One encounter from Dawn that I think did not get enough attention during our discussion in class is Paul Titus’s attempted rape of Lilith. Nikanj explains that while it did not believe that Lilith would mate with Paul Titus, none of the Oankali expected him to react as he did. Nikanj goes on to claim that “he was content with his Oankali family until he met you” (97). Lilith echoed my thoughts during the scene on the following page: “in some ways you kept him fourteen for all those years.” The fact that neither Lilith as the victim nor myself as the reader seemed to really blame Paul Titus very much for this violent action forced me to stop and consider what it means to grow up, and whether one can do this without other members of one’s species. Continue reading Growing Up Alone
Monthly Archives: April 2015
Lilith: “Of the Night”
As I was reading Dawn, I could not help but notice the potential significance (if, that is, there is any) of the main character’s name: Lilith. There are many myths concerning her throughout cultures and religions but as someone who has studied particular parts of the Bible, my first thought was the Lilith that is briefly mentioned within the Judeo-Christian religious tradition. When looking up the precise meaning of her name on Google, I came to find that Lilith is derived from lilitu, meaning “of the night”, which is ironic considering that the title of this first book in this series is Dawn. Continue reading Lilith: “Of the Night”
Social Generals
The term I’ve coined as social general is loosely defined as anyone who feels their duty in life is to better humanity by righting social injustices. Octavia Butler emphasizes her social generals within Dawn. The Oankali have developed into social general’s, in which they save humans on Earth from their “suicide.” Social generals feel extreme self-fulfillment when they help those below them. Continue reading Social Generals
Bloodchild Revisited
I had meant to post this earlier, but I of course forgot to do so. So although I wasn’t present in class on Friday for the discussion on Bloodchild, from what I’ve gathered from recent posts it seems as though at least part of the discussion pertained to Butler’s assertion in the afterword that, despite what many have claimed, the story is not about slavery. As Clarissa and Audrey have already insisted, respectively, a great deal of our interpretation of this story is dependent upon the context in which we read it. For me, when I first read Bloodchild, it was within Dr. McCoy’s African American Literature class, so nearly everything we read I would immediately fit within the narrative we were building in the class, which almost always was related to African diasporic cultural tradition(s) as well as the issues of slavery and its aftermath. At that time, when I reached the afterword to Bloodchild, I had already convinced myself of the seemingly inextricable links between the relations of power and subjection dealt with in the story and those of American reproductive slavery. In a sense, the afterword pushed back against my assumptions, instead offering another host of themes around which Bloodchild was centered and toward which I could redirect attention, including male pregnancy, botflies, and “paying the rent.”
Repellent
As we have now read multiple stories by Octavia Butler, it is strongly evident that much of the same themes reoccur throughout her works. Now, it is obvious that Butler wants to challenge her readers, but I personally have reached a point where I have become nearly blinded by my own judgment of the characters. Not only the characters themselves, but their way of life. It seems that their lives revolve (especially in the Seed to Harvest novels) around breeding, mating, and reproducing (and oftentimes this is either ordered or forced). There appears to be little to no actual enjoyment of life and of pursuing endeavors that are of the individual’s own will. Continue reading Repellent