Ursula K. Le Guin's short story "Sur" lends itself easily to feminist literary criticism. As an alternative history fantasy of polar exploration, the story tells of nine women who arrived at the South Pole more than a year before Roald Amundsen's all-male team conquered the Pole on December 14, 1911 (Encarta, Amundsen article). However, the women are Spanish-speaking (presumably of European rather than Native American descent, although this is implied rather than explicit in Le Guin's text), Argentine, Peruvian, and Chilean, which also opens up the possibility of postcolonial commentary. plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay The feminist critical angle is interesting not only because women felt forced to hide their expedition from the rest of the world, out of fear of the public. criticism or perhaps even active impediments to the pursuit of one's goal, but also due to the hiding of women in their private and family sphere, whose powers would have equally censored their journey. Public and private oppression were of different, but equal, strength, and imposed a level of subterfuge on women explorers that required secrecy not only before and during their expedition, but also for subsequent generations. The postcolonial critical approach is not quite that simple. Since there are few references to the First People peoples in this tale, the overt oppression by the conquering culture of Spain over the subjugated peoples of South America is not the subject of in-depth analysis. But the fact that the women are from Argentina, Peru, and Chile, traditionally considered "technologically developing nations [of] ... South America" ​​(Tyson 420), makes this an example of self-consciously pro-colonialist but ideologically conflictual. , as there are references to the First World, and an obvious deference to the dominance of those countries; but there seems to be little criticism of this state of affairs. The very fact that the women are from the Third World, regardless of their feelings towards First World domination, makes this piece conflicting.1 There is a minor degree of double consciousness ("a consciousness or way of perceiving the world that is divided between two antagonistic cultures: that of the colonizer and that of the indigenous community" Tyson 421) between the wisdom of the indigenous culture, to which women apparently do not belong but have appropriated some skills, and a greater degree of double awareness between their own Spanish culture South America and the culture of the dominant Europeans in their field of exploration. What will be explored in this article are the ways in which South American women were oppressed and how they privately subverted their oppressors through their methods of exploration. secret and completely anti-patriarchal expedition. The principles of feminist and postcolonial criticism contain overlapping concepts:…[There are] a number of similarities in the theoretical issues that concern feminist and postcolonial critics. For example, the patriarchal subjugation of women is analogous to the colonial subjugation of indigenous peoples. And the resulting devaluation of women and colonized peoples poses very similar problems for both groups in terms of achieving an independent personal and group identity;…And seeking ways of thinking, speaking and creating that are not dominated by the ideology of the oppressor. (Tyson 423) This article will attempt to show that the ways in which the explorers' oppression manifested itself were tied to colonial ideology almost as much as sexist ideology. The story begins with an example of the type of coincidence orluck, rather than accepted social and economic methods, which allowed the group of women to plan and carry out their expedition. The unnamed narrator, who we know to be married, later has children and a cousin named Juana, manages to secure funding through a "benefactor", also never named, through the network of a friend of Juana's in Chile. This benefactor , who we suspect is a woman but never know, gives the women money to purchase expensive equipment and supplies and procures the services of a Chilean government ship, the Yelcho. This powerful and wealthy person requires nothing more from the women than their willingness to undertake the journey and is complicit in their mission of complete secrecy on both sides. Therefore, this expedition is completely private and, even if the benefactor is male, a completely female success. This sort of "sisterhood" unites women to protect them from family dishonor ("embarrassment or unpleasant notoriety so as to bring unsuspecting husbands and children" my italics, Le Guin 377), and specifically from the dishonor of the male members of their own family, but also complete shielding from the outside world. The fact that the mission had to be undertaken in the utmost secrecy is directly linked to the kind of sexist oppression that would never have allowed a group of women from the 1900s to leave for the South Pole. There was no possibility that the women would have could have undertaken the journey differently. There would be no public fundraising, as there would have been in those days for a National Geographic expedition or an expedition for the Royal Society. A women's expedition, if it had not been actively discouraged, would have attracted only derision and, perhaps, even disinterest. Once they decide to go on the expedition, the women struggle with family obligations that would not have plagued Mr. Amundsen or Captain Scott's all-male crew. They worry about "A sick parent; an anxious husband beset by the worries of business; a child at home with only ignorant or incompetent servants to care for him: these are not responsibilities to be lightly set aside" (Le Guin 379). The fact that women are required to put family concerns first, rather than their own desire for fulfillment or self-aggrandizement, is a direct form of sexist oppression. Even when they have selected their crew ready for "hard work, risk, and deprivation" (379), one, Mary, must stay at home and care for a sick husband. One might wonder whether Maria's husband, if the situation were reversed, would have given up a trip to the Pole if his wife had been ill.2 The private nature of the expedition, (for which the women used the excuse of going to a Bolivian convent , or Paris for the required six months - two acceptable female activities; praying and shopping!) was held by the explorers, also, for a strange kind of ego protection against male European explorers they had never met. They protect "Mr. Amundsen" by leaving no footprints at the Pole and leaving nothing behind. They know that he "would be terribly embarrassed and disappointed" (392) not only to know, it is implied, that someone reached the Pole before him, but also a group of women who arrived there by sled without the aid of dogs or charters of any Royal Society. The male scientific and exploratory ego, as these intrepid female polar travelers claim, is such a fragile and easily broken thing, that they dare not trumpet their extraordinary achievements to what would, they probably fear, be disappointment and perhaps even disbelief. world. "On the other hand, the underside of heroism is often rather sad; the women and servants know this.They also know that heroism may not be any less real for that. But success is less than men think. What is great is the sky, the earth, the sea, the soul." (Le Guin 383). Here the narrator explains her feelings regarding the "success" of her group of women who set foot for the first time on Antarctic soil. The group did not set out, as Amundsen's and Scott's groups did, with the aim of reaching the South Pole. In fact, when the women reached it (and not all of them did), Zoe was turned back because her friends were ill, although she was fit enough to carry on - another example of how women are other-centered rather than self-centered, as Beauvoir said "the essential [being] that never becomes essential" Tyson 97) remained indifferent rather than exultant in their achievement. The women were more interested in the journey, in the beauty and strangeness of the land, and in their friendship in adversity, than in an empty geographical achievement an innate strength in the female gender, and a virtue that all human beings should strive for, or is it a negative inessentiality produced by generations of patriarchal ideology that deprives women of their right to put themselves first, is a question left to the reader. But in this story, the women's cooperative nature, their lack of vanity, and desire for notoriety are what drives them to the Pole first, and brings them all home alive. However, less obvious colonial oppression is taking place in “Sur.” The indigenous peoples of South America, on whose continent these women (again, presumably, as it is implied by their social status and names, but it is never actually stated, European and not First People or mestizos) live in such proximity the South Pole is mentioned in passing a few times. But the difference between the "Indians", the indigenous people of South America, who pilot Zoe's tiny pirogue (Le Guin 379) and the English, who the narrator describes by attributing Florence Nightingale as a source of inspiration to "that very courageous and very peculiar” seemed to represent all that is best and strangest in the insular race” is very large, with the South American colonizing women as a separate group from each other is an example of “othering” (Tyson 427) both high and low, among women and the two different groups women use British-made tools, because they were the best available and testify to that country's dominance in this field, and they admire Shackleton, Scott and Amundsen, all European male explorers. who have mapped and given names to parts of Antarctica that women sledders eventually conquer with far fewer resources and no deaths - and these same women are apparently disdainful of their "ignorant or incompetent servants" (Le Guin 379) back home, who we assume are indigenous or mixed-race. But there is a kind of subtle admiration for indigenous peoples here, as well as discomfort with European domination. When the women decide who will lead the expedition, they nickname the leader the "Supreme Inca" in honor of the great First Peoples nation of the narrator's homeland, Peru. To name a Spanish lady who, in that time and place, must have been a joke, or have been a sign, among women in private, of particular distinction. The second in command was named, comically, a native South American chicken, La Araucana. The fact that this may have been a reference to the usefulness of that native chicken, with a humorous undertone arising from the amount of wine the women had drunk that night, speaks to the complicated attitude the women had towards the ideas and people of South American natives. one of the reasons why women have aadvantage over Europeans is that "the quantity and quality of our food have made a considerable difference. I am sure that fifteen per cent of the dried fruit in our pemmican has helped to prevent scurvy; and the potatoes, frozen and dried according to a ancient Andean method, they were very nutritious but at the same time very light and compact: perfect rations for the sled." Not only did the traditionally gender-specific female art of food preparation save women (a feminist victory), but a native South American method for preserving food gave them a notable advantage over food brought by Europeans. Making a special note of this would mean that the narrator was giving credit to the First People who invented it - and contrasting it with the supposedly methods of more experienced British explorers. The terms in which the narrator speaks of the "brave" Mr. Amundsen (Le Guin 392) and the "charming" Captain Scott have an element of irony in them. Who could be braver than the narrator, Juana, Zoe, and even young Teresa, who gave birth on the Antarctic continent? Who could be bolder than the nine women who, without motorized machinery or dogs, and in complete secrecy, reached the Pole and returned, all alive? The narrator, who "reread a thousand times" the account of Captain Scott's 1902-1904 expedition, and assumed that she could not add to the "body of scientific knowledge" (Le Guin 377) due to her lack of training, was thus indoctrinated in the ideology of Eurocentrism, who would not consider her achievements worthy or appropriate to be compared to the achievements of European men. His simple words and emotionally sober, yet beautiful account of the journey treat it as an entirely personal journey, and not as one to be considered the property of science and the world, as the expeditions of Amundsen and Scott were . While Ms. Le Guin, an American, writing as a South American woman from a hundred years ago, who could not have directly experienced the kind of sexist, colonial oppression that the narrator of "Sur" would have experienced, writes carefully about a woman who balanced her limitations sex and national origin were imposed on her along with her desire for adventure. This kind of story, sexist and Eurocentric ideologies argue, could only take place in a fantasy - and indeed "Sur" certainly is. But Le Guin writes so matter-of-factly, with the highly plausible excuse of the narrator's modest desire for secrecy to protect herself and her companions from their families' censure. The author makes it seem very likely that, despite being fully capable of successfully completing a truly epic polar journey and reaching the South Pole before anyone else, a group of South American women would hardly be accepted by the world as discoverers of the southernmost point of the world. Earth. In this setting of the story, the author accepts and attempts to subvert the very ideologies of female oppression and the Third World. The fact that this story could not have been written as a fantasy in which women are encouraged by their men and praised by the male polar explorers they beat to the Pole is an example of how patriarchal and colonial ideals were still dominant. when Ms. Le Guin first published it in 1982. If it had been written this way, it might have been described as "fantastic" (read: incredible) rather than "fantastic." Perhaps if a similar story were published today as fantasy, with the advances of both feminist and postcolonial thought, it would be better accepted. The narrator of the story has this hope, when she writes "I think it would be nice if a.