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The people of the planet Urras, a paradise-like world of plenty which is marred by deep social and economic inequality. The Urrasti upper classes enjoy lives of wealth and privilege, while the lower classes, brimming with political unrest and anger over social injustice, stage attacks and organize underground anarchist networks. Urrasti are forbidden from setting foot on Anarres, and so despite the desire of many Urrasti to defect from their world, they are firmly stuck.
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Urrasti Term Timeline in The Dispossessed
The timeline below shows where the term Urrasti appears in The Dispossessed. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1
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...
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...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...
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...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...
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Chapter 2
...A-Io and the disease-ridden Thu were shown side by side to contrast the inequality in Urrasti society.
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The boys speculate that Urrasti society must be more or less the same now as it was in the footage,...
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The boys talk disgustedly about Urrasti society, though Tirin wonders if all Urrasti are as bad as they seem to be...
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...other societies, Tirin argues, they should be able to go to Urras and help the Urrasti—however, they are forbidden to. Shevek argues that the word “forbidden” is not “organic,” and that...
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Chapter 3
...years or so during which Shevek never wrote, and Sabul kept in touch with the Urrasti scientists on his behalf. Shevek tells the men that Sabul is the senior member of...
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Atro notes that no “offworlders” anywhere else in the galaxy can keep up with Urrasti physics. Atro warns Shevek not to let offworld theories sidetrack him, and urges him to...
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...for a few days. He asks the scientists to bring him books of history and Urrasti culture, stating that he wants to learn, not ignore, Urras’s past, because he believes that...
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...Shevek entertains a host of scientists who come to visit him. He reads books of Urrasti history, and gazes out his window, listening to the songbirds just outside. Noting that he...
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...“lure and compulsion of profit.” Though Shevek longs to talk with some of the “common” Urrasti people, there is never enough time to do so, and his escorts are always hurrying...
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Chapter 4
...eight times a year from Urras are considered a necessary evil by most Anarresti. The Urrasti bring fossil oils, petroleum, electronics that Anarresti manufacturing cannot create, and other goods. They take...
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...there under two or three year contracts. It wasn’t until the year 771, when the Urrasti government collapsed, that the Council of World Government gave the Moon—Anarres—to the Odonians to prevent...
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...must learn Iotic, the language of Urras, in order to read the major works of Urrasti physics—no one has translated them into Pravic yet. Sabul hands Shevek a book of Ioti...
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As Sabul prepares to leave, he tells Shevek not to share the Urrasti texts with anyone. Shevek is confused by the directive to acquire knowledge which he is...
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...is soon able to understand the physics textbooks Sabul provided him with. He admires the Urrasti physicists, who are far ahead of anyone on Anarres.
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As Shevek delves deeper and deeper into the Urrasti texts, he grows more and more hermitic, neglecting all social and communal aspects of life...
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After half a year at the Institute, Shevek presents Sabul with a critique of the Urrasti physicist Atro’s work. Sabul orders Shevek to translate the paper into Iotic, so that it...
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Chapter 5
...papers and receives a salary from the university. He understands how important wealth is to Urrasti life. He finds the exchange of money banal, though, and even frightening at times. After...
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...two discuss physics, genealogy, and history. Atro recalls the first time Cetians—the race of the Urrasti and Anarresti people—who had contact with the Hainish people, humanoid aliens from far away in...
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...that because he is talking to the same kind of people over and over again—wealthy Urrasti who are perhaps outside of his sphere of influence—the government has no need of intervening,...
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...Oiie has achieved through restraint, in contrast to the luxurious and excessive aesthetics of many Urrasti.
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Chapter 6
...with him. As a result, Shevek begins spending his time writing letters to Atro, the Urrasti physicist, as well as other mathematicians and scientists down on Urras. Many of his letters...
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Chapter 9
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...
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Chapter 11
The Urrasti Council of World Governments has had its seat in Roddared, the old capital of Avan...
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Keng admits that she knows almost nothing about Anarres—she only knows what the Urrasti have told her. She believes Anarres to be a “rather unimportant [but] interesting experiment,” and...
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...that being sent home to Anarres would satisfy his own desires as well as the Urrasti’s—“dead anarchists make martyrs, but absent ones can be forgotten.” Shevek apologizes for not having anything...
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Chapter 12
...they can stop reigniting old quarrels. His syndicate has received an interesting message from the Urrasti country of Benbili—a group called the Odonian Society has reached out to the Anarresti, asking...
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...a society without laws: with total irresponsibility towards the society’s welfare.” Rulag believes that if Urrasti come to Anarres, they will dismantle Anarresti society and occupy the planet, ending the Anarresti...
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Bedap argues that sheltering the Urrasti will not make them believe that the experiment of Anarres has failed, but rather will...
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...stole research from him, and also refused to inform Shevek that Shevek won a major Urrasti prize. She asks Shevek what he said to Sabul, and Shevek replies that he told...
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...tells Shevek that he should go to Urras. Her voice is harsh and firm. The Urrasti want him there, she says, and he clearly wants to go. She knows he needs...
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Chapter 13
...eminently livable for its inhabitants. Shevek notes that the style is not opulent in the Urrasti way or austere in the Anarresti, but strikes a balance between the two. The Hainish...
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...him that the Terms of the Closure of the Settlement of Anarres do not permit Urrasti to land anywhere other than the port, but that because Ketho is Hainish and not...
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