The Island of the Immortals

WORKSHOP “THE ISLAND OF THE IMMORTALS

A. Ursula K. Le Guin is an American writer born in 1929. Le Guin is known as a master in the fantasy literature of the twentieth century although her works includes also science fiction, realistic fiction, children’s books, books for young adults, short stories, essays, poetry, screenplays, verbal texts for musicians and voice texts. As the daughter of an anthropologist, her work is characterized for a big deal of interest in human origins, evolution and society. Some of her works (of an extensive collection) have been honored and praised with awards like The American Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize, a National Book Award, five Hugo Awards, five Nebula Awards, SFWA’S Grand Master, The Kafka Award, a Pushcart Prize and many others. Between the various writers who have an important influence in her career we can count J.R.R Tolkien for fantasy, Philip K. Dick for science fiction, León Tolstoy, Virgil and the Bronte Sisters for Western literature, Virginia Woolf for feminist writers, Neil Gaiman and Iain Banks for futurism and fantasy genre, etc. Le Guin has an important amount of successes. One of her most known fantasy works are the books of Earthsea which have sold millions of copies in America and England. Regarding science fiction, there is The Left Hand of Darkness which treats with an investigation of gender roles, moral and literary complexity. Her novels The Dispossessed and Always Coming Home are addressed to utopian fiction genre.Her books for children, like the Catwings series have also became the favorite of many.

B. Summary The Island of the immortals begins with a woman who is looking for an explanation of what the island of the immortals is and what is the mystery behind it. She began her research in the Central Library of Undund where she found a description of the Island of the immortals in Postwand’s Explorations, a book which was written a hundred and sixty years earlier. It is about the adventure of Postwand, he wrote a tale about an island where people never die, a place where nothing seemed out of the way, except for the dreadful swarms of flies. In his visit to the island he found the sinister proof of a disease called Udreba supposedly caused by the flies. Another important piece of information she got was that the island of the immortals was sometimes called as the Diamond of Aya because of the many diamonds

standing in the surface of the place and it was a kind of tradition to the islanders to bury them as it seemed to be something shameful. Nevertheless, this island was famous because of that, thanks to the forested and swampy properties of the island, the diamonds were totally exposed in wet seasons producing the visit of many people looking for them. This information did not decrease her interest on the Island and as she could not find any other explaining information of it, her curiosity overtook any risk it could represent, so she went to the Island. In her way to the island, just when she was starting to regret her decision of visiting the island of the immortals she got to speak with the ship’s captain. He assure her that there were without doubt real immortal people on the island, he explained that they were not born immortals, but they got this characteristic from the bite of the island flies, it was a virus and thus, she should better be careful. Once she got there, she asked to different people about the mystery of the immortals till she finally found a person who got her to meet one of them. This person told her that it was her family duty to take care of it, to feed it with milk and barley broth, it could not see or hear, or die and it depend entirely on that person’s family. She explains how the buried diamonds were once immortals that when they got “old enough” they ought to be buried to became diamonds. It was too sad to finally know the mystery of the immortals, how they have to be feed, buried and how they got to be diamonds.

C. Course: 11° Due to the complexity of the text, I think this tale can be worked with a group with the highest possible English level at school. There are some lexical and grammatical elements which should be work with people in the capability to comprehend different structures and meanings. Besides, this text have some hide meanings and messages that need to be analyzed with the critical thinking students from eleven grade should have, as the fact of human beings becoming immortals, the cares an old person needs, etc. D. ACTIVITIES 1. Students must create a short story of the immortal that appeared in the tale. The new story must answer to the following questions: -When he was born? -What did he do when he was young? -Who his friends and family were?

-How did he become immortal? Was it by accident? How did he feel? -How did he lose his sight? -How did he end up with the Roya Family? 2. In a round table, students must do a comparison between the magic elements of “The island of the immortal” and real life. ¿What is the meaning of being immortal? ¿what do diamonds represent? ¿What does represent the curiosity of the narrator? ¿What do flies represent? ¿What is the meaning of a poor woman asking for money to see the immortal in our context?

3. By groups of 4 people maximum, students must create a new different story with the following words taken from the text. Once the story is finished, students must play it for the other students. Immortal Island Hunters Swarm of flies Putrid smell Tribe Bite Ship’s captain Disease Lifeless