A Wizard of Earthsea

by

Ursula K. Le Guin

The shadow Ged lets loose into the world during a duel with Jasper on Roke Knoll is the primary antagonist of the novel and its greatest mystery. The shadow is, at first, a child-sized, featureless “clot” that Ged brings forth while trying to summon the spirit of a dead maiden of yore. The shadow seems to leap of the mysterious space Ged opens up between the world of the living and the world of the dead and instantly attacks Ged, rending his face and arms with horrible long gashes. Even though Archmage Nemmerle arrives and chases the shadow off, the shadow still remains in the world of the living and the light, and Ged knows deep down that he will have to face it once again. Over the years, the shadow continues to pursue him—first in dreams, and then in the flesh—while Ged frantically tries to figure out where the shadow has come from, what it wants from him, and what the rules of their careful yet violent dance truly are. The shadow comes to Ged in many forms: it uses a gebbeth, or puppet, to lead Ged into a trap in the far-north land of Osskil by possessing the body of a sailor named Skiorh. It appears on Iffish, days before Ged arrives there, in the form of Ged himself. When Ged chases the shadow to the end of the world for a final confrontation, it takes the form of several people from Ged’s life: his father, Jasper, and his friend Pechvarry. At last, after encountering the shadow several times, Ged begins to understand that the shadow is actually the darkest part of himself. By speaking its true name to it—Ged—Ged is at last able to reintegrate the shadow into himself and know peace as a whole man beholden to no one but himself. The shadow never speaks or emotes, yet throughout his encounters with it, Ged senses a pointed malevolence coming from it. Ged knows all along that the shadow wants to destroy him, but what it takes him years to learn is that the shadow is in many ways a metaphor for the experience of coming of age and learning to identify and accept even the darkest parts of oneself.

The Shadow Quotes in A Wizard of Earthsea

The A Wizard of Earthsea quotes below are all either spoken by The Shadow or refer to The Shadow. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Coming of Age Theme Icon
).
Chapter 4 Quotes

Only for a moment did the spirit glimmer there. Then the sallow oval between Ged’s arms grew bright. It widened and spread, a rent in the darkness of the earth and night, a ripping open of the fabric of the world. Through it blazed a terrible brightness. And through that bright misshapen breach clambered something like a clot of black shadow, quick and hideous, and it leaped straight out at Ged's face.

Related Characters: Ged / Duny / Sparrowhawk, The Shadow, Jasper
Page Number: 72
Explanation and Analysis:

"Lord Gensher, I do not know what it was—the thing that came out of the spell and cleaved to me—"

"Nor do I know. It has no name. You have great power inborn in you, and you used that power wrongly, to work a spell over which you had no control, not knowing how that spell affects the balance of light and dark, life and death, good and evil. And you were moved to do this by pride and by hate. Is it any wonder the result was ruin?”

Related Characters: Ged / Duny / Sparrowhawk (speaker), Archmage Gensher (speaker), The Shadow
Related Symbols: True Names
Page Number: 78
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5 Quotes

Either he must go down the hill into the desert lands and lightless cities of the dead, or he must step across the wall back into life, where the formless evil thing waited for him.

Related Characters: Ged / Duny / Sparrowhawk, The Shadow
Page Number: 96
Explanation and Analysis:

"If you could name it you could master it, maybe, little wizard. Maybe I could tell you its name, when I see it close by. And it will come close, if you wait about my isle. It will come wherever you come. If you do not want it to come close you must run, and run, and keep running from it. And yet it will follow you. Would you like to know its name?"

Related Characters: Yevaud, the Dragon of Pendor (speaker), Ged / Duny / Sparrowhawk, The Shadow
Page Number: 106
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6 Quotes

"Leave me at Serd and sail where you like. It's not against your ship this wind blows, but against me."

"Against you, a wizard of Roke?"

"Have you never heard of the Roke-wind, master?"

“Aye, that keeps off evil powers from the Isle of the Wise, but what has that to do with you, a Dragontamer?"

"That is between me and my shadow," Ged answered shortly, as a wizard will; and he said no more as they went swiftly, with a steady wind and under clearing skies, back over the sea to Serd.

Related Characters: Ged / Duny / Sparrowhawk (speaker), The Shadow
Page Number: 114
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 7 Quotes

“It will speak of things that were, and are, and will be. It told of your coming, long before you came to this land. Will you ask a question of it now?"

“No."

"It will answer you."

"There is no question I would ask it."

"It might tell you," Serret said in her soft voice, "how you will defeat your enemy."

Ged stood mute.

"Do you fear the stone?" she asked as if unbelieving; and he answered, "Yes."

Related Characters: Ged / Duny / Sparrowhawk (speaker), Village Girl / Serret (speaker), The Shadow
Page Number: 136
Explanation and Analysis:

"I have no strength against the thing," Ged answered.

Ogion shook his head… […] "Strange," he said: "You had strength enough to outspell a sorcerer in his own domain, there in Osskil. You had strength enough to withstand the lures and fend off the attack of the servants of an Old Power of Earth. And at Pendor you had strength enough to stand up to a dragon."

"It was luck I had in Osskil, not strength," Ged replied, and he shivered again as he thought of the dreamlike deathly cold of the Court of the Terrenon. “As for the dragon, I knew his name. The evil thing, the shadow that hunts me, has no name."

“All things have a name," said Ogion.

Related Characters: Ged / Duny / Sparrowhawk (speaker), Ogion (speaker), The Shadow, Yevaud, the Dragon of Pendor, Benderesk
Related Symbols: True Names
Page Number: 150
Explanation and Analysis:

"You must turn around."

"Turn around?"

"If you go ahead, if you keep running, wherever you run you will meet danger and evil, for it drives you, it chooses the way you go. You must choose. You must seek what seeks you. You must hunt the hunter."

Related Characters: Ged / Duny / Sparrowhawk (speaker), Ogion (speaker), The Shadow
Page Number: 151
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8 Quotes

The shadow had tricked him out onto the moors in Osskil, and tricked him in the mist onto the rocks, and now would there be a third trick? Had he driven the thing here, or had it drawn him here, into a trap? He did not know. He knew only the torment of dread, and the certainty that he must go ahead and do what he had set out to do: hunt down the evil, follow his terror to its source.

Related Characters: Ged / Duny / Sparrowhawk, The Shadow
Page Number: 173
Explanation and Analysis:

He knew now, and the knowledge was hard, that his task had never been to undo what he had done, but to finish what he had begun.

Related Characters: Ged / Duny / Sparrowhawk, The Shadow
Page Number: 175
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 9 Quotes

"Pride was ever your mind's master," his friend said smiling, as if they talked of a matter of small concern to either. "Now think: it is your quest, assuredly, but if the quest fails, should there not be another there who might bear warning to the Archipelago? For the shadow would be a fearful power then. And if you defeat the thing, should there not be another there who will tell of it in the Archipelago, that the Deed may be known and sung? I know I can be of no use to you; yet I think I should go with you."

Related Characters: Vetch / Estarriol (speaker), Ged / Duny / Sparrowhawk, The Shadow
Page Number: 185-186
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 10 Quotes

Aloud and clearly, breaking that old silence, Ged spoke the shadow's name and in the same moment the shadow spoke without lips or tongue, saying the same word: "Ged." And the two voices were one voice.

Ged reached out his hands, dropping his staff and took hold of his shadow, of the black self that reached out to him. Light and darkness met, and joined, and were one.

Related Characters: Ged / Duny / Sparrowhawk (speaker), The Shadow
Page Number: 212
Explanation and Analysis:

“The wound is healed,” [Ged] said, “I am whole, I am free.” […]

And [Vetch] began to see the truth, that Ged had neither lost nor won but, naming the shadow of his death with his own name, had made himself whole: a man: who, knowing his whole true self, cannot be used or possessed by any power other than himself and whose life therefore is lived for life's sake and never in the service of ruin, or pain, or hatred, or the dark.

Related Characters: Ged / Duny / Sparrowhawk (speaker), The Shadow, Vetch / Estarriol
Page Number: 214
Explanation and Analysis:

In the Deed of Ged nothing is told of that voyage nor of Ged's meeting with the shadow, before ever he sailed the Dragons' Run unscathed, or brought back the Ring of Erreth-Akbe from the Tombs of Atuan to Havnor, or came at last to Roke once more, as Archmage of all the islands of the world.

Related Characters: Ged / Duny / Sparrowhawk, The Shadow
Page Number: 217
Explanation and Analysis:
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The Shadow Quotes in A Wizard of Earthsea

The A Wizard of Earthsea quotes below are all either spoken by The Shadow or refer to The Shadow. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Coming of Age Theme Icon
).
Chapter 4 Quotes

Only for a moment did the spirit glimmer there. Then the sallow oval between Ged’s arms grew bright. It widened and spread, a rent in the darkness of the earth and night, a ripping open of the fabric of the world. Through it blazed a terrible brightness. And through that bright misshapen breach clambered something like a clot of black shadow, quick and hideous, and it leaped straight out at Ged's face.

Related Characters: Ged / Duny / Sparrowhawk, The Shadow, Jasper
Page Number: 72
Explanation and Analysis:

"Lord Gensher, I do not know what it was—the thing that came out of the spell and cleaved to me—"

"Nor do I know. It has no name. You have great power inborn in you, and you used that power wrongly, to work a spell over which you had no control, not knowing how that spell affects the balance of light and dark, life and death, good and evil. And you were moved to do this by pride and by hate. Is it any wonder the result was ruin?”

Related Characters: Ged / Duny / Sparrowhawk (speaker), Archmage Gensher (speaker), The Shadow
Related Symbols: True Names
Page Number: 78
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5 Quotes

Either he must go down the hill into the desert lands and lightless cities of the dead, or he must step across the wall back into life, where the formless evil thing waited for him.

Related Characters: Ged / Duny / Sparrowhawk, The Shadow
Page Number: 96
Explanation and Analysis:

"If you could name it you could master it, maybe, little wizard. Maybe I could tell you its name, when I see it close by. And it will come close, if you wait about my isle. It will come wherever you come. If you do not want it to come close you must run, and run, and keep running from it. And yet it will follow you. Would you like to know its name?"

Related Characters: Yevaud, the Dragon of Pendor (speaker), Ged / Duny / Sparrowhawk, The Shadow
Page Number: 106
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6 Quotes

"Leave me at Serd and sail where you like. It's not against your ship this wind blows, but against me."

"Against you, a wizard of Roke?"

"Have you never heard of the Roke-wind, master?"

“Aye, that keeps off evil powers from the Isle of the Wise, but what has that to do with you, a Dragontamer?"

"That is between me and my shadow," Ged answered shortly, as a wizard will; and he said no more as they went swiftly, with a steady wind and under clearing skies, back over the sea to Serd.

Related Characters: Ged / Duny / Sparrowhawk (speaker), The Shadow
Page Number: 114
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 7 Quotes

“It will speak of things that were, and are, and will be. It told of your coming, long before you came to this land. Will you ask a question of it now?"

“No."

"It will answer you."

"There is no question I would ask it."

"It might tell you," Serret said in her soft voice, "how you will defeat your enemy."

Ged stood mute.

"Do you fear the stone?" she asked as if unbelieving; and he answered, "Yes."

Related Characters: Ged / Duny / Sparrowhawk (speaker), Village Girl / Serret (speaker), The Shadow
Page Number: 136
Explanation and Analysis:

"I have no strength against the thing," Ged answered.

Ogion shook his head… […] "Strange," he said: "You had strength enough to outspell a sorcerer in his own domain, there in Osskil. You had strength enough to withstand the lures and fend off the attack of the servants of an Old Power of Earth. And at Pendor you had strength enough to stand up to a dragon."

"It was luck I had in Osskil, not strength," Ged replied, and he shivered again as he thought of the dreamlike deathly cold of the Court of the Terrenon. “As for the dragon, I knew his name. The evil thing, the shadow that hunts me, has no name."

“All things have a name," said Ogion.

Related Characters: Ged / Duny / Sparrowhawk (speaker), Ogion (speaker), The Shadow, Yevaud, the Dragon of Pendor, Benderesk
Related Symbols: True Names
Page Number: 150
Explanation and Analysis:

"You must turn around."

"Turn around?"

"If you go ahead, if you keep running, wherever you run you will meet danger and evil, for it drives you, it chooses the way you go. You must choose. You must seek what seeks you. You must hunt the hunter."

Related Characters: Ged / Duny / Sparrowhawk (speaker), Ogion (speaker), The Shadow
Page Number: 151
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8 Quotes

The shadow had tricked him out onto the moors in Osskil, and tricked him in the mist onto the rocks, and now would there be a third trick? Had he driven the thing here, or had it drawn him here, into a trap? He did not know. He knew only the torment of dread, and the certainty that he must go ahead and do what he had set out to do: hunt down the evil, follow his terror to its source.

Related Characters: Ged / Duny / Sparrowhawk, The Shadow
Page Number: 173
Explanation and Analysis:

He knew now, and the knowledge was hard, that his task had never been to undo what he had done, but to finish what he had begun.

Related Characters: Ged / Duny / Sparrowhawk, The Shadow
Page Number: 175
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 9 Quotes

"Pride was ever your mind's master," his friend said smiling, as if they talked of a matter of small concern to either. "Now think: it is your quest, assuredly, but if the quest fails, should there not be another there who might bear warning to the Archipelago? For the shadow would be a fearful power then. And if you defeat the thing, should there not be another there who will tell of it in the Archipelago, that the Deed may be known and sung? I know I can be of no use to you; yet I think I should go with you."

Related Characters: Vetch / Estarriol (speaker), Ged / Duny / Sparrowhawk, The Shadow
Page Number: 185-186
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 10 Quotes

Aloud and clearly, breaking that old silence, Ged spoke the shadow's name and in the same moment the shadow spoke without lips or tongue, saying the same word: "Ged." And the two voices were one voice.

Ged reached out his hands, dropping his staff and took hold of his shadow, of the black self that reached out to him. Light and darkness met, and joined, and were one.

Related Characters: Ged / Duny / Sparrowhawk (speaker), The Shadow
Page Number: 212
Explanation and Analysis:

“The wound is healed,” [Ged] said, “I am whole, I am free.” […]

And [Vetch] began to see the truth, that Ged had neither lost nor won but, naming the shadow of his death with his own name, had made himself whole: a man: who, knowing his whole true self, cannot be used or possessed by any power other than himself and whose life therefore is lived for life's sake and never in the service of ruin, or pain, or hatred, or the dark.

Related Characters: Ged / Duny / Sparrowhawk (speaker), The Shadow, Vetch / Estarriol
Page Number: 214
Explanation and Analysis:

In the Deed of Ged nothing is told of that voyage nor of Ged's meeting with the shadow, before ever he sailed the Dragons' Run unscathed, or brought back the Ring of Erreth-Akbe from the Tombs of Atuan to Havnor, or came at last to Roke once more, as Archmage of all the islands of the world.

Related Characters: Ged / Duny / Sparrowhawk, The Shadow
Page Number: 217
Explanation and Analysis: