Miten kertoa maailmansa uudeksi?

Ursula K. Le Guinin Lavinian revisionistinen epäilijä

• Anna Salmi Oulun yliopisto

DOI: https://doi.org/10.30665/av.74889

Abstract

How to write one’s world anew? The subject of revision and doubt in Ursula Le Guin’s Lavinia

In her novel Lavinia (2008), Ursula Le Guin tracks the possibilities of feminist myth revision. It gives its protagonist, a minor character in Vergil’s Aeneid, a voice and an agency of her own while situating her within the inescapable rules of the storyworld. Lavinia makes use of the strategies of feminist historiographic metafiction. Importantly, it also challenges traditional patterns of agency in fantasy narration. These narrative strategies help the heroine in re-defining her values and choices.

My article discusses the evolving subjectivity of Lavinia as she becomes aware of the contingency of the heroic myth she lives in. Her Bildung goes on to ironize the themes of formation of one’s true self as well as the conflict-based quest for finding it. Both a centre of her story and a puppet in another’s world, her revisionist position becomes that of doubt and resistance of ultimate truths. While accepting the openness of her narrative, she nonetheless expresses a yearning for the good and the right.