Multiethnic Literatures in the U.S.

After reading “Parable of the Sower”, I was heartbroken. I became disgusted with the world around me as Octavia Butler exposed me to the ugly truths that I was all too familiar with: racism still exists and it is worse than ever, the middle class are becoming poor, the environment is going to hell, drug addiction is out of control, and the worst part is that society will just ignore all these problems until they blow up in our faces with chaos and anarchy taking over, just like they did in Butler’s novel.
Butler gives us various hopeful situations to solving these problems. Unfortunately, every single one she slowly crushes and kills. Butler introduces us to Lauren, a character with hyperempathy. Such a unique disease of feeling others’ pain that one quickly wonders what the world would be like if everyone had such a disorder. Would there be peace on earth? Hell no. Butler destroys this dream of any good coming from this disorder by showing that we’d be helpless in helping each other or better yet, we’d kill all those in pain just so we wouldn’t have to suffer. People with broken bones would quickly be executed to save the suffering we’d have to endure. Maybe this is Butler’s way of saying that society can’t just understand or feel the pain of those who are suffering. That would do no good. By helping others people would have to face their agony. So instead people just try to hide from others’ misery.
Through Lauren, the reader also gets the hope of a girl determined not ignore society’s problems but instead face them head on with the idea of changing the world into a better place. Our wish that Lauren can change the world is also killed by Butler. She makes our hope in Lauren change into disgust as Butler changes Lauren into a cross-dressing religious extremist that slowly begins to justify killing and stealing in her philosophy of change. Her obsession with her father and sleeping with someone who reminds her of her father and is her father’s age is not to pleasant either.
Even the hope of educating others to these problems is shattered by Butler. In the book people don’t even want to know about societies’ problems but instead want to live inside their walled communities. When Lauren tries to educate her community of the terrors of the outside and being prepared, she is just ignored and even punished for scaring people. It’s as if Butler is telling us that there are all these horrible things in our society and there is nothing we can do about it because people don’t want to do anything about it. We can’t make a philosophy for everyone to follow, we can’t just try to feel others’ pain that their in, we can’t fight racism because it’s unidentifiable, and we can’t really educate those who just want to live inside their little “bubbles”, so what can we do? Butler succeeds in ripping out our little hearts and leaving us to bleed to death. Hopefully our hearts are mended a little in Butler’s sequel by giving us a little hope in mankind.

In the novel, Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler, the characters and other inhabitants of the future United States face an all too familiar world of little access to essential resources. This world in which it is difficult to obtain an income, food, and adequate medical care is not all that foreign if compared to today’s society. Today, those who are not on the top of the social class hierarchy deal with limited access almost daily. They fight to obtain a job in which will pay enough for them to get out of debt, they struggle to obtain healthy foods (without having to travel long distances), and they attempt to gain adequate and affordable healthcare and justice. This is exactly the picture that Butler paints in her novel, except that instead of only affecting the poor, it sweeps the country on a large scale, making a full life even more difficult to obtain.

            One of the first and most obvious things that the characters in Butler’s world do not have is access to money. The only money they are able to obtain is by either stealing or by taking money from the dead. If any characters are able to hold a job, it usually does not pay enough for them to support a family or to buy necessities to live on. Butler writes, “Wages – surprise! Were never enough to pay the bills” (288). Even when people were able to earn some type of wages, they couldn’t afford water and food. These kinds of occurrences are strikingly familiar to today’s world. Jobs that pay a low salary never quite get people out of debt. They also leave people with a low amount of money to buy food. Another similarity between this fantasy world and our current one is the distance people are made to travel to obtain food. Butler’s characters cannot find adequate stores that sell food and clothing at affordable prices. This is not a far off idea if the poorer areas of cities today are closely examined. People must travel further distances in order to buy the things they need, much like the people in Butler’s world. This problem of access to resources is what sets classes apart from each other in today’s society, and unfortunately, in Butler’s world, this lack of access is what keeps Lauren and her followers on the streets.

            In addition to not having access to money and proper food, the characters in Butler’s world do not have access to medical care or to the criminal justice system. Doctors and hospitals are long gone and the people are left to either not receive medical care, or to simply make due with that they have. Along with no medical care, these people cannot depend on the police for assistance. Often the police charge outrageous prices for routine investigations or worse, they don’t respond to a call for days. Again, while these situations might seem shocking to think about, they are going on in the world today. In poor areas of the city, police many times are slow to respond; if they respond at all. With Bankole’s situation, Butler writes, “The deputies all but ignored Bankole’s story and his questions. They wrote nothing down, claimed to know nothing.” (316). In this instance, the police didn’t even give Bankole a chance – they had their minds made up that he was a criminal. In the end, the lack of available resources is the community’s downfall. Because of the unavailability of water, food, money, and medical needs, they are left fending for themselves. They steal and share, make their own food, and try the best they can to survive under the less than perfect conditions that now make up their lives, just like some people do in today’s world.

“This country is going to be parceled out as a source of cheap labor and cheap land.” This passage comes from Octavia E. Butler’s novel, Parable of the Sower. This phrase shows up in the beginning of chapter 12, this chapter Joanne and the main character of the book, Lauren. They are talking about moving to a city which provides room, security, and a little money in exchange for work. This phrase is part of a passage that struck me as a reality that is going on in our world today. “This country is going to be parceled out as a source of cheap labor and cheap land. When people like those in Olivar beg to sell themselves, our surviving cities are bound to wind up the economic colonies of whoever can afford to buy them.” To me it sounds like Octavia E. Butler might be talking about the countries that we as a nation outsource to. “This country” can be any country we outsource to which has cheap labor, cheap land, and is in need of the money and economic growth. These countries get divided into business sectors depending on who or which country buys what. I get a feeling that Octavia E. Butler is trying to show that someday we, the United States of America, might end up being one of those nations that is in need of the economic support and influence of other nations. And seeing this opportunity other countries will outsource their businesses to United States. It seems like Butler just lightly touches on the subject and doesn’t develop it any further, and that made me disappointed while reading this passage, especially being a business major. I personally will have to face such difficulties as outsourcing, I think it is unethical because we are pretty much are using other countries for our benefit and giving them scrap. It might not be far from now when we might end up one of those countries.
The whole situation that happened in Robledo, the whole city was taken over by a group of outsiders called Pyro. At the end, the whole community is taken over and it seems as if almost everyone is dead. I think that Octavia E. Butler is trying to show that things can change for the better or for worse, depends whose side we take, in just seconds. This passage is very graphic and really puts one in the city while it is being raided by Pyros. The first connection to our time that comes to mind is the war in Iraq. The United States can be viewed as Pyros going into Iraq and pretty much enforcing our laws. This association might or might not be right but that is the first thought that came up after reading that passage. The people who live in Iraq, the ones that live the peaceful lives are now forced to live in the middle of the war and suffer.

I just finished reading Parable of the Sower and I must say WOW! This book is amazing! At it’s crudest moments are when we see the true elements of human nature. As humans, we feel, we try to be compassionate, we try to help our fellow man. But that is today, not in the 2020’s when our book takes place. People have come to embody their worst forms. People are drug addicts, theifs and killers. Cops & politicians are in it for thier own gain, not the people they are supposed to serve, and there is no one strong enough to challenge them. People have only been left with thier animal instincts. We see these things when comeone notices a human skull lying on the ground & doesn’t flinch. They can only be thankful that “It’s not me.” Or when Lauren’s group comes across a corpse on the side of the road & nobody has a problem with Emery taking the woman’s clothes…”I need to survive”…

What has the world come to when a man will to try snatch a child from her mother’s grasp? It seems the only time purity & innocence come up in the novel is when the chidren are the focus. Doe makes her father take half the pomegranate because they should each have thier fair share. Allie takes in Justin like he is her own child. Natividad & Travis join the group because their child needs strong defenses around him. It is perhaps the children that are able to keep this group sane & together. Everytime Grayson wants to leave, he takes on look at his daughter & knows he must stay, at least for her sake. He needs to survive. Survival is the key to the future Parable of the Sower holds for the people of the United States.

Author: Octavia Butler

Title: Parable of the Sower

Pages 279-329 

In the novel by Octavia Butler there is an issue about trust.  Trust in the book can be very risky at times but also very rewarding.  How do you learn how to trust someone or trust yourself?  Is it learned or is it a gut instinct?  Does Lauren rely too much on trust to survive the long journey to the north?  Or is Laurens trust fueled by the need of Earthseed.

Laurens has had trust issues throughout the entire book.  While she lived in Robledo before the town was destroyed by fire, she was taught not to trust the communities or the people outside of the walls.  She also has trust issues with her boyfriend Curtis.  She could not bring herself to trust him with her deepest secret that she has hyperempathy.  She was taught by her father to keep it to herself.  That keeping her condition secret would benefit her.  She was also hurt in the past which has influenced the way she trusted people.  With this mentioned, trust in this case was taught by her family and friends.  The most influential family member was her father.  He was the family’s backbone and they only needed to rely on him for survival.  

After the walled town was burned and her father died she was left with only two people she knew from the town.  She was forced outside the walls to survive in an unstable environment.  Along her journey north she picked twelve strangers to trust.  There was very little reason behind why she trusted these people.  The reasons ranged from the other peoples looks to the agreement that they would follow her rules and that the more people they had the safer they would be.  It was very dangerous for her to let her guard down.  One other hand the only people she trusted were people that were either weaker than she was or were in need of help.  This seemed like her goal.  To make people feel as though she saved them and they were entitled to pay her back in some way.  Laurens secret agenda was forming a community to start the practice of Earthseed.

Her goal from early on in the book was to form a community that followed Earthseed.  She picked up these helpless people in order to fulfill her goal.  She did not really trust these people at first because she would never let them stand watch by themselves.  These people were in dept to Lauren.  She was their savior that promised them a future and protection if they stayed with her.  At this time a person turning down protection would be stupid. 

 Lauren took a risk in order to accomplish her goal.  The trust she had in these people was selfish.  She was not looking out for the well being of the group.  She was more interested in her goal of Earthseed.  Her trust of people was fueled by Earthseed.                   

God is change. This is a phrase that comes up so often in the book Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler. It seems as in the book, the only hope of the ending chaos is religion. No matter what religion they believe in, religion seems to represent hope for the characters. People seek for a religion they believe is suitable for their life and the world. A religion they believe that can fix the future.

Lauren, the creator of Earthseed, illustrates a hope of the world when she invents a new source of religion for herself. She believes that religion needs to be changed throughout time, because the world changes, as well as people. Things are not as valuable as they were before such as cars and oil, and what may have been the source of life may not be so in the future. As Lauren continues the journey up North, she starts to build a community of believers for her new religion Earthseed. I believe this new religion represents hope for each of the new believers in the book. Religion is something you commit yourself to, and is something you believe. Faith brings hope for the future, and this is what the characters are hoping to find in their lives. Though faith is key to a religion, Earthseed embraces the idea of action in order for change to occur. When more than one individual join for a cause, there is greater power especially through their actions.

If we look at our lives today, many of us may believe in a God, a creator, or maybe nothing at all. People that believe in a God mostly believe there is a greater power than the world and people. In the book, I see religion as hope because people want to believe that there is something greater than the world they live in. They hope for a new world, and that hope represents God. As much as God is feared and misinterpreted in the book with all the chaos going on, Religions such as Earthseed gives Lauren a guide in living her life. She wants to live a better life, as well as help others improve their lives, hoping she can change the world into a better livable place. When Lauren was asked what community members of Earthseed have to do by her current love, Bankole, she responds with, “The essentials… are to learn to shape God with forethought, care, and world; to educate and benefit their community, their families, and themselves; and to contribute to the fulfillment of the Destiny.” She also describes Destiny by saying “A unifying, purposeful life here on Earth, and the hope of heaven for themselves and their children. A real heaven, not mythology or philosophy. A heaven that will be theirs to shape.” (263) Though this religion may seem simple and basic for some people, like Bankole, for Lauren, Earthseed is a new beginning to her life, a life that is meaningful, and a life that seeks for hope with actions. Earthseed embraces unity and a purposeful life on earth.

When the world is in destruction and chaos, we search for a greater power to look up to. A power that we believe may be able to save our world and power that we can trust and put our faith into, in order for a better life. Though it is a bit different than Lauren’s religion Earthseed, Lauren and her community members believe that they can be the start of change in their community.

Throughout Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower, Lauren (the main character) talks about the aspects of her newly discovered religion of Earthseed. The religion states that God is change and that you can shape that change. This means that you control your destiny and the destiny of others with your everyday actions.

In this particular section of the book (p. 167-268), Lauren demonstrates one of the important concepts of the religion. “Embrace diversity, Unite—Or be divided, robbed, ruled, killed By those who see you as prey. Embrace diversity Or be destroyed” (p.197). After pyro addicts and thieves take over and burn down Lauren’s community, her family is killed, and she is forced to live on her own. Lauren has to find a way to survive without a home and without the help of friends or family. She is left with nothing. But Lauren, being the strong girl that she is, does not believe that she is left with nothing. She knows that she has Earthseed. She knows that if she keeps it her mind and actions she will survive. In order to survive, Lauren knows that she has to find allies and head north. She meets two survivors named Harry and Zahra when she looks for a place to sleep. They all sleep in the same garage for a night, and become allies from there.

Their journey north becomes a struggle with savages trying to rob or kill them for their supplies, clothing, and money. As they travel through expressways they meet new and different people. They meet a mixed family of three (Travis, Natividad, and their baby Dominic), a former rich man named Bankole, two prostitute sisters named Allie and Jill and a small child named Justin. Before the family joined Lauren’s group, they were attacked by robbers and wild dogs because they were a small group, and therefore, seen as prey. Before Bankole joined the group, he was seen pushing his cart along the road by himself, and would most likely be robbed or killed like every other individual that was seen alone. Before Allie and Jill came along, they were found trapped in a house after an earthquake and would also be dead if they were not saved by Lauren’s group. After his mother was killed, Justin had no chance of surviving if they did not take him in. The way that Lauren takes these people in and allows them to travel with her as a group demonstrates her belief in Earthseed. She embraces diversity by inviting people no matter what race they are. (there are three white people, three black people, and two Hispanics) She also encourages unity because she knows that that is what it takes to survive.

As each of the individuals join the group, they gradually become a community. They take turns watching for scavengers while the others sleep, they advise each other on what supplies to buy, and they kill anyone who attacks anyone in the group. With her belief in Earthseed, Lauren was able to build this community. She starts to prove that she did not just make it up like some people believe. Surviving as a unite shows that the religion is true, and that others should believe in it as well.

This concept of embracing diversity and uniting seems to be Butler’s way of sending a message to readers. She is trying to show today’s society that the only way to survive and prevent the formation of Robledo’s 2027 society is to unite and accept others no matter what race they are.

As we watch Lauren begin to start her community of Earthseed, we also see her develop as a character watching her interact with different individuals in the book. As Harry, Zahra, and Lauren move north they meet a couple who Lauren calls their “natural allies”. She takes no time to enlighten them about Earthseed and her plans for the future. However, even though Lauren knows she must not trust anyone soon their group turns into ten people due of her kind heart. People quickly begin to realize the power of their group and tend to stand clear because of their unusual size.
One member of the group, Bankole, has a very interesting relationship with Lauren. Not only does he play her father figure, but he also becomes her lover. They first met after an earthquake hit California as Lauren and the group headed north. Lauren acknowledges that he is an older man but she finds herself immediately attracted to him despite their age difference. They strangely have gone through many of the same misfortunes; both of their communities were attacked by thieves and arson and both had very different religious beliefs with important people in their lives.
He brings a lot of wisdom to the group since he is the oldest and was once a doctor. One afternoon, while Lauren and Bankole were getting to know each other they talk about her religion of Earthseed. He questions her beliefs and ideas. The conversation they have reminds me much of the conversation she had with her father before he disappeared. She got in trouble for loaning a book to Joanne about survival and scaring her with the reality of being educated on how to survive beyond the comfort of their neighborhood walls. Just as Bankole pushes for answers about Earthseed, her father pushed for answers.
Bankole tells Lauren he doesn’t know where he is going, just north like the rest of the group. Lauren begins to question where he is truly headed; her intuition tells her that he isn’t just heading north, but that he has a definite destination. He confesses that he has 300 acres of land that he had made as an investment years earlier where his sister and her family reside. Bankole wants her to come with him but Lauren is hesitant because of her plans to spread Earthseed. He knows that Earthseed is his rival of Lauren’s heart, but asks her hand in marriage anyway. They come to a compromise that if Lauren comes with him that he will let her build the community she has always dreamed of. I predict that there will be conflict between them because of her passion to not only make an Earthseed community but because of her commitment to it. Will her relationship with Bankole get in the way or will he support her dreams of the future?

In Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler makes several points about the role of religion and change in society. Butler calls for an active religion. In her novel, she writes about the creation of a religion that motivates people to do more than just pray to God for change. Through Lauren’s character and the new religion “Earthseed,” Butler seems to convey an underlying message that people need to put their futures into their own hands. People need to have active roles in society in order for society to improve. Butler also appears to make a statement that, in order to move away from the religious belief that God alone will save a community, all traditional religious beliefs should be reinvented and should adapt to a society’s current way of life. This is seen through the fact that when Lauren’s father, a community leader and minister, disappears, Lauren is forced to completely rebuild her life and religion.

In the novel, Lauren’s family is Baptist and Lauren doesn’t have the same religious beliefs as her family. She repeats that “God is change” in several places throughout the novel. Lauren believes that religion should adapt to suit what is needed in a current society. Especially in the devastating times that Lauren and her family live through, Lauren believes that religion must adapt to life and that life cannot adapt to religion without seeing regression in a society. She believes that her family’s religious beliefs have not been sufficient enough to help anyone in the Robledo. Therefore, Lauren attempts to form a religion that encourages people to actively create the changes that they wish to see in the world.

Lauren believes that the ideals of religion should support human action. In chapter 7 Butler writes, “They have no ability at all to travel great distances under their own power, and yet, they do travel. Even they don’t have to just sit in one place and wait to be wiped out.” This is what Lauren says after she names her religion after plant seeds. In these lines, Butler is criticizing the way in which people may be hesitant to react to problems in the community because they believe that just praying to God will help solve the community’s problems. Like Lauren, Butler feels that if people want to change society, they cannot just “sit in one place and wait to be wiped out.” People must actively do something to make the world change for the better even if it seems as though there is no hope.

In the novel, Lauren’s father disappears and, after this happens, Lauren’s world quickly changes. The community security appears to have weakened greatly and Robledo is hit with more robberies and arson than before. Lauren eventually loses her community, her home, and her family in a large fire caused by the drug addicted Pyros. This causes Lauren to rebuild her life and religion from scratch. It appears that Butler is saying that, in order to stop chaos and crime, people must start over. They must use what they know and change. Perhaps Butler believes that it takes extraordinarily unfortunate events to make human beings take action in a passive world. She believes that human beings do not initiate change until it is nearly too late. It is also obvious that Butler thinks religions need to make people realize that change is essential to the world’s well-being.

Finally, as far as religion is concerned, it appears that Bulter feels that its role in today’s society is near obsolete. With the disappearance of Lauren’s father, who is most likely a symbol of the insufficiencies of today’s religions, Lauren is able to work more on her Earthseed religion. It is at this point in the novel, that Lauren also begins to try and make a better life for herself by travelling north, where the economy is better and resources are in larger abundance. This is also a point of great change for Lauren as a whole. She is now one of the poor and homeless people that she once feared. She begins to see the world from a different perspective and this new way of life appears to encourage Lauren’s creation of a new religion. One message that Butler emphasizes greatly in the novel is that it is important to see when change is necessary and, when change is necessary, people need to actively and effectively pursue this change.

When talking about Parable of the Sower words like poverty, crime, and disparity come to mind. However I think a more important term that might be overlooked is fire. It’s a simple character in nature however Butler uses it to shape her scenes and, more importantly, Lauren. Fire is a part of Laurens life, past and present. Even before she was born, her mother’s need to take the drug Paraceto (the most significant ingredient in the pyro drug) became the source for her ability to hyperempathize with the pain and pleasure of others. As she grew up the fire surrounded her home and family, terrorizing those who avoided going outside at all costs. Now, as we have found ourselves in the middle of the novel, the fire has challenged Lauren to shed her old life and venture out into the jungle of the real world.
Fire, by itself, is an interesting concept. When discussing the dawn of man we may say that was marked by the discovery of fire. The source of our planet’s power and life is the sun, a big ball of flame. In mythology the phoenix is a bird that dies by way of flame and then is reborn from its ashes. Lauren actually uses the phoenix as part of her earthseed when she says “In order to rise from its own ashes a phoenix first must burn.” (153). In a lot of ways Lauren is just like this phoenix. She is a being who is beautiful and strong and yet her life as she knows it is about to come to an end. By way of fire (both arson and gunfire), her entire family is killed. Her home is burned and most of her friends are missing or dead. Fire has dessimated her former life, and from those ashes she is reborn. Although always mature she is now far beyond her years in both wisdom and bravery.
As with the never ending discussion of duality, the fire is both good and bad. While it allows Lauren to gain a new sense of being that is helpful for her survival, it comes at quite a cost. In this future world, there are those who see fire as a way to gain control. Butler acknowledges this by saying that “People are setting fires because they’re frustrated, angry hopeless. They have no power to improve their lives but they have the power to make others even more miserable. And the only way to prove to yourself that you have power is to use it” (143). In essence fire is being used as a tool. It is a tool of dominance, pain, and even pleasure for those who choose to take the drug pyro.
Along with Lauren’s growth we see development in Earthseed. With each experience there comes a new piece of wisdom that adds to the complexity of her vision. Interestingly enough, if we take Earthseed and divide the word, we have two very common nouns, earth and seed. Seeds are planted in the earth and one of the more important parts of agriculture is the annual burning of the fields that allows for the removal of dead crop and weeds (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_burn#Agricultural_use). So as destructive as fire seems to be in her life, it is still an integral concept in her future.