Multiethnic Literatures in the U.S.

“I know what I’ve done.”—It is the end of the novel but it is just the beginning of questions. Like other novels, Parable of the Talents, by Octavia Butler, left the readers a bunch of questions. One of those questions which deeply impress me was ideal and reality.  Lauren’s town of Acorn was invaded, and she failed her people. But it did not change her mind to continue to be the person of Earthseed. She tried to reach more people, bring purpose to them, and spread the seeds anywhere she had passed. She wanted people to understand what they could be, and what they could do. She wanted people to be like her mentally so that they could send the information to more and more people. Those are all right. And she did the right things—touched the people, tried to make them change the world, and make better lives. Her purpose was that children would be educated, towns would be built, and country would be developed, no wars, no hunger, and no disease spread. Everything sounds so beautiful.  Back to the real world, the things Lauren talked about sounds just like a dream, a joke. Look at our country, look at the world! “Those kids are the future. But if they manage to grow up, what kind of men will they be?” “That’s what Earthseed was about.” That is right, but in the real world, it looks like we do not really have Earthseed. The only thing she said was true is that people get a job, eat, and find a place to live. “They had no purpose beyond survival.” That will be it. That will be all! Most of the people are just enjoying their lives right now. They are numb and still optimistic. They do not really care about the politics, and what happened to our country and the world. And they would tell you “Do we have to care about them? Then what should we do? It will change nothing.” That is also true.  The politicians are still canvassing the people on the stage. No one knows it is true or not. Then, we will be involved in another war. Some people think that is the way to keep our country strong and the world steady. But they did not see that so many people were suffered in the war. People lost their jobs, their families, even their lives. They actually could find a better way to survive the world but they just ignored and forgot ideal that ancestors have left for us, and put our country in a very difficult situation. Earthseed is just a piece of beautiful ideal. It may influence some of the people, but just a small part of them. Right now, reality is too far away from ideal that we can not even reach it. I don’t think that is the main point of the book that Octavia Butler wanted to show us. It is also not a question for us to answer but a problem to solve. Who will be our Earthseed? Who will save our country?

Dreamask

In the book a dreamask is a device used to see images and feel like you are in that image. They let a person see what most people call virtual reality. Larkin explains how she got bored of the Christian stories and started creating her own stories for these dreamasks. While creating her own dreamask scenarios she pretended to be all kinds of people and even tried to feel what they felt. The idea of putting on these masks and pretending to be someone else seems relative to today. Although many people don’t wear actual masks they have other things such as speech, clothing, and facial expressions to manipulate to try and become someone more desirable. Depending on the type of clothes and how a person wears them can make him or her feel like a different person. A person may try to wear clothes that make them look professional although they might not even be working, but they want to appear and feel like they do. Other people might use speech to change who they are by using certain words or by using an accent. In everyday life a person can usually tell how another person is feeling through their facial expressions and some people put on mean looking facial expressions to look more intimidating than they really are. All these things are like the dream scenarios in the book; they are all created by the person using them.
Larkin getting caught and being punished for her own made up dream scenarios for the dreamask reminded me that even now there are consequences for trying to be someone you’re not. People who try to look a certain way are usually made fun of by the people they are trying to portray. A common example is sports. Some people might wear the latest basketball shoes and apparel and do not really play basketball and to a serious player this would probably look like someone that’s just posing as a ball player and irritate him for just copying the look. In instances where people accuse other people of not being who they portray themselves to be, the phrase “you’re not real” comes up. Everyday you wake up and put on certain kinds of clothes and it is like being a character in one of the dreamask scenarios. Everyday could be like a different scenario, a different character. Then what defines real? If everyday a person is “pretending” to be someone they’re not then what is real?
I’m not sure if the author had this sort of meaning associated to the dreamask or not. Maybe she was just trying to show that Larkin was a curious person, like her mother. But it seemed like there was a connection between Larkin and her created characters and to our own created characters. Some people might be like Larkin and try to create something that lets them have an escape in a way, to be someone you would like to be or hope to be or maybe some people are like Belen’s mother who is just too happy being in her own little world. So if this is true then the idea of being real is just that a person becomes very comfortable with the image he has created and chooses to keep projecting that image. I think that it’s the same as a dreamask stuck on the same story, soon that story may start to seem real.