Le Guin's books are characterized by a significant use of setting…. [Five of her Hainish stories, Rocannon's World, Planet of Exile, City of Illusion, The Left Hand of Darkness, and "The Word for World is Forest," demonstrate a] significant use to characterize native species on other worlds—a use which has become more complex in successive stories. It goes beyond the more obvious uses of setting to create atmosphere or to draw the reader into an alien environment and thus into the plot. The Hainish stories form a unit in which the theme and plot are dependent on the League or Ekumen contact with species which are native to—or at least have for a long time inhabited—that planet. Furthermore, these native species are shown in terms of the effect of environment on their lives, from straightforward geographical influence to influence on myth, ritual, and ways of perceiving the world. (p. 131)

Given [an] examination of Le Guin's use of setting, one initially concludes that it reveals her developing ability as a writer, ranging from her use of setting as a topographical and physiological influence to its mythological and psychological influence. Secondly, her total integration of setting and racial characterization leads to a re-examination of the concept of setting. Le Guin is not merely using it as a back-drop or atmosphere in the Hainish stories; she has intertwined it with the psychological nature of the Athsheans and with the mythological nature of the Gethenians. In these instances, it is nearly impossible to separate setting from characterization. Furthermore, Le Guin has integrated setting with two themes running through these stories. First, she has depicted each species' perception of reality as being dependent on its environment. Each of the species' vocabulary and metaphors are drawn from its encounters with the rhythms and processes of nature which are dynamic. An alien race or species may have a different perception of nature, and the native species will have to come to terms with that different reality; it will have to test it, evaluate it, and decide whether to accept it, reject it, or adapt it to its own view of reality. Planet of Exile is a clear example of this theme and here the conflict is also the novel's conflict. The Left Hand of Darkness and "The Word for World is Forest" demonstrate the same linking of conflict and setting.

Her second theme is that harmony of man and nature is necessary for racial survival and development. What frequently happens in her plots is a three-part encounter of Nature (setting), Self (the native species), and Other (the alien species). The encounter becomes the plot, and while in any individual novel a final synthesis is not detailed, synthesis does seem to be the prevailing pattern in this unit of five stories. It is an achievement which is not merely a compromise between competing species or the resignation of a species to the hardships of nature, but a dialectical relationship among the three. Stagnation occurs when any one is regarded as a static unity, separate from nature or other races, such as the tradition-bound Tevarans or the isolated species in Rocannon's World. This synthesis is best seen in the societies of The Left Hand of Darkness. Their mythology illustrates their adaptation to nature, the alien species jolts them into a changed perception of the universe, and what results is a realization that they live on an Ice Age planet in a changed universe. Le Guin's use of setting is as complex as the interlacing leaves, branches, roots, and lights in her forests. (pp. 139-40)