A Wizard of Earthsea

Description:

Theme:

A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin, explores the theme of

Coming of Age
Knowledge and Patience vs. Power and Pride
Identity and the Shadow Self
Duty and Destiny
Cosmic Balance

Summary:

A Wizard of Earthsea is a simple but beautiful and magical coming-of-age story of a young wizard Ged, who starts out as a brash and cocky boy who in his arrogance unwittingly releases a terrible Shadow upon the world, but who eventually grows up and succeeds in embracing the darker part of himself.

Famous Quotes:

“But need alone is not enough to set power free: there must be knowledge.”

“You have great power inborn in you, and you used that power wrongly, to work a spell over which you had no control, not knowing how that spell affects the balance of light and dark, life and death, good and evil. And you were moved to do this by pride and by hate. Is it any wonder the result was ruin?”

“Have you never thought how danger must surround power as shadow does light?”

“This sorcery is not a game we play for pleasure or for praise. Think of this: that every word, every act of our Art is said and is done either for good, or for evil. Before you speak or do you must know the price that is to pay!”

″…the truth is that as a man’s real power grows and his knowledge widens, ever the way he can follow grows narrower: until at last he chooses nothing, but does only and wholly what he must do.”

Literary awards:

- Lewis Carroll Shelf Award (1979)
- Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Fiction (1969)
- Złota Sepulka for Książka autora zagranicznego (1984)
- Margaret A. Edwards Award (2004)

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