An Ambiguous Utopia (Ursula K. Le Guin's _The Dispossessed_)

The original paperback version of The Dispossessed bore on its cover the description: “The magnificent epic of an ambiguous utopia!” This description was so accurate that An Ambiguous Utopia became thought of as a subtitle for the book, and has recently been adopted as the official subtitle. The idea of an “ambiguous utopia” is a very important theme in the book because Le Guin was attempting to work out how an anarchist society would function in reality.
But why an “ambiguous” utopia? Webster’s defines the word “ambiguous” as “having more than one interpretation.” What is one man’s utopia, or paradise, could be another’s hell. Keng argued against Shevek’s opinion of Urras. “Urras is the kindliest, most various, most beautiful of all the inhabited worlds. It is the world that comes as close as any could to Paradise” (Le Guin 347). Urras really was a ut...