Part III: THROUGH THE PORTAL

The portal, the crossing from one world to another, is the main device setting the plot in motion in both Enchantment and The Left Hand of Darkness. It is intrinsically linked with gender in so far as the protagonist met on the other side is of a different gender from the one crossing the portal. Moreover, as in Fantasy identity is commonly “shown to be determined by the precarious maintenance of external boundaries” (Armitt 2005, 90), the disruption triggered by the crossing of the portal forces the characters to redefine themselves. The focus of this part will first be on the way this redefinition is not only triggered but also shaped by isolation and recontextualisation. Then, a closer analysis will reveal how these two devices are also expressed in the deeper structure of the novels—around narrative focalizers and the landscape—and reach an extreme in Ai and Estraven’s winter journey.