Proud and Impatient — Reading Chapter 2 of "The Wizard of Earthsea"

Chapter Two of the novel is called "The Shadow," a title laden with irony and heavy with multiple meanings in the context of the chapter itself and in the novel at large. The primary focus here is Sparrowhawk/Ged's brief time as the apprentice to Ogion, the great magician of Gont.

We have a progression on the characterization of our hero as laid out in Chapter One, though Le Guin complicates our feelings towards him in many ways. We realize that he is still young and, if our memory serves, we ...