Gethen: The Planet of Frozen Fear and Isolation

The Planet of Gethen (or Winter, as the First Investigators called) is the a frozen planet of genderless people called Gethenians. Genly, an envoy for Ekumen, travels to this planet to have them join the Ekumen so they can co-ordinate with Gethen. During his stay, he began to crave anonymity and feels isolated because he has gender in an gender-free world.

On page 19, Estraven says, "Let me ask you this, Mr. Ai: do you know, by your own experience, what patriotism is?" Which Genly answers, "...If by patriotism you don't mean by the love of one's homeland, for that I do know." Then Estraven explains that by patriotism he means fear. "I mean fear. Fear of the other...it grows in us that fear." He talks about how people let fear control us, how we base our decisions around fear. 

This fear translates into the cold weather Gethen has. The cold weather symbolizes the way Genly feels and the xenophobia Gethenians feel. This also translates to the story of the immoral kemmering between two "brothers" and the place inside the blizzard. That fear controls us, it isolates us, makes us crazy, until the fear of us goes away.