In Octavia Butler’s novel, Parable of the Sower, a common theme carried throughout the story is the differentiating people based on their race. In this story, society views white people as wealthier, safer, and the owners of colored people and are seen treating them horribly, where as people of color are poorer, more commonly used as slaves, not as trusted, and over all have it harder in Butler’s dystopian setting. Butler thinks this topic of racism is common, and society is more prejudice to black people rather then white. I can deduce this by the financial and social status she depicts white people to be versus people of color. After Lauren’s neighborhood is destroyed and has to flee with Zahra and Harry, Lauren pretends to be a boy so her and Zahra can pretend to be a couple rather than Zahra and Harry, which would be a mixed race couple. A couple of white and African-American did not mix because “…[he’ll] piss of all the blacks and [she’ll] piss off all the whites” (pg. 172). Butler does not let these two races mix …show more content…
in her story without causing controversy. Cops and people of authority are generally white and generally suspect people of color more often then Caucasians, similar to Butler’s day considering the riots in Los Angeles, where most of the story takes place. Butler believes racism is real and she does not speak of it lightly. Narrative She placed her fair hand atop of the snow colored fence, the other hand pushing her wavy, long, golden-colored hair behind one ear.
Looking out across the stone-paved road, she watched the neighborhood inside the coffee colored fence. It was very similar to hers, containing multiple cookie-cutter homes and an assortment of businesses, except no one was there was her color and no one in her neighborhood was their color. All of them had chocolate skin with eyes and hair that were all equally dark. Across the road to her right, a yellow fence contained honey colored people. She enjoyed seeing all the little, squinted almond eyes, much smaller then her own, which were wide set and round. One little, sunshine colored boy with dark straight hair raised his arm and waved his hand, but before she could do the same back her father called her into the house. His lips were pressed and his body was rigid, the blue of his eyes making direct contact with her
own. “Emily, please, don’t associate with people outside our neighborhood”, it came out more as a demand, not a plead. Emily shrugged and folded her hands around her torso. She couldn’t understand why they would build a fence only waist-high with an unlocked gate if they didn’t want anyone to leave or look over. She didn’t even know why anyone wouldn’t want to look over or why the fence was even up, and she couldn’t remember a time without it. She bit her lower lip self-consciously and looked up, eyes wide. “Why?” Her voice was pitchy and quiet, “Why can’t I wave, and why is the fence even there? It’s not even big enough to hold anything out,” She inhaled and held her breath, anxious for the response to follow. Her father crouched down until his face was level with hers. “To avoid diversity. When people are different, they become jealous, they try to make themselves different. They’ll want our blue eyes and we’ll want their bronze skin. When everyone has the same ideas, no new ones get created, and no one tries to change anything. Everyone is content,” He stood up straight and raised his chin, proud, “The fence was built low to remind everyone to stay with their people and that other races, and ultimately ideas, exist. If it has been built high, people would get curious and leave. This way they can see it’s better to stay in, and they do.” He positioned his head down and locked eye contact with Emily, “Remember, they are different; different color, different ideas, different values. They aren’t us, and they never will be. Stay away from them, they’re not safe.” That night, while Emily laid her head on her lavender pillow and tried to fall asleep, she thought about what her father said, and she thought he was wrong. Everyone should be able to be creative and encourage each other to be different. Sun beaming yellow in the sky, birds chirping in the trees, the smell of coffee in the kitchen: morning. Outside, the dirt was stuck underneath her stubby pink fingernails and various vegetable seeds filled her pockets. The sun was guarded by large white clouds, but it was still hot enough that the back of her shoulders were turning pinky red. Emily sat up, lifted her sunhat and wiped the sweat off her brow. Even through the clouds, the sun was bright and she had to squint. As soon as her vision adjusted, she could see clearly into the neighborhood where the people’s skin matched the earth she held in her hands; she liked that. A boy, who looked just about her age, looked up from his work and smiled. He was taking out the trash, the black bag stretched to its fullest. His smile was as large as his teeth were white, and she noticed his gums were darker then hers. She suddenly realized she hadn’t smiled back, so she quickly did, and waved too. His dark brown lips moved, and he made motions she couldn’t understand. She couldn’t hear him, making her all the more wanting to know what exactly he was saying. She tilted her head and put her hand to her ear, but he looked down, shook his head, and went inside. “Wait!” Emily almost stood up. What had he said? She had to see him again, but she had never left her neighborhood, or even seen him before. Her eyes fell downward onto her pink, dirt stained dress and blonde braids. How was she supposed to see him again? She needed to know what he said, and she wanted to meet him where two fences and a road weren’t between them. Her mother opened the screen, leaned out the door and told Emily to wash up for breakfast, all without a smile moving from her face. Her mother always smiled, she had high cheekbones, and little lines and creases were starting to form at the edge of her eyes, even though she was young. Her plate consisted of chocolate chip pancakes and bacon. Emily ate slowly, and hardly any. Her mother looked at her plate as Emily told her she was finished, and although she was smiling, her eyes were squinty and nervous. Emily couldn’t eat, she was too nervous about that night, her plan, about finally leaving her neighborhood. What had that boy said? “Aren’t you a little more hungry than that?” said her mom, softly, concerned. “Not really, I’m just tired, and I feel sunburned? The kitchen door opened to reveal her father, and her mother’s smile faded just a bit. He was so tall that he had to duck under the door. In fact, the entire family was. At thirteen, Emily was already five feet and seven inches. Even though all he had done that morning was mow the lawn, his jaw was tensed as if he had had a long, stressful day. Her mother pulled out his chair and set his breakfast on the table, Emily hated how submissive she was sometimes. “Emily, you tried to communicate with an Asian yesterday, and a black today. Haven’t I taught you anything? That we are our own people, and better?” As her father said this, her mother frowned. It looked so unnatural on her face, but somehow not around her husband. She had always told Emily all the people were equal, but separation was fine because it eliminated the possibility of social classes based on race. No one was at the bottom or top. Emily didn’t understand why everyone had to be separated. Disappointed, Emily slowly waded up the stairs into her room, where she spent the day away perched upright in her bed, eyes glued to a book. She waited until all the lights were out, until she heard her father snoring, and then some more. Then, she reached for her tall gray socks and a pair of black pants she had laid out along with a flashlight. She also grabbed her shoes, but put them away because they would make noise against her wooden flooring. Silently, Emily tiptoed down the hall, past her parent’s bedroom, down the stairs, past the kitchen and toward the door. She paused before grabbing the doorknob, her father’s words caught in her mind. They’re different then us. They never will be like us. Everyone should stay separated. We are a better community, safer. Emily didn’t agree. Pushing the door open, the cool night breeze stung her nose, and Emily took her first step outside.
Parable of the Sower is a very well-written science fiction novel by Octavia Butler. The setting is California in the year 2025. The world is no longer prosperous and has turned into a very poor place. There are countless people homeless, jobs are scarce and hard to come by, and very few communities of homes. The few communities that are still occupied have huge walls with barbed wire and laser wire surrounding them.
Janie’s first discovery about herself comes when she is a child. She is around the age of six when she realizes that she is colored. Janie’s confusion about her race is based on the reasoning that all her peers and the kids she grows up with are white. Janie and her Nanny live in the backyard of the white people that her Nanny works for. When Janie does not recognize herself on the picture that is taken by a photographer, the others find it funny and laughs, leaving Janie feeling humiliated. This racial discovery is not “social prejudice or personal meanness but affection” (Cooke 140). Janie is often teased at school because she lives with the white people and dresses better than the other colored kids. Even though the kids that tease her were all colored, this begins Janie’s experience to racial discrimination.
At one shack they lived in, Anne’s neighbors had a couple of white children, and they would play with her often in the backyard. While going to elementary school, Moody did not have a clear sense of what it meant to be black or white. She only knew people as being people. It was when she was scolded and dragged out of a mo...
Through the novel Birdie Lee challenges herself to confront her own awareness of self, to understand her families blackness through the gaze of whiteness. Birdies physical appearance is known as a straight hair and pale child, which gave her an identity that is more closely to the whiteness within her family. Whenever she is in the presence of both her father and Cole, she often felt that she disappeared and becomes invisible. Cole existence “was the proof that his blackness hadn’t been completely blanched” (Senna 1998, p.56).
What defines an individual’s racial characteristics? Does an individual have the right to discriminate against those that are “different” in a specific way? In Octavia Butler’s works, which are mostly based on themes that correlate to one another, she influences the genre and fiction in ways that bring light to the problems of societies history. Through Kindred and the Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler examines themes of community, racial identification, and racial oppression through the perspective of a black feminist. In each novel, values and historical perspective show the hardships that individuals unique to an alien world have to face. Through the use of fictional works, Butler is able to delve into historical themes and human conditions, and with majority of works under the category of science fiction, Butler is able to explore these themes through a variety of settings. This essay will discuss two of Butler’s popular works, Kindred and the Parable of Sower, and will interpret the themes of women, race, independence, and power throughout the two novels.
From an early age it was clear to Sandy that, the lighter a person’s skin was, the higher their social status. As the only young child in his household, he was exposed to many conversations among the adults around him that revolved around race. A primary example of this was one of the conversations between his grandmother, Aunt Hager, and her friend, Sister Whiteside. Sandy and the two elder women sat at the kitchen table together to share a meal while the two women chatted. Sandy sat quietly and absorbed their talk of everything from assuming the white ancestry of a lighter-skinned child they knew, to the difficulty of keeping “colored chillens in school” (13-15).
The history of slavery in America is one that has reminders of the institution and its oppressive state of African Americans in modern times. The slaveholders and the slaves were intertwined in a cruel system of oppression that did not yield to either side. The white slaveholders along with their black slaves became codependent amongst each other due to societal pressures and the consequences that would follow if slaves were emancipated with race relations at a high level of danger. This codependency between the oppressed and the oppressor has survived throughout time and is prevalent in many racial relationships. The relationship between the oppressed and the oppressor can clearly be seen in Octavia Butler’s novel Kindred. In this novel, the protagonist Dana Franklin, a black woman, time travels between her present day 1977 and the antebellum era of 19th century Maryland. Throughout her journeys back to the past, Dana comes in contact with her white ancestor, Rufus Weylin, a white slave owner and Dana ultimately saves his life and intermingles with the people of the time. Butler’s story of Dana and her relationship with Rufus and other whites as she travels between the past and the present reveals how slaveholders and slaves depended on and influenced one other throughout the slaves bondage. Ultimately, the institution of slavery reveals how the oppressed and the oppressor are co-dependent; they need each other in order to survive.
The difference of color is seen through the eyes, but the formulation of racial judgement and discrimination is developed in the subconscious mind. Toni Morrison’s short story “Recitatif (1983)” explores the racial difference and challenges that both Twyla and Roberta experience. Morrison’s novels such as “Beloved”, “The Bluest Eye”, and her short story “Recitatif” are all centered around the issues and hardships of racism. The first time that Twyla and Roberta met Twyla makes a racial remake or stereotype about the texture and smell of Roberta’s hair. Although they both were in the orphanage because of similar situations, Twyla instantly finds a racial difference. The racial differences between Twyla and Roberta affects their friendship, personal views of each other, and relationship with their husbands.
Somehow, everything about the whites appear to elicit a reigning beauty that raises hatred and envy the black girls have against the white girls. Packer argues that even small thing like hair contributes to hostility. The fourth grade says; “their long, shampoo-commercial hair, straight as spaghetti from the box” (Packer, 16). These reinforcements are ingredients of prejudice that brings about racial discrimination. The black girls get jealous of the white girls’ hair, and this leads to discrimination against them. It is worth noting that the prejudices are handed down by the environment and society that people are brought up in. Arnetta, remembers a mall experience when she and her mother were being seen as if they were from China. They were being discriminated because of their race. The various treatments given to black people has played a vital role in intensifying the issue of prejudice, magnifying people’s sense of inferiority, and shaping the views of the black people on the white people. Arnetta says; “Even though I didn’t fight to fight, was afraid of fight, I felt I was part of the rest of the troop; like I was defending something” (Packer, 12). This is a clear indication that society has the power to influence youths. It depicts how society joins hands to fight for what they think is their right. Owed to the fact that this is a society. Everything and everyone is interlinked in a given way, making racism and prejudice hard to do away
She goes on to tell readers of a child's perception of race with other life examples that she learned from her own students. She states that children learn prejudices and stereotypes early on in life from cartoons, story books and their own parents. They are easily susceptible these things even if th...
As a child Janie’s race is something she realizes later, but is still an important part of her life. As a child Janie grew up with a white family, named the Washburns, for whom Nanny worked as a nanny for. It is not until Janie sees herself in a picture with the Washburns children that she realizes she is black, Janie recounts her realization t...
America has always been a country with different cultures, races, and people. Only, not everyone has been accepting of different kinds of people. A persons thoughts on another person can differ depending on a person's race, gender, or age. In Harper Lee’s, To Kill a Mockingbird, racial equality is nonexistent. The African Americans were treated like they weren’t people, and were totally isolated from the Maycomb, Alabama society. America will never achieve true racial and social equality because people are ignorant, have a history of being prejudiced, and are unjust.
In Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, published in 1970, the struggle begins in childhood. Two young black girls -- Claudia and Pecola -- illuminate the combined power of externally imposed gender and racial definitions where the black female must not only deal with the black male's female but must contend with the white male's and the white female's black female, a double gender and racial bind. All the male definitions that applied to the white male's female apply, in intensified form, to the black male's, white male's and white female's black female. In addition, where the white male and female are represented as beautiful, the black female is the inverse -- ugly.
Toni Morrison’s novel The Bluest Eye provides social commentary on a lesser known portion of black society in America. The protagonist Pecola is a young black girl who desperately wants to feel beautiful and gain the “bluest eyes” as the title references. The book seeks to define beauty and love in this twisted perverse society, dragging the reader through Morrison’s emotional manipulations. Her father Cholly Breedlove steals the reader’s emotional attention from Pecola as he enters the story. In fact, Toni Morrison’s depiction of Cholly wrongfully evokes sympathy from the reader.
Toni Morrison's novel, The Bluest Eye contributes to the study of the American novel by bringing to light an unflattering side of American history. The story of a young black girl named Pecola, growing up in Lorain, Ohio in 1941 clearly illustrates the fact that the "American Dream" was not available to everyone. The world that Pecola inhabits adores blonde haired blue eyed girls and boys. Black children are invisible in this world, not special, less than nothing. The idea that the color of your skin somehow made you lesser was cultivated by both whites and blacks. White skin meant beauty and privilege and that idea was not questioned at this time in history. The idea that the color of your skin somehow made you less of a person contaminated black people's lives in many different ways. The taunts of schoolboys directed at Pecola clearly illustrate this fact; "It was their contempt for their own blackness that gave the first insult its teeth" (65). This self hatred also possessed an undercurrent of anger and injustice that eventually led to the civil rights movement.