Tag Archives: Butler

Height in Fledgling

Throughout Fledgling, one of the prominent points (although the purpose of which remains unclear) is that Shori is short, or small. In the first chapter it is revealed that she possesses the body of what looks like a ten or eleven year old. This small body is contrasting to her vivacious and bold character. Her strength exceeds that of most adults; her bravery appears to be everlasting. And it brings an interesting (if not baffling) twist into the mix when it is revealed that Shori is a fifty-three year old woman. Continue reading Height in Fledgling

Hyper-Humanness & Existential Consent

As “I awoke to darkness,” we– meaning, the unnamed character narrator and us, the readers, are both put in an identical situation (1). Custom and social tradition forgotten, Butler lays us in a destroyed world where “I was hungry– starving!– and I was in pain. There was nothing in my world but hunger and pain, no other people, no other time, no other feelings,” (1). Though Shori is not human, her hungers and abilities seem to exaggerate human qualities and needs– Butler “reduces to the absurd” human hungers in order to draw attention to details too small or unremembered that do, in fact, have enormous consequences.

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