In class when we were discussing why Professor McCoy should like Patternmaster and then why she should dislike Patternmaster, a student made a comment about how the character Teray was based on Octavia Butler’s first boyfriend. He then mentioned how he had connected this fact to how in the book Teray is always looked at as a boy fresh out of school. Since I heard this comment in class, I have not been able to get it out of my head. When I continued to read the book, I noticed how often the characters mentioned that Teray had only recently graduated, and I also took note of how his personality reflected this fact. It almost seems to dominate his character and his presence in the book over all.
The Human/Animal Boundary in the Patternist Series
Danielle’s post “Uncontrolled Contagion” really resonated with me when she stated, in the last paragraph, that the domination of the “lesser” peoples, mainly that of the mutes and the Clayarks, in the Patternist series should serve as a warning sign to the reader of what such intolerances between cultures might entail: which, in her words was doomed to result in “rip[ping] society and eventually the world apart.” This enabled me to think about the binary structures that we as human beings create in order to define ourselves as a species by means of juxtaposition. It is no secret that we, as people, fear what is different—we see or we read about something that is socially, culturally, and/or biologically foreign to our own way of life and ways of being, and, suddenly, as a culture, we conclude that this society, alien to our own, is in some way as threatening as it is antagonistic; as dangerously hostile as it is distinct. In short: we fear what we do not know. Therefore, what better way to greater solidify our own identity as a species, than to define what is not objectively “us” as “Other” and thereby, “inferior”?
Continue reading The Human/Animal Boundary in the Patternist Series
“Positive Obsession” and Disease
Clay’s Ark left me with so many questions. It got me thinking about when we discussed who was truly at fault for the spread of this deadly disease. There are so many ways that people can look at this, whether they choose to fluctuate between having good intetions vs. not having good intentions. Personally, I can’t really blame Blake…although the spread of the disease was definitely on him. It is funny how one interaction led to such a deadly epidemic despite all the effort that Eli put towards controlling it. But, If I had to blame anyone it would definitely be Eli. I understand that the disease caused compulsions that led to the control of the thoughts and actions of the host such as when Eli kidnapped Blake and his daughters, but if I had to pin this apocalypic ending on anyone it would be Eli. The ending of this novel really saddened me, because not only did Blake die but so did Rane. Keira, the one who everyone thought wouldn’t make was the only survivor of her immediate family. Because Butler is the author, this doesn’t surprise me whatsoever. After all, she loves to keep us guessing by playing with the concept of strength and ability.
Strangely enough, This novel reminded me of Butler’s essay “Positive Obsession.” On page 133, she described her positive obsession of writing. She explained how she felt it was dangerous because she couldn’t stop. In her essay, Butler stated that positive obsession involved not being able to stop which is very similar to the spread of the disease in Clay’s Ark. Although this essay was geared toward writing science fiction, the disease acted in an extremely similar manner. It never stop changing and dissolving humanity and was very dangerous in this way. I feel like Clay’s Ark took the concept of Butler’s possitive obsession with science fiction head on by representing it through this extraterrestrial disease. Butler’s fiction changes and dissolves humanity in Fledgling when human symbionts abandon their culture, in Clay’s Ark when humans contract a disease that changes their DNA and causes them to become more animalistic, and in Wild Seed where many slaves are treated as less than human.
Enslavement in Contemporary Society
As I was reading Madhu Dubey’s “Octavia Butler’s Novels of Enslavement” article I started to think about our own society. The article discusses chattel slavery in comparison to Butler’s plot in her Pattern series. I looked back at the cover of novel and saw Seed to Harvest. I wonder about America’s slavery as a seed to foster or harvest the historical remnants that exist today. The wordplay got me to think further about Doro planting the seed of slavery, which later developed a world where one group dominates. The group that dominates would obviously be the Patternists, and the Pattern Master as the leader. The Pattern Master being the only one who controls everyone reminds me of a dictatorship, which further places emphasizes on slavery. There’s a further emphasize on slavery because the Pattern Master is similar to a slave owner. To expand on this notion the Pattern Master is on a hypothetical throne like the slave master. Like most dictators and slaves masters they are overthrown, and or power is passed down. We see this conversion twice in Mind of My Mind and Patternmaster where potent political positions change. In Mind of My Mind Doro is killed by Mary and power dynamics are changed. Similarly, Teray is handed control by the Pattern Master. The changing of dominance can be related to abolishing slavery and the change in authority that occurs within. The South loses the driving economic force of slavery, but it has already left its lasting impact on the U.S. Fast forward to today slavery is still a painful reminder of America’s unsettled past. I mean just two years ago Mississppi officially ratified the 13th Amendment. On similar note we can see the remains of slavery in other countries such as Dominican Republic, which shows the extent of slavery’s affects on a global scale. Here are two articles on both matters. http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2013/02/mississippi-officially-abolishes-slavery-ratifies-13th-amendment/
http:/http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/27/dominican-republic-citize_n_4002844.html
The Sacred Image and Transwomen in Butler’s fiction
In reading the excerpt from Survivor in class I was struck most by the idea of the ‘Sacred Image.’ My understanding of the Sacred Image is that it is the human form—the shape of, “The Lord God who made man in his own image” (28). I think that there is a really interesting ablest reading here which we alluded to in our class discussion and has been an ongoing theme in Butler’s work—I’m reminded of when Dr. McCoy challenged the idea of the sanctity of the human shape in Clay’s Ark by asking how someone without a hand would then be fit into the definition of human. However, what I was most curious about was how transgendered people would be affected by an obsession with the Sacred Image. Continue reading The Sacred Image and Transwomen in Butler’s fiction
Sexiness and its discontents
While I was skimming through some of Octavia Butler’s interviews the other night, I noticed a brief exchange between Butler and her interviewer, Marilyn Mehaffy in this instance, within the interview titled “‘Radio Imagination’: Octavia Butler on the Poetics of Narrative Embodiment,” that really stuck with me. In some way, it helped me rethink some of the problems I’ve been having in trying to come to terms with a lot of Butler’s fiction. I’ll repost the exchange here:While I was skimming through some of Octavia Butler’s interviews the other night, I noticed a brief exchange between Butler and her interviewer, Marilyn Mehaffy in this instance, within the interview titled “‘Radio Imagination’: Octavia Butler on the Poetics of Narrative Embodiment,” that really stuck with me. In some way, it helped me rethink some of the problems I’ve been having in trying to come to terms with a lot of Butler’s fiction. I’ll repost the exchange here:
Uncontrolled Contagion
As a student of political science and a current student of a class pertaining to the developing world, it is evident that the spread of western civilization and culture over time is a supremely problematic part of the world. It is common knowledge that western civilizations conquered and colonized the majority of the world, with countries such as England and Spain having colonies stretching across the globe. It is also generally understood that colonization ended, for the most part, after WWII. While it is true that many once colonized countries gained independence at this point, that does not mean that western countries lost their power over them. Many countries that were once the victims of colonization are still heavily dependent on those that had once been their colonizers.
The most evident ways of the lasting impact of colonization are a countries economy and its religion. On the continent of South America you see the lasting impression of Spanish colonization with the dominance of the Catholic religion. On the continents of Asia and Africa, you see a more economically based dominance with the economies of former colonies still relying on their colonizers to keep their economies afloat. This continued influence of the west on the “other” is echoed in Butler’s work quite effectively in The Patternist series. Continue reading Uncontrolled Contagion
Behavioral Norms and Species Inclusivity/Exclusivity
While reading Pramod Nayar’s essay, “A New Biological Citizenship: Posthumanism in Octavia Butler’s Fledgling,” I discovered that although Nayar succeeds in his argument—that Shori has biological citizenship as both a human and an Ina, and furthermore, Shori forms a new hybrid, posthuman species that erodes structural prejudices—the rhetoric of Nayar’s argument is seriously flawed in that the framework of his argument states that biological citizenship is achieved when an organism “performs a species memory,” (species memory meaning a culturally normative behavior) “that she has acquired not through genetic predispositions or her biology but through the apparatuses” given to her by the culture of her species. In other words, Nayar’s framework is based on the idea that an organism can be ontologically classified as a species when it follows the cultural and/or behavioral norms of the species. Nayar claims that Shoir’s identity is at first “uncertain because of her altered biology,” biology that “sets her outside of the [Ina] species border.” However, Nayar hypothesizes that Shori is indeed an Ina because of her subjectivity to Ina cultural apparatuses; to put it another way, Shori’s adoption of Ina cultural/behavioral norms—specifically, Shori’s adherence to Ina pedagogy and Ina ethics of care and mourning—is what makes her an Ina. Continue reading Behavioral Norms and Species Inclusivity/Exclusivity
Beyond the Mind – Journey to Mars
In the interview with Larry McCaffery and Jim McMenamin in 1988, Octavia Butler shared a lot about her Patternist Series which included her comments about once considering to include Kindred as part of the series. She argues that it simply did not feel like part of the series and that she wanted to go in a different direction, a more realistic path. Nonetheless, a few things Butler mentioned in this interview caused nostalgia, others provoked wonder of the past and future as I mention below. Continue reading Beyond the Mind – Journey to Mars
Tribalism in Clay’s Ark
While reading Xhercis Méndez’s article “Confronting the Rhetoric of ‘Black on Black Crime’: A Response to Derailing Strategies,” I was struck by what she wrote about how in minority activists’ quests to draw attention to issues in their communities, “communities and injustices become minoritized in their isolation from one another.” This got me thinking about the way that different groups in Butler’s work isolate themselves from each other, to the detriment of all. Ultimately, this brought me back to the questions we started the semester with: “what brings people together” and “what keeps people together?” Continue reading Tribalism in Clay’s Ark