Multiethnic Literatures in the U.S.

Parable of the Talents

            The Parable of the Talents is beginning to mirror reality more and more as the novel goes on.  There are religious extremists that terrorize people for not believing in their religion, dictatorships, drugs that plague society, indentured slavery, and massive immigration to find a better life.  One thing that Octavia butler might be saying is that the reason that society falters is that humans make mistakes and do not learn from them. Octavia Butler could also be saying the human sense of nostalgia makes people want to do thing that were done in the past, therefore not progressing forward.  Whether humans create the future through nostalgia or if people are just making the same mistakes, Octavia shows thought the novel that the same events leads to the same results.  Building a community, community destroyed by extremists, followed by a search for a new place to live, and then rebuild a new community is the most noticeable in Octavia Butler’s books.

            I believe that Butler is saying that both humans forgot the past results but they try things from the past because that is what they know best.  Lauren’s society tries the same thing but expects different results.  We can really see this when Lauren creates Acorn.  While Lauren was little, her little town of Robledo was destroyed.  In many of the residents’ minds, they knew at some point in time Robledo would be destroyed.  They thought they were pretty safe from the outside world, with their night guards and wall, but when both defenses failed they had to run.  In Acorn, after establishing a rather large community, everyone felt safe.  There was wired the community, people on watch duty, and Acorn was in a semi-remote location.   Again, establishing a sense of security made everyone feel that nothing would really happen to Acorn.  Although some of them feared something would happen, no one did anything to stop it.  Bankole pleaded with Lauren to move so they would be safer but Lauren thought that her “walled” community was safer.  This repeated mistake cost Lauren her husband and her daughter.

            Through out the book Lauren was to do things that she did in the past, but expects different results.  She is too stubborn to think of other ways, they have to be her father’s ways.  The reason Lauren keeps going in circle is because she uses her father’s guidelines as her way of life.  She looks likes him, preaches like him, and is the leader like him.  Lauren will not be able to break this circle of events unless she can stray herself from her father’s way of life.  Lauren said that “God is change.”  Normally religion does not change the people that follow the religion change.  Now it is time for Lauren to change and break the cycle. 

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