In “Bloodchild” Octavia Butler creates a world where humans live cohesively with an alien species where humans are not the dominant creatures. Butler masterfully crafts her new world in such a way that it keeps readers confused yet hungry to figure out how it came to be. The author uses in-depth descriptions, strong pacing, compelling perspective, and revealing character dialogue to make the situation seem relatable and human when the planet and creatures are alien and act strangely compared to what the reader is accustomed to.
When readers enter the peculiar world of “Bloodchild” they are exposed to gruesome descriptions of a “birthing” process that includes cutting open a man to remove live maggots from his flesh. The descriptions change
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how readers and Gan perceive the alien species that they have been acquainted with. At the beginning of the story readers are introduced to a caring but strange creature, T’Gatoi, a Tlic. Although the creature is strange Gan and the rest of his family treat it as if it is a part of their family. Because of the family’s calm and faithful demeanor to the alien, the reader is compelled to trust the alien. However, both Gan’s and the reader’s opinions on T’Gatoi change when the gruesome descriptions begin when T’Gatoi extracts the first maggot, “T’Gatoi picked up the writhing grub carefully and looked at it, somehow ignoring the terrible groans of the man,” (Butler 16). When T’Gatoi begins the extraction process, her complete disregard for human pain reminds Gan and the reader just how alien T’Gatoi and her species is. Her actions and how she reacts to Gan’s discomfort and the man’s agony betrays her caring nature that readers are introduced to at the beginning of the story. The alien species is further dehumanized with the description of the maggots, “They took only blood until they were ready to emerge. Then they ate their stretched, elastic egg cases. Then they ate their hosts,” (Butler 17). The grubs are described as a parasite that drains blood and flesh until there is nothing left. This shocks the reader and makes it even harder to relate to the strange creatures, because of how destructive they can be at such a young state. Butler’s excellent use of horrific descriptions contorts previously established opinions within a few sentences, yet she keeps them engaged with the mysterious history of a strange alien race. When readers first begin reading “Bloodchild” they are not introduced to a history of the world that Butler created, but are instead thrown into a strange new reality with strange aliens. The reader immediately starts to ask questions about how people became acquainted with the aliens and how they discovered them. As the story continues Butler slowly answers questions while she creates new ones. Readers learn that the Tlic of high class integrate into human families and that humans are in high demand. This type of pacing keep readers interested by continuously cultivating their curiosity while answering questions to give them samples of closure while waiting for all of the puzzle pieces to fall together perfectly. Another way that the author keeps the reader attentive and interested is by creating a compelling first person perspective from the main protagonist Gan. Gan is a young boy in the midst of adolescence who has a duty to T’Gatoi.
At the beginning of the story the reader follows Gan’s thoughts and confusion toward his family members and their distrust of T’Gatoi. The idea of distrust is shown when Gan’s mother laid with T’Gatoi, “T’Gatoi’s limbs closed around her, holding her loosely, but securely. I had always found it comfortable to lie that way, but no one else in the family liked it,” (Butler 6). This establishes Gan’s opinions of the Tlic and how they are not affected by his family’s apprehension. Although, Gan’s opinions are challenged when he witnesses the gory and traumatizing experience that is the birthing process of the Tlic. Gan first starts to doubt the love he feels for T’Gatoi when he holds down Bram and thinks, “I felt as though I were helping her torture him, helping her consume him,” (Butler 15). By introducing this doubt to the protagonist the reader also starts to doubt the intentions of T’Gatoi and the species of the Tlic. This makes Gan vulnerable to criticism that he would have normally dismissed, which is shown when Gan confronts his brother. “‘To provide the next generation of host animals,’ he said, ‘It’s more than that!’ I countered. Was it?” (Butler 21). The readers’ and Gan’s trust for T’Gatoi and the Tlic slowly deteriorates because of how quickly love could change into apprehension and confusion. While the perspective can show the reader how someone could change within a short amount of time the dialogue shows how Tlic and humans interact within this new
society. The dialogue in “Bloodchild” helps set every scene in the story and strengthens the effect on the reader by adding an emotional reaction between characters. One of the most notable examples of this is when T’Gatoi is removing the Tlic larvae, “You may have to kill another animal, Gan. Everything lives inside you Terrans,” (Butler 16). The way T’Gatoi speaks with a detached amused tone shows that she is not disturbed by the scene and the act of filleting a man. T’Gatoi’s lack of empathy alienates the readers who previously thought that she cared for humans and their wellbeing. Another example of where dialogue enhanced a scene is when Gan confronts T’Gatoi in the kitchen about his part in becoming a host of the creatures saw extracted from a man. “’What are you?’ I whispered. ‘What are we to you?’” This line helps enhance the climax of the story by showing just how Gan is confused about his relationship with T’Gatoi. Gan’s question also shows the reader just how confused he has become by asking the person he had believed to share mutual love with what he is to her. Throughout the story “Bloodchild” brings the role of humans and how family members interact into question. Humans are treated almost as pets by a species more powerful than them and families have changed with the introduction of Tlics into the family. Butler skillfully balances the story in a way the keeps readers interested without revealing the mystery of her universe in an overarching large reveal. Readers discover and piece the details together progressively as a normal day at home changes into a struggle for life and a deconstruction of previous opinions. Butler’s “Bloodchild” is well crafted piece that carefully guides readers through an experience unmatched by other short stories.
Bad blood is a book that was written James H. Jones who is an associate professor of History. The book narrates on how the government through the department of Public Health service (PHS) authorized and financed a program that did not protect human values and rights. The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment which was conducted between 1932 and 1972 where four hundred illiterate and semi-illiterate black sharecroppers in Alabama recently diagnosed with syphilis were sampled for an experiment that was funded by the U.S Health Service to prove that the effect of untreated syphilis are different in blacks as opposed to whites. The blacks in Macon County, Alabama were turned into laboratory animals without their knowledge and the purpose of the experiment
Moving forward into chapter seventeen of Cormac McCarthy’s “Blood Meridian”, Glanton’s crew rode on as the Apaches they drank with held back, as they refused to ride through the night. The next night Glanton’s men made a fire and discussed what’s happened in their group, the members who’d been killed. Then brought up there possibly being life on other planets. The Judge immediately disagreed though and did a trick, as if that was being the proof to his point or something.
Kindred by Octavia E. Butler, is a novel about an African American woman named Dana (born in 1950) who lives in 1976 California. She experiences weird headaches and dizziness one day and gets teleported to a river in the woods. She sees a boy drowning and rushes into the river to save him. The boy’s mother comes out yelling at Dana and then the father comes out with a shotgun just as Dana is sent back to her house. Dana kinda sees it as a hallucination and goes on shocked. Later she experiences the dizziness again and is sent back to a house this time. Then she finds out she is being sent to the past to help her relative Rufus from dying. Every time Rufus gets in trouble to the point of dying Dana is flung back in time to save him. But she is sent to the 1800s
...e, history, and blood. The specific commingling that emerges, however, has common roots in its very diversity. Throughout her tale Menchaca's allegiance is clearly to her race, and while the bias comes through, the history she traces is never the less compelling. The strongest achievement of this book is that it fundamentally shifts the gaze of its reader by reifying race and celebrating its complexity.
Science fiction captures the imaginations of its readers allowing their minds to run rampant as they immerse themselves into a world beyond reality. Science fiction also allows its audience to consider the possibilities of things beyond their normal life and draw parallels to the world around them. Octavia Butler’s short story, “Bloodchild” is a prime example of a well written scientific fiction containing elements of wonder, thrill, and adventure. “Bloodchild” is about humans who take refuge on an alien planet and must and must coexist with with the native species called Tlic. To maintain peace, the humans are granted space to live in exchange for host bodies used as vessels to birth the Tlic’s offspring. The protagonist, Gan, is a male chosen
“A maid accidentally pulled the countess’ hair while combing it; Countess Elizabeth Bathory instinctively slapped the girl on the ear, but so hard she drew blood. The servant girl’s blood spurted onto Elizabeth’s hands...the countess noticed that as the blood dried, her own skin seemed to take the whiteness and the youthful quality of the young girl’s skin.” (Rodrigues 15).
In conclusion, readers identify with the human form and use it as a vehicle for defamiliarization to show the mechanical functions they serve themselves and others. The characters in “Bloodchild” behave as part of a process and show a lack of respect for their human qualities. As they desensitize their bodies, they allow the Tlic to engage with them in an unbalanced power relationship. Then, the Tlic interact with them in a sheltering way and inhibit their thought process. Through this interaction chain, Butler effectively conveys that the way humans treat themselves will dictate how others treat them. As the afterword said, “Bloodchild” is not about slavery; it’s about the relationships humans take on because they allow themselves to be
Conclusion: In all, racial oppression and identification is a concurrent theme in Butler’s works that have been discussed. Butler’s examinations involving the sense of pride and passion towards uniqueness and individualism are evident in many different perspectives. In Butler’s works, the passion the main characters have towards themselves in an alien world teach the reader important values and lessons against negativity and racial discrimination.
The book follows Dana who is thrown back in time to live in a plantation during the height of slavery. The story in part explores slavery through the eye of an observer. Dana and even Kevin may have been living in the past, but they were not active members. Initially, they were just strangers who seemed to have just landed in to an ongoing play. As Dana puts it, they "were observers watching a show. We were watching history happen around us. And we were actors." (Page 98). The author creates a scenario where a woman from modern times finds herself thrust into slavery by account of her being in a period where blacks could never be anything else but slaves. The author draws a picture of two parallel times. From this parallel setting based on what Dana goes through as a slave and her experiences in the present times, readers can be able to make comparison between the two times. The reader can be able to trace how far perceptions towards women, blacks and family relations have come. The book therefore shows that even as time goes by, mankind still faces the same challenges, but takes on a reflection based on the prevailing period.
Boyle and Hemingway use the same three elements of fiction to tell the story; both stories are written about pregnancy, abortion, and manipulation; on the other hand, they have their difference because their main characters differ in maturity. One wonder about up to what degree is abortion considered to be a crime. Both couple considered the same crime, although China and Jeremy’s actions are unthinkable to the eyes of the reader.
Octavia Butler’s trilogy Lilith’s Brood contains a myriad of characters who would be marked as “different” in contemporary American society, whether it is because of their race, gender, sex, or species. Their differences are often the catalyst for conflict between others who see themselves as more normal and, therefore, better and higher ranked in the human hierarchy. Butler’s disdain for human hierarchical tendencies is clear in Lilith’s Brood as she often calls human intelligence and hierarchy “the human contradiction”. Using the protagonists Lilith, Akin, and Jodahs, Butler criticizes the misconceptions formulated about race, sex, and gender and, through their interactions with others, underlines the illogical harassment that often derives from the fear of what we do not yet understand.
First came the pride, an overwhelming sense of achievement, an accomplishment due to great ambition, but slowly and enduringly surged a world of guilt and confusion, the conscience which I once thought diminished, began to grow, soon defeating the title and its rewards. Slowly the unforgotten memories from that merciless night overcame me and I succumbed to the incessant and horrific images, the bloody dagger, a lifeless corpse. I wash, I scrub, I tear at the flesh on my hands, trying desperately to cleanse myself of the blood. But the filthy witness remains, stained, never to be removed.
The Bloody Chamber is a remake of the original fairytale Bluebeard; however Angela Carter rewrites the fairy tale using her feminist views to raise issues concerning roles in relationships and marriage, sexuality and corruption. Carter challenges the classic role of the male protagonist and the female victim; she does this by changing the stereotypes of the traditional fairy tale’s males as the saviours and females as the victims. She challenges the fairy tale’s traditional sex roles when she replaces the brother of the bride for the mother as the rescuer, “one hand on the reins of the rearing horse while the other clasped my fathers service revolver” this demonstrates to the reader that women are as strong as men, even stronger and can take on a expected man’s role and make it their own therefore challenging the stereotypical gender roles of Men. In addition to this as a feminist, Carter uses anti-essentialism to present that time, power and position are the details that makes a man act like he does and a woman like she does. This is revealed through the setting, France 1790’s, were men and women were not equal. The Marquis in this story is presented as a wealthy older man who has the ability to seduce and retrieve what he wants, “his world” this emphasizes the power he maintains and it gives him ownership not only of his wealth but the young bride and even possibly the...
...tionship has completely evolved and the narrator somewhat comes into her own a natural and inevitable process.
The book is laced with emotionally and erotically boosted encounters. A person who would enjoy reading about vampires, the urge to keep reading comes within the first few chapters; in this story early as chapter three. The novel is a new vampire paradigm that casts a steady eye on racism, sexism, poverty, and ignorance. Relationships in this story, as loving and loyal as they are yet, are very different. There is no moral questioning at all, but this total acceptance of paedophilia is not only seen in those having sex with children, also by every single other character. Even though being black brought Shori some str...