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My article explores the images and metaphors relating to space in Fritz Lang’s 1926 film, Metropolis (remade in 1984 by Georgio Moroder). Using a primarily Marxist interpretive framework, I analyse the spatial layout of the filmic city of Metropolis, divided into three levels, one above ground and two underground, as metonymic of the class divisions in the urban society that are represented in the film. The article also examines the architecture of Metropolis as representing social values and conflicts. It then proceeds to investigate the film’s gender dynamics as revealed in the two figures of the robot Maria and the real Maria, and concludes that the film’s gender and class ideology is remarkably conservative.

Ursula K. Le Guin’s renowned Earthsea cycle, spanning 20 years and five texts, is often acknowledged to be a textual space for the creative exploration and interrogation of gender. The two spaces in the title – ‘earth’ and ‘sea’ – are held in equilibrium, both by the author’s craft and by magic. Unfortunately, though, few critics have explored how these spaces function in the narrative. In this article, we explore the representation of underground spaces and labyrinths as meaningful landscapes in the Earthsea cycle. These spaces are found throughout Le Guin’s Earthsea fiction, but are foregrounded in four narratives: ‘The finder’ and ‘The bones of the earth’ (Tales from Earthsea), The tombs of Atuan and The other wind. Le Guin’s writing consistently identifies the earth as feminine, in keeping with the archetype of ‘Mother Earth’, and we find that subterranean spaces and labyrinths are depicted as sites of power and empowerment for women. Nevertheless, we argue that Le Guin’s affinity for gender equity and balance prevents these tropes from becoming another tired revisioning of an easy equation of earthy forces and ‘the feminine’. Rather, for Le Guin, the underground and the labyrinth are sites of union between masculine and feminine elements and characters, through the empowerment of the feminine.

Ursula K. Le Guin’s renowned Earthsea cycle, spanning 20 years and five texts, is often acknowledged to be a textual space for the creative exploration and interrogation of gender. The two spaces in the title – ‘earth’ and ‘sea’ – are held in equilibrium, both by the author’s craft and by magic. Unfortunately, though, few critics have explored how these spaces function in the narrative. In this article, we explore the representation of underground spaces and labyrinths as meaningful landscapes in the Earthsea cycle. These spaces are found throughout Le Guin’s Earthsea fiction, but are foregrounded in four narratives: ‘The finder’ and ‘The bones of the earth’ (Tales from Earthsea), The tombs of Atuan and The other wind. Le Guin’s writing consistently identifies the earth as feminine, in keeping with the archetype of ‘Mother Earth’, and we find that subterranean spaces and labyrinths are depicted as sites of power and empowerment for women. Nevertheless, we argue that Le Guin’s affinity for gender equity and balance prevents these tropes from becoming another tired revisioning of an easy equation of earthy forces and ‘the feminine’. Rather, for Le Guin, the underground and the labyrinth are sites of union between masculine and feminine elements and characters, through the empowerment of the feminine.