The Tombs of Atuan

The first lines of the book showcase Le Guin’s signature prose, which is richly descriptive and lyrical in style and uses detailed imagery to evoke emotion. These lyrical passages also contrast dark versus light, a recurring motif throughout the novel. In the prologue, for example, the lines describing Tenar running through the orchards as a little girl state, “among the shadowed boughs one flower had opened early, rose and white, like a faint star” (1). Later, Tenar’s mother stands in firelight watching her daughter run toward her through the “darkening grass beneath the trees” (1). Both images place Tenar between dark and light, which will become a defining image symbolizing of her internal conflict.

The prologue also provides necessary context for the rest of the book. The prologue provides the protagonist’s true name, Tenar, which will not appear again until Chapter 7. The prologue also describes Tenar’s parents from an objective third-person perspective to show their emotional turmoil over Tenar’s impending departure. This is important because when Manan later tells Tenar, now Arha, the story of how the priestesses found her, he devotes little care or attention to the parents’ feelings. Manan explains that Tenar’s mother tried to trick the priestesses so she could keep her daughter, but he tells the story with derisive laughter, underscoring the stark social divide between Tenar’s poor family and the mindset of the people in the temples. The prologue demonstrates that Tenar’s mother loved her and did not wish to lose her, though Arha herself may never be aware of this. The prologue also provides a distinct description of Tenar’s mother’s blond hair in the firelight, which becomes a recurring image as Arha’s only memory of her life before the Tombs.

Chapters 1 and 2 shift to Arha’s life in the Place. Here, the narrative takes an anthropological view of the setting and culture of the Kargish Empire, heavily influenced by Le Guin’s parents’ backgrounds in anthropology, which nurtured her interest in the subject. Le Guin describes the setting in careful detail, allowing readers to understand the characters’ movements later in the story. The exact layout of the various temples and buildings, the Wall of the Place, and the nine standing stones are vital to understanding the significance of later events. To assist with this, most editions of the novel also include maps of the Place and the Labyrinth. The first two chapters also introduce all but one of the narrative’s major and minor characters, including Tenar/Arha, Kossil, Thar, Manan, and Penthe. The close third-person narrator reveals only Arha’s inner thoughts and feelings while fleshing out the other characters through their interactions with her. Though these interactions are often minor, through them, the narrative crafts a clear idea of each character’s personality and role in the story.

These early chapters also explain the region’s religion, providing the Kargish Empire with greater cultural depth and complexity. As with the setting, the religion is heavily inspired by Le Guin’s anthropological knowledge of other cultures. More importantly, it provides the foundation for Arha’s inner turmoil, the primary internal conflict of the novel and the basis for the first major theme, The Nature of Faith. In these early chapters, Arha accepts her religious beliefs and duties without question, though she struggles with her role in carrying out the religious practice of deciding the prisoners’ fate to please the Nameless Ones.

The Kargish people’s religion impacts their social structure, particularly in terms of gender, which grounds the second major theme, The Roles of Women in Patriarchal Society. This role is demonstrated by the way in which Tenar was taken from her family already, which highlights girls’ and women’s powerlessness. Ironically, while the priestesses believe themselves powerful, with eunuchs under their command and men to guard them, the Place isolates and imprisons them in the desert. They have merely internalized and reinforced the lack of power and value they have in the outside world, with which they have no contact. Further, despite their supposed power, Arha and the other priestesses are literally kept in the dark in sacred places, unable to see the most important locations of their religion.

With the setting, characters, and cultural context established in Chapters 1 and 2, Chapter 3 reveals the first hints of conflict in the novel. The plot centers on two related conflicts: The first conflict is external, seen in the clash of status and control between Arha and Kossil. In Chapter 3, this conflict is just beginning, now that Arha is old enough to take over her duties as the One Priestess. Arha’s petty enjoyment in lording over Kossil humanizes her as a normal 15-year-old girl living under rigid social structures. Her demands for a permanent guard on the Wall of the Place is the first subtle struggle for power between the two, which Arha loses when she faints at the end of the chapter. This struggle introduces the theme of The True Meaning and Power of Freedom, indicating that at this stage of her life, Arha believes that power comes from being able to make others carry out her will. Her inability to stop the execution of the prisoners is an early hint that she does not have the power she thinks she does, as is her inability to force Kossil to agree to adding additional guards.

Relatedly, Arha’s internal conflict of faith and identity is the second, and more significant, conflict in the novel. This internal struggle is introduced in Chapter 3, when she hesitates over her duty to sentence the prisoners to death. Though she remains devoted to the Nameless Ones, her hesitation reveals an underlying fissure caused by fear and shame, which triggers her doubts and questioning later. As in the prologue, the motif of dark and light appears throughout this chapter, underscoring this conflict. For instance, Manan calls Arha the mistress of the silence and the dark, yet when she enters the Undertomb for the first time she is afraid and wishes for a light. She intends to bring a lantern the next time she comes, but Kossil reminds her that light is forbidden in the Undertomb, where the darkness is sacred. This moment hints at the struggle between dark and light that will fuel Arha’s path toward freedom.