The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction by Ursula K. Le Guin (1986)
Summary: Le Guin reframes the origins of culture and fiction not around weapons (the “hero’s journey”) but around containers—tools used to carry rather than conquer. She suggests that storytelling has long served as a method of holding and organizing the messy, relational, nonlinear aspects of life. The carrier bag becomes a symbol of both survival and narrative possibility, offering an alternative to dominant, patriarchal story structures.
Key insights that stood out to me:
“Before the tool that forces energy outward, we made the tool that brings energy home.”
The carrier bag (basket, net, bowl, pouch) is a feminist metaphor for a different kind of plot: nonlinear, episodic, inclusive of contradiction.
Fiction doesn’t have to be about conflict or conquest—it can be about collecting, arranging, and preserving.
Stories can be containers of context, care, and contradiction, rather than vehicles for resolution.
Le Guin’s tone is playful and subversive; she’s actively undermining the “Great Man” narrative of history and literature.
Discussion questions:
What stories in my life have functioned as containers rather than weapons?
What would it look like to design a civic institution or digital tool as a carrier bag?
How do we restore dignity to forms of labor or narrative that don’t resolve, but hold?