Multiethnic Literatures in the U.S.

Octavia Estelle Butler Biography
Octavia E. Butler was an only child born June 22, 1947 in Pasadena, California. Her father, Laurice, worked as a shoeshine man, while her mother, Octavia M. worked as a maid. Her father died when she was young; therefore Octavia was raised by her mother and grandmother. Octavia grew up in a very racially mixed neighborhood and was diagnosed with dyslexia at an early age. She also grew up in a strict Baptist household. At the age of 12, Octavia first got into writing science fiction after seeing the film “Devil Girl from Mars”. Though she was shy as a child, Octavia overcame her shyness and received her associate degree from Pasadena City College in 1963. She then pursued her education at California State University in Los Angeles and then at UCLA. One of Octavia’s most inspiring workshops was with Clarion Science Fiction Writers Workshop in 1970, which soon followed her first novel, “Crossover”. Butler’s most popular novel was “Kindred” which was published in 1976. “Kindred” was about a black woman who goes back in time to slavery before the Civil War. In 1995 Octavia E. Butler became the first science fiction writer to win the MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Grant. Butler moved to Seattle, Washington in 1999. Octavia went through a writers block during after writing the first two novels in the Parable series. In 2005 she published a novel “Fledgling” which helped her to get back on track with a third and last of the Parable trilogy. Unfortunately due to her early death after falling off the stairs in her house and striking her head she was not able to finish her novel. Butler achieved many awards in her lifetime for her writings, including two Nebula Awards and two Hugo Awards. However, Butler was mostly known for exposing readers to the injustices of society through her metaphors in her science fiction novels. More so than what she shared through her writing, Butler was also a pioneer in a field dominated by white male writers. As a result of this, a scholarship fund was established to help writers of color to attend one of Clarion workshops, where she was inspired and got started.

Octavia E. Butler Bibliography :
In 1974, she started the novel Patternmaster, which became her first published book in 1976, though it would become the fifth in the Patternist series. Over the next eight years, she would publish four more novels in the same story line, though the publication dates of the novels do not match the internal order of the series.
• Wild Seed (1980)
• Mind of my Mind (1977)
• Clay’s Ark (1984)
• Survivor (1978)
• Patternmaster (1976)
In 1979, she published Kindred, a novel that uses the science-fiction staple of time travel to explore slavery in the United States. In this story, Dana, an African American woman, is inexplicably transported from 1976 Los Angeles to early nineteenth century Maryland. She meets her ancestors: Rufus, a white slave holder, and Alice, an African American woman who was born free but forced into slavery later in life.
• Kindred (1979)
Next came Lilith’s Brood, formerly Xenogenesis, novels which are available separately or collected in one volume. They tell the story of the human survivors of an apocalyptic war as they are joined and genetically altered by extraterrestrials that have an affinity for strangers.
• Dawn (1987)
• Adulthood Rites (1988)
• Imago (1989)
And the two collected versions of all three novels:
• Xenogenesis (Hard cover, 1989)
• Lilith’s Brood (Trade Paperback, 2000)
Next came the two Parable novels. These take readers into the world of economic, environmental, and social chaos that we seem to be creating, and they offer a few solutions, both malignant and benign.
• Parable of the Sower (1993)
• Parable of the Talents (1998)
She eventually shifted her creative attention, resulting in the 2005 novel, Fledgling, a vampire novel with a science-fiction context. Although Butler herself passed Fledgling off as a lark, the novel is connected to her other works through its exploration of race, sexuality, and what it means to be a member of a community. Moreover, the novel continues the theme, raised explicitly in Parable of the Sower, that diversity is a biological imperative.
• Fledgling (2005)
And finally, there is a book of short fiction and essays including title story, Bloodchild, Speech Sounds, The Evening and the Morning and the Night, and others.
• Bloodchild and Other Stories (1995)

“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.

Religion: A Distraction or Necessity?

Throughout history, religion has always played a crucial role in the lives of most people in a functioning society. To most individuals religion provides extended moral structure, as well as hope for the afterlife. Nearly all religions have some type of book or scriptures to help define these processes and sets of rules that are to be followed; many of these “hard copies” were written thousands of years ago, but are still perceived just as literally as the day they were written. In both the Parable of the Talents, as well as today’s society, I believe that the use of religion presents a distraction—or attempt at mild brainwashing—which helps to take people’s minds away from the real problems that are going on around us. Although this does not fit the public’s accepted view of religions, I still feel that most religions were originally founded to provide a false sense of security, while also helping leaders gain better control of their citizen’s behavior. After reading the Parable of Talents I notice that Octavia Butler shares similar viewpoints; we notice this by examining how Butler portrays Lauren and President Jarrett’s use of religion and its effect on others. Butler seems use a deteriorating society to exaggerate these present day misconceptions in religion.

In Parable of Talents society seems to be in an exaggerated state of chaos although many characteristics mirror the early stages of serious problems in today’s society. This type of exaggerated setting allows Butler to easily and accurately examine how religion is oftentimes used to distract society from the important issues that should be resolved. In the novel, Butler never really provides specific reasoning for Lauren’s need to start Earthseed, as well as to why she continues to dream about the need for its growth. This illustrates that Lauren might care so much about Earthseed because it provides a much needed distraction from the daily chaos. Chaos has surrounded Lauren her whole life, which may explain why she shows the need to pursue Earthseed with such determination. In many cases, we see this happening in today’s culture as well. For example many people feel satisfied by strictly following the words of the bible, but in reality they are losing sight of the actual economical and political problems that are sometimes more important. Religion may also become a distraction by providing a false sense of security. We see this first hand when Lauren is so caught up in her Earthseed community that it “forces” her to refuse a safe refuge for her elderly husband and their new bourn child. Lauren likes the way that Earthseed provides her with a sense of accomplishment, as well as a self esteem boost from her followers; but because of this she decides there is no way she can abandon her Earthseed community. However, in reality she should have been concentrating on survival before religion. This concept is also seen in today’s society with people who feel their life is complete just because they follow the word of the lord.

President Jarrett also uses religion as an obsolete solution for nearly every problem in their chaotic society. It is obvious that Jarrett is an extremist, but people start to believe that forced Christianity might be the only answer since conditions continue to worsen and no other options seem plausible. Extremists like Jarrett will always exist within any religion; this creates a problem since so many people will follow the orders of religious icon just because every part of a person’s life is structured on that religion. We obviously notice that extremists like Jarrett use the framework of a religion in a manipulative way, far from its original context. Nevertheless, the followers are distracted by religion as a whole, and fail to see the propaganda they are being fed. We see this through Jarrett’s manipulative speeches that result in a “cult-like” following. These “Crusaders,” as they are called, claim that they are fighting, killing, and torturing for the goodness of Christianity. This same type of blindness is seen throughout society today, especially through Jihad (a movement to kill all infidels who do not follow Islam) in the Muslim community. The ruthless individuals who pursue this Jihad show definite similarities to Jarrett’s crusaders. Both of these groups are similar because they use their own perception of religion to distract themselves from the wrongful injustices in which they involve themselves. Religion is always portrayed to be necessary in most societies, but can actually do more harm than expected if every part of our lives become concerned with religion. I feel this is why Butler chose religion to play an essential underlying theme in her The Parable of Talents.

In the novel, Parable of the Talents, by Octavia Butler, she presents Lauren, a character that closely parallels a biblical, God-like figure. Throughout the entire novel, it is obvious that Lauren, creator of Earthseed, has been presented as a religious figure, but at the close of the novel, she seems to really take on a more supernatural, God-like character. As the story of Lauren moves on, she spreads her word of Earthseed throughout the west coast of America, seducing followers as she goes. Lauren seems to accomplish this task by “sharing” and feeling other’s pain and giving people a purpose to live. With these tactics, Lauren ends up being portrayed as a modern day God.

            Most people are familiar with stories of the Bible, those stories in the New Testament which paint a picture of Jesus walking throughout the land, preaching and gaining followers. In reading the last part of Parable of the Talents, this is the same picture that is painted of Lauren. The word of Earthseed becomes mobile, as Lauren begins to travel and search for her daughter. Lauren says, “Things had worked out so well with Nia that I could go on recruiting people as we walked toward Portland” (373). As Lauren makes her journey, she takes advantage of those who give her work and food. She uses their generosity as a means of “recruiting” more people to work for her cause. Much like the biblical character of Jesus, Lauren stays in people’s homes, “breaks bread” with them, and teaches them about her religion.

            In addition to making the word of Earthseed mobile and reaching out to more and more of the population, Lauren gives people a purpose and gains their trust by being able to feel their pain. Several times at the close of the novel, Len claims that Lauren has a way of “seducing” people. Lauren is a sharer, which means that she is able to feel the pain of others. This is yet another way that Lauren mirrors the Biblical God-like character. By being able to size-up other people and connect with their pain, Lauren has an advantage to others and ends up gaining the respect of even complete strangers. While feeling others’ pain, Lauren gives them something they are desperately looking for – a purpose. Lauren says, “The world is full of needy people. They don’t all need the same things, but they all need purpose. Even some of the ones with plenty of money need purpose” (373). Without this part of Lauren’s teaching, she would not have been as successful at reaching people. Like God, Lauren aims at giving people reasons to keep living in an unjust, evil world. She often tells them to help those less fortunate, and to take others into their homes and care for them. This seems to be when Lauren really takes on the persona of a God-like character. She aims at making others in her image by giving them a purpose for their seemingly meaningless lives.

            At the start of Earthseed, people didn’t know why they were drawn to Lauren, a child with such large-scale ideas and dreams. Because of Lauren’s ability of sharing, her purpose for people, and the growing mobility of her written word, this novel closes with a grown woman gaining followers while slowly becoming a God-like character.

In Parable of the Talents, we see that Lauren’s town of Acorn has been invaded and Lauren’s community has been sent to Camp Christian. It is seen in this novel that Lauren’s efforts to create a better life for her community and the people of Earthseed have failed. There is a strong connection between the outcome of the Robledo community and the Acorn community. Both communities have suffered an almost identical fate. The reader sees that both communities crumble, despite strong religious leadership. It appears that Butler feels that power backed by religious reasoning is doomed to fail. This element of the novel is also revealed by the totalitarian leader, Jarrett. As we examine the character of Jarrett, the reader sees a negative relationship between power, community, and religion.

Both Robledo and Earthseed have strong religious leadership. In Robledo, the death of Lauren’s father, who embodies religious leadership, corresponds with the fall of the community. It is as if Butler is saying that communities led by religion will always ultimately fail. As soon as Lauren’s father disappears, the community is destroyed. Through this incident, a statement is made about communities that are too strongly influenced by religion. Once the foundation of the belief system is destroyed, the community will also be destroyed.

In Acorn, we see this point stressed even more. Acorn is a community founded almost entirely on the religion of Earthseed. Lauren uses the truths of Earthseed to create the structure of the community and teach all of the community’s people. Here, the reader sees one religion fail a community as another overtakes it and destroys a country. When Jarrett’s followers invade Acorn to establish Christian America, the reader sees two communities fail under the influence of religion. Lauren’s community, based on the religion of Earthseed, is overtaken with little effort by Jarrett’s followers. Acorn falls with one swift takeover by another religious movement. Here, Butler seems to say that religious movements are all the same. They are masked by different beliefs, but all cause the same outcome. Religions also fail to create successful communities and, although religions preach good ideals in the name of religion itself or perhaps in the name of God, religions are almost always controlled by people who make poor decisions in the name of religion.

Jarrett seems to be the strongest case of Butler’s argument that people have used religion as a means to obtain power over a community. He uses religion to justify his abuse of a nation’s people. He advertises religion as a means to bring back a community without poverty and crime by creating poverty and crime. By using religious reasoning, Jarrett is able to become the president of America and use his power to “convert” sinners and criminals into good Christians while he is actually creating reeducation camps that are, in true form, extremely similar concentration camps. He is also starting wars with bordering nations. Butler appears to compare Jarrett’s power to that of a totalitarian that is using religion as a means to justify his corrupt and hypocritical rule. Through Jarrett, Butler shows that religion has again failed its people.

Through the circularity of the outcomes of religion in Butler’s novels, the reader can see that Butler is commenting on the effects of religion on society. Communities led by religious rule always seem to fail. Also, once on religion is destroyed, it is replaced by a very similar religion that also fails to produce much good in a community. Butler seems to feel that the effects of religion are always the same. They create strong communities that eventually fall because of the religious leadership itself. It is also clear that Butler feels that religious leadership is directly proportional to power. In Butler’s eyes, religion has yet to find a way to resist collapsing in on itself.

As any mother would say, “I would do anything for my family.” Any good mother/wife would do what was possible to protect their family. That is apparently not the case with Lauren. First, she refused Bankole’s persistent suggestions to move to other towns. Then she refused to convert to Christianity to aid in her search for her only daughter.
Knowing that there is continuous danger with living in Acorn, Lauren still insisted on living there. Rather than move to the many other communities, including Saylorville, Halstead, Coy, that Bankole suggested, she persistently refused. When he first suggested it, Lauren just said that she was content with where they were. She said that if they continued to live there, a good thing will arise, meaning more Earthseed followers. Before the birth of baby Larkin, Bankole again brings it up, saying that the town of Halstead wants him to become their full-time doctor. Bankole said that “he’s an old man” and “he’s got to think of the future, and [Lauren]’s got to think of the baby” (144). She believed that all Bankole saw was “was he called [her] immaturity, [her] irrational, unrealistic faith in Earthseed, [her] selfishness, [her] shortsightedness” (145). A week after the birth of Larkin, Bankole mentioned moving away from Earthseed to Halstead. And just like all the other times, Lauren said that Acorn is her home and that she cannot leave. But this time Bankole wanted to know what her plans were for Acorn. Lauren told him her plans: to continue to grow as a community, to prepare for the Destiny, and to spread Earthseed to other communities. She believed that without her, Acorn would crumble.
Even after the attack on Dovetree by the radical group, Jarret’s Crusaders, she refused to leave. She heard the accounts of what happened by the Dovetree attack survivors, with the men in “belted black tunics” and the “big white crosses on chains around their necks” (19). Even if the Dovetrees weren’t attacked because of their religion, Lauren must have known that the attackers where in connection with the new Christian America movement. She must have been aware that Acorn was a possible target, especially since they did not practice Christianity but Earthseed. When Bankole presents the possible danger of the newly elected President Jarret, she said that “[Acorn is] nothing to him, so small, so insignificant” (194).
When she took back her freedom from Camp Christian, Lauren was determined to find Larkin. She went to Eureka-Arcata, hoping to work and to hear any rumors about adoptions or foster children. During her stay, she sat through a sermon by her brother Marc, who was now a minister of the Christian Church of America. She contacted him after wards, hoping for some help in finding her child. He left her with no advice or helping words. She tried to contact him again but he had already left for Portland, Oregon. One of Marc’s friends gave Lauren a letter, saying that he was sorry and that if she really wanted to find her daughter, she should join Christian America. It would have been the best, safest way to find her only daughter yet she rejected his advice. If Lauren truly did want to find Larkin, she should have joined CA, like her brother suggested, despite her different beliefs. She should’ve become a Christian, for the time being, and put Earthseed to the side.

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.

In the first chapter of Parable of the Talents, by Ocatvia E. Butler, Lauren has a conversation with one the surviving members of the Dovetree family, Aubrey. They talk about the attack on the Dovetree’s house, killings, and the destruction. Aubrey started talking about the description of the attackers and the way they acted.

“…attackers were men, but they wore belted black tunics – black dresses, she called them – which hung to their thighs.”
“They all wore big white crosses on their chests – crosses like in church.”

These two phrases sound all too familiar. They sound like a description of cloths that Ku Klux Klan wear, however, it is not. The current Ku Klux Klan is white robes with a variation of red or black cross on the chest or back area. The people who Aubrey talks about were black tunics with red crosses. This illustrates to me that the whole country, nation, is back to where we were when the Ku Klux Klan could walk the streets and literally kill people who they thought were not fit in their society. However, this might be not be the case since these people wear black tunics, which might show that it is similar to what has happened in our history, it is not the same, but very closely related. I once heard someone say something similar to, “For every country to move forward, it needs a revolution once in a while.” Revolutions happen when something drastic happens where people do no like what is being done (in a simple way). “Desperate times call for drastic measures.” When there is a revolution the nation is pretty much is set to the beginning. New rulers need to be put in place, new laws have to created, and new ways of living have to be established. In Parable of the Talents, this isn’t the case. Even thou they don’t call the people who attacked Dovetrees Ku Klux Klan, they are. We are back at the begging and things are going to go bad again. This is another circle of life which repeats itself, different time same concept.

“Jarret insists on being a throwback to some earlier, ‘simpler’ time. Now does not suit him. Religious tolerance does not suit him. The current state of the country does not suit him. He wants to take us all back to some magical time when everyone believed in the same god, worshipped him in the same way, and understood that their safety in the universe depended on completing the same religious rituals and stomping anyone who was different. There was never such a time in this country.”

There was a time when all this was considered the right thing to do, however, it was never established as a law in a society we live in today. Taking this phrase and looking at the present state of the United States religion, there is no way US will ever be “taken back to that magic time of one religion.” US is one the religiously diverse nations and that cannot be taken away from a nation like the United States of America.

Octavia Butler leaves off in a very solemn, almost pessimistic mood in Parable of the Sower.  It is somewhat disappointing, because we want to see some good happen to the Acorn community.  Parable of the Talents starts off five flourishing years into Acorn.  Compared to other nearby towns, Acorn has the most diverse groups of people.  There is a mixture—Black, White, Latino, and Asian—kind of like how it is in the city.  Interracial families are a norm in Acorn.

Jarret is the new president.  He wants sameness—everyone believing in the same God and worshipping in the same way—anyone who was different would be stomped on.  Jarret’s followers are burning people and cutting off women’s tongues, because that is how much women should be obedient and submissive to men.  Word on the streets is that Earthseed has been viewed as some sort of ‘cult’.  Will President Jarret be a threat to the Acorn community because they’re ‘different’? 

Bankole insists on moving to an already established community because it’s safer than Acorn.  He knows his age; therefore, he just wants to provide a future for Lauren and their daughter.  But his cynicism angers Lauren, and a lot of their arguments stem from this.  Their disagreement becomes worse when Bankole actually receives an offer to be Halstead’s doctor.  Do you think Lauren is being stubborn by not moving to Halstead?  I think it is very difficult to leave a community behind, especially one that you helped build and organize yourself.  Lauren’s leaving is like their leader abandoning them.  Will Acorn be as thriving as it is now, even if Lauren leaves?  There is more pressure on Lauren to stay strong, because there are so many people in Acorn that she sometimes loses sight of what she stands for.

In a happier note, Lauren finds her brother Marcus, who was thought to be dead for five years.  Initially, Marcus is unresponsive to his sister.  He’s been through so much that we can’t really blame him.  Lauren finally learns of how her family died, and it was a miracle that Marcus has lived through it.  Marcus was adopted by the Duran family, who took care of him since the massacre in Robledo.  He also preached to the poor and his ‘other family’.  It is sort of ironic how both Marcus and Lauren were ‘preaching’ to others around the same time but in different places.  Their father must have been alive and strong within them.  To fill their father’s shoes, do you think they felt responsible to take the role as a leader?  We also learn of a new device, the Collar.  This was just another way for people to stay in control and to control their ‘property’ (aka boys and girls).  This is such a frightening thought—to inflict pain on to others by just a press of a button.

During Gatherings, there is still a lot of discussion about Earthseed.  The newcomers, especially, question its meaning or simply ask, “Do we have to join your cult?”  I think it’s harder for people to grasp the idea of Earthseed, because there is no ‘physical God’.  God is change, and only the individuals can mold and shape change.  That is why everyone in Acorn helps each other out, whether it’s planting, harvesting, salvaging, building, repairing, educating, keeping watch, and helping the sick and wounded.  Education seems like the key to survival, besides Earthseed.  According to Lauren, the more they learn and educate one another, the more likely they are to survive.