Multiethnic Literatures in the U.S.

Octavia Butler’s, Parable of the Sower, reads like a post-apocalyptic event.  It is terrifying to think that death and chaos is what we and our future generations get to look forward to.  Water is so vital to our health.  No one really complained when it rained for four straight days, especially when they have not seen rain in almost seven years.  It was like a free gift from God.  If gas prices keep going up or we just run out of oil, we won’t be able to use the vehicles we own.  Like in the story, it will be useless to us and just rust.  If we don’t help minimize the rate of global warming, an emergence of severe weather change will occur.  It is ironic how we advocate gun control nowadays, but in 2024, every household has at least two guns and the children are taught how to handle them at such a young age.  What does this tell us about change?  Are we changing with society and nature or are society and nature changing us?
In California, one world exists inside the 11-household walled Robledo community, and the other is everything and everyone beyond the wall.  Food, water, and clothing are so scarce that the poor, naked, and half-dead would do anything to get their hands on it.  Everyone would like to feel that they are safe in their own walled community, but it’s a false hope.  The wall only provides so much protection against who is being kept out.  The adults have hope that things will go back to how they used to be, but is that wishful thinking?  Lauren can be mistaken for a dreamer, but she is the most realistic one.  Blank stares are her father and her best friend, Joanne’s initial reaction to her thoughts about being equipped and organized just in case things get even worse.  Is she being pessimistic for thinking the worse out of situations?  Her grab-and-run pack prepares her for any given situation.  It doesn’t hurt to always be prepared and to be aware of everything.
According to the dictionary, a sower has two different definitions.  The first is to plant seeds; the second is to cause a feeling or idea to arise or become widespread.  Earthseed comes to mind.  Earthseed is all that spreads to new earths.  Only we are Earthseed.  Lauren can be seen as the planter of “seeds” who helps knowledge grow within others.  Lauren and her father can be compared in a way that they both have their own beliefs about their God.  Because he’s a minister, he preaches faith and hope and tries to help as many people as he can.  Being an intelligent man, he not only teaches at the university, but he also organizes target practices and group watches.  Her father advises her that people do not like to be told what to do.  Therefore, by teaching and sharing her beliefs to her community, her work is being accomplished subtly.  Teaching is one of the greatest acts of optimism.  With Lauren’s hyperempathy, what will happen to her when she turns 18 and goes “outside” for good?  Just the rides to the canyon for target practice make her uneasy and sick to her stomach.  Killing the dog in the canyon almost made her pass out.  When her father beats Keith, she passes out cold.  Will Lauren’s hyperempathy get in her way of her freedom?  Is her hyperempathy significant to the story?  We will have to keep reading in order to find out.   

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