Tuio does not need Shevek’s science, and perhaps doesn’t like the government, either.

Tuio tells Shevek that he will shelter him for the night. Tuio also informs Shevek that an underground Syndicalist-Libertarian faction has planned a demonstration which will take place three days from now, and will protest the draft and the wartime rise in taxes. Tuio says that the city needs a strike, and that their movement could use an Odo.

Tuio tells Shevek that Anarresti society has been a beacon of hope to the Urrasti lower classes for generations—a common good-luck wish is “May you get reborn on Anarres.” Anarres is an “idealist’s dream,” and Tuio explains that the reason Shevek has been so well-hidden at the university is because Shevek himself is an idea—and a dangerous one at that. One of the girls who works in the grocery pipes in to say that Odo was only an idea, but Shevek is proof. Tuio asks Shevek to join their nonviolent demonstration, and Shevek agrees to be of use however he can be. He offers to write a statement in the local paper, and Tuio says that they’ll get his words in the newspaper—they’ll hide him from sight or harm, but let every man in A-Io know that Shevek has joined the workers’ revolution.

Shevek hides out in attics and basements over the next several days, and Tuio brings him copies of the papers that have published his manifesto so that he can look it over. He does not read it closely, however, and instead spends most of his time puzzling over the writings in his personal notebook, which contains coded equations for the General Temporal Theory. Looking at them now, though, Shevek barely even understands them.

At the demonstration, Shevek is grateful to be outside after having been locked away for so many days. He is thrilled by the thousands of people in the crowd marching and singing together, and is moved to tears by the rebels’ passion.

A hundred thousand people or more are in the Capitol Square for the protest—more people, Shevek realizes, than live in all of Abbenay. Shevek stands with Tuio Maedda and his group on the steps of the Directorate, and delivers a speech. He speaks of suffering and brotherhood, poverty and humility, and assures the gathered poor and downtrodden that though they have nothing to give, and have only empty hands, neither on Anarres do the people have anything of their own. He tells the gathered rebels that “if it is Anarres [they] want, [they] must come to it with empty hands.” The revolutionaries must be the revolution, he says. As his speech draws to a close, police helicopters draw near.

The helicopters begin to fire, focusing on the people standing on or near the steps of the Directorate. The crowd is quickly full of dead and injured people, and many flee into the Directorate to seek shelter. Soldiers arrive, though, marching up the steps and shooting blindly, striking even the already-dead with their bullets.

Shevek drags a man alongside him as he flees Capitol Square. He tells the man to sit down on the steps of a basement entry to a warehouse. Shevek tries the door, but it is locked. Shevek smashes the lock, opens the door, and looks inside—the basement is empty. Shevek helps his companion into the basement and searches for water. When he returns, his companion has fainted, and Shevek examines the man’s wound. The man’s hand has been nearly blasted off by bullets, and Shevek attempts to wrap the hand. Shevek does not know this man’s name, but knows by his white armband that he is a Socialist Worker.

Shevek tended to such wounds during his time at the mills in the Southwest, back on Anarres, but there was always a surgeon to operate—Shevek cannot help this man any more, and decides to go for help. On the street, though, a man warns Shevek that police are approaching, and Shevek returns to the basement. After a few hours, Shevek looks out the window and sees soldiers shouting orders to one another. He recalls Atro, months ago, explaining military organization—Shevek had exclaimed that it was a “coercive mechanism,” but Atro had waxed poetic about the worth of warfare. Now, Shevek understands why the army is organized as it is—its only purpose is to kill large quantities of unarmed men and women. Shevek’s companion lies still but moaning, and Shevek, unable to bear the man’s pain, hushes him.

Shevek stays with his companion for three nights, during which they hear sporadic fighting. Shevek considers going outside to the police, but his companion warns him that they will only get shot. On the third night, Shevek’s companion dies as the two of them lie side by side for warmth. When Shevek wakes in the morning, his companion has gone stiff with death, and the streets outside are silent.