Thus far in my project, I am very happy with the progress I’ve made and the ideas I’ve explored in the Earthsea series. I am currently halfway through the fourth book, Tehanu, which is definitely the most relevant installment of the series to my essay. Tehanu is the book in which Ursula Le Guin really began to re-examine the ways women had been treated, described, and written in the first books in Earthsea. Tehanu is the first of the books to feature a woman as a main character; in the second book, the Tombs of Atuan, the same woman was a main character, but she was a young girl. In Tehanu, she has grown up and come into her role as a woman in Earthsea. She has begun to look closely at where she is in Earthsea and who she is allowed to be; she is prevented from going where she wants to, doing what she wants to, and being who she wants to be.
When I finish Tehanu, I think I can start organizing my writing and outlining my essay. At the moment I mostly have thoughts and ideas written out but they’re all over the place; they have quotes mixed in without much reasoning for why they’re there. What I’m going to write about has changed a lot as I’ve
One thing with my project that I’m not entirely happy with is the art portion. I’m having trouble making progress and getting started with my paintings. I’ve done a bunch of sketching for the first painting, which is of a mage’s house in Earthsea and is a significant setting for much of Tehanu. I have not actually started on the painting yet. I hope to do so this week. I’m a little worried about how many paintings I will be able to do; I don’t think I’ll get to do the four that I originally planned on. After I finish painting the house, I think I’ll do a painting of a dragon. That will present its own challenges, as a dragon is a fictional creature and I’ll have to come up with its anatomy myself without references. I could decide to do something else, but I am quite determined that I want to depict the dragons which are such a large part of the Earthsea world.
Sketches for my paintings:
