The never ending cold weather of Gethen contributes to the theme of lonliness and isolation because, where there is usually a cold environment there is hardly life as prosperous as when there is warm fair weather. The theme of isolation and lonliness contributes to the Gethenians because there is no attachment emotionally, there is only physical contact which occurs during Kemmer the only time in which they are no longer lonely. This can be seent hroughout the book due to the fact that when the kids are born there is no emotional attachment between the parents or the child with the parents, instead there's lonliness between what is supposed to be a family.
The theme of lonliness can also be seen through Genly Ai being the only kind of his species on Gethen. This adds to the theme because although he is able to make friends on Gethen there is no ther person to which he can turns to and express himself and be understood. Another example that contributes to lonliness and isolation is banishment. Banishment from your own people and if seen at all you must be killed. This leads to an even lonier lifestyle than they are accustomed to living already. The endless cold weather as well as humongous mountains that contain nothing living and infinite amounts of snow and gruesome blizzards. These are a few examples that I thought really contributed to isolation and lonliness.
I feel like Genly is a little less lonely and isolated now that he is being more open and trusting with Estraven. As he's going through this part of his story where he's with Estraven and they're going on that perilous journey, Gently has grown a lot and changed his points of view on some things seeing as how he's been through more things and most likely learned from those experiences. Especially the ones where he was face to face with death but still came out of them alive thanks to things like Estraven basically risking his own life to get Gently out of that prison.
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