Multiethnic Literatures in the U.S.

Parable of the Talents
By: Octavia E. Butler
Dave McAndrew

I was really disappointed while reading Parable of the Talents. I thought it was just another Parable of the Sower. As a matter of fact I would say it is just like it. The passage I was assigned is just like the passage everyone else was assigned. It’s the circle the book has been driving down since we started Parable of the Sower. After being interested in the first book and then losing interest by the end, I was not so thrilled in reading Parable of the Talents. Octavia Butler tries hard to keep you interested in the book by putting shooting and rape into a passage after you have already lost interest.
I thought of the passage as a huge circle. Lauren is this girl that speaks of change, yet doesn’t want change. She knows that the building of Acorn could be a positive step to a new life, yet doesn’t allow anything but Earthseed to be taught. Therefore, no change was taking place. I related the passage I read to everyday life. There are some that think everything that is happening now is good, and some that think change is what makes things better. Lauren’s positive change came when she was reunited with Marcus, this would have been a great step to take to rebuild what she had before. Yet she doesn’t think so since Marcus wants to preach Christianity and doesn’t believe in her religion.
Lauren wasn’t taking any steps for a positive change. She was living with what she had, although things are going to change. She had a child named Larkin, no matter what she didn’t want to change, it was going to happen. Bankole was offering Lauren a better life in a new community, but she wouldn’t leave Acorn and Earthseed behind. She didn’t want to teach anyone another points of view or religion. She was “stuck” and she wasn’t going to do anything different. I didn’t like certain parts of the book because there was nothing really going on, nothing was happening.
The thing that caught my eye the most was this “Choose you leaders, with wisdom and forethought. To be led by a coward, is to be controlled by all that the coward fears. To be led by a fool, is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool.” Lauren didn’t want anyone to choose their own leaders, she was their leader and that was the end. I thought of Lauren as a coward throughout the whole book because she didn’t choose the better life with Bankole in Halstead over Acorn. I would consider her a fool because I thought Jarret was running her in some way or another. She kept people in Acorn just to soon be defeated.
I summed it up into a circle like I said in the beginning. I knew what was happening before I read this passage, while reading it I thought of what was next before it happened. In my opinion it’s not a great way to write a book. I don’t write books so I may not know.

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