A Wizard of Earthsea Themes

In A Wizard of Earthsea, language is power. We don't mean that in some metaphorical way, like, if you're good with language, you can convince people to do what you want them to do. We mean that lan...

Ged's coming of age – his transition from kid to adult – is packed with drama: he fights off raiders, goes to a magic school, unleashes a shadow monster, defeats a dragon, and sails to the end...

Let's start off with a little bit of trivia: Superman's friends Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen have both had their own comic books, but these weren't as popular as Superman's comic book. Why? Well, mayb...

Pride in A Wizard of Earthsea mostly means that a character thinks he or she is really great when really that person's just OK. Of course, Ged is the big example of pride in action. He starts off t...

In A Wizard of Earthsea, Ged has to make a number of hard choices, and also has to deal with several situations where he doesn't really have any choice at all. In fact, in A Wizard of Earthsea, Ged...

Wizards, and dragons, and evil old stones! Oh, my! The world of Earthsea is full of supernatural elements. Luckily, our hero is a master (in training) of the supernatural. Or maybe we should say th...

In A Wizard of Earthsea, there's no real separation between man and the natural world. Even though there's magic and all sorts of other supernatural things, everything is part of one natural system...

How do you tell people that you're friends – a note on Facebook or in a yearbook? In A Wizard of Earthsea, characters tell each other that they're really good friends by revealing their true name...

This might annoy you, but it needs to be said: Ged's education doesn't end when he gets out of school. Sorry, we're starting to sound like an after-school special. But education is a central issue...

In A Wizard of Earthsea, Ged runs into one of the classic problems of growing up: he has to do some things that he doesn't want to do. Some of his duties don't matter all that much. Like helping hi...