“Parable of the Sower,” reader response (chapter 11-15)

Posted on by ChristineSilva

          Reader Response #2

          As I read chapter by chapter I began to gradually comprehend what’s occurring inside Lauren’s head. How she sees her family, her religion, the community and the world. At the same time, I can relate to Butler’s representation of the world in contrast to reality. Poverty, racism, political problems, sexism, and violence are just few of the things that are actually occurring in this century and probably wouldn’t be solved if our society continues to act like this. Which might be one of the reasons why Butler wrote Parable of the Sower.

          Before I begin my analysis I will write a brief summary of chapters 11-15. After Keith’s death, the whole community have been put in a constant peril made by the aggressive attacks of the outsiders. Moreover, seven out of the eleven household community have been reported with the cases of theft and rape, intruders attacked without mercy scavenging everything and leaving their victims naked and dead. In the middle of this jeopardy, news about the city of Olivar has been spread around. Olivar is a coastal city that is relatively well-off compared to other cities in California it was under the private international company called KSF. Olivar offers job, security and food supply which are the total utopia for the residents of Robledo. After few days, Lauren’s father was reported missing and later declared dead. The whole neighborhood especially Lauren’s family was devastated by the lost of Reverend Olamina, but before they were about to recover the pyro addicts/arsonists ruthlessly attacked what was remaining of the whole community and burned it. It was a total chaos ending many lives of the residents of Robledo. Lauren was the only one who survive the incident out of her family. After scavenging what was left of her home she then met Zahra Moss, who has been saved by Harry Balter while being raped . The three of them decided to join forces and head north.

 I have to write. I don’t know what else to do. The others are asleep now, but it isn’t dark. I’m on watch because i couldn’t sleep if i tried. I’m jittery and crazed. I can’t cry. I want to get up and just run and run. . . . Run away from everything. But there isn’t any way.

   I have to write.There’s nothing familiar left to me but the writing. God is change. I hate God. I have to write.

          This is the part where Lauren is alone in a burned house hiding from the people outside scared and confused of what to do next. She was also worried about Cory and her brothers wondering if they’re still alive. Losing her ability to grasp the situation and act rationally. Lauren always know what to do next but no matter how strong she is, no matter how prepared she was, this is just simply physically and mentally exhausting.

           Also, In this particular scene, Butler delivers how a human will react in this kind of circumstances. Butler’s portrayal of Lauren is a strong, smart and prepared woman. She can be weak, but that’s only because of hyper-empathy syndrome. However, managing such sickness shows how tough can Lauren be. That’s why in this scene we can see that Lauren is in her weakest point in life. Alive, but alone. Such acts represents humanity, people do act differently base on their attitudes, therefore, being put in Lauren’s situation can really put a scar or traumatized a person forever. Moreover, when a person experiences her weakest point in life, she will try to reach up to God or sometimes blame God for putting her in a difficult situation. Even so, Lauren has a different view-point for the word God. She thinks God is change. What confuses me is why call change a God, when God is change. Can we just say it is change that bring us to where we are now, and it is change that will bring us somewhere in the future in the way we shaped change? Why make the whole concept of God again? I hope Butler will elaborate this more as i go through the story.

          The turns of events in Parable of the Sower chapters 11-15 have been exciting and scary. Exciting because the story is getting some real action scenes, and scary because imagine being in Lauren’s stead, everyone in your family was dead and you’re the only one alive in the world where violence is beyond everybody’s imagination. Furthermore, killing yourself might be a much reasonable decision rather than keeping yourself alive in a hopeless world. Despite Lauren’s Hyper-empathy Syndrome she still chose to live and spread her beliefs. It intrigues me how can she believe all of these stuff about Earthseed and her God-is-change mentality. It’s fascinating yet terrifying because, for me, Parable of the Sower made more sense than the bible. Maybe it terrified me because I’m the type of person who is still unsure whether to believe in religion or not. The whole system of religion confuses me and I think most of the church goers in my religion (Catholicism) are just a bunch of hypocrites. They go to church every Sunday acting like they’re angels but as soon as they left the church it’s like their mouths are on fire using blasphemy as their first language. And there’s so many loopholes in Catholicism that made it unbelievable and hard to consider. I’m not generalizing all the people in the world and being pessimistic, it’s just witnessing scenarios like this weakened my faith in my religion but not in God. I concluded that letting go of God is like letting go of the rope when your hanging in a cliff in a life or death situation. In our lives, when we feel alone we need some sort of hope to hold on to in able to continue being optimistic and to move on in life. And that is God for me, my life support when things get rough. Though I don’t need God physically, I need him mentally. For me, whatever religion you have doesn’t matter, it’s your relationship with God that matters the most. And that is the reason why i can somewhat relate to Lauren. Moreover, Butler’s representation of Earthseed can be really compared to what’s happening now, and that made me feel like it’s real. It does gave the reader a huge impact when reality is connected to fiction. In that way, readers can sympathize more to the characters and it does hook you up in to reading more of the story.

To sum it up, Butler focuses a lot in the weak points of the present civilization and based the conflict of the story itself in relating to the major problems the actual society is facing, and show us how a person will react at such circumstances.

“That only a Mother”

Posted on by ChristineSilva

“That Only a Mother,” -by Judith Merril

                 “That Only a Mother” is a short story written by J. Merril. It’s about a woman, and a man begetting a child that was defected by radioactivity that results to mutation. The setting was in a war where nuclear bombing has been quite notorious and often occurring.

                  I was fascinated by the title of the story. I originally think that this story would be quite warm and loving. Which is not a bad guess at all. The story was eloquently written so i hadn’t experience some bemused feeling like the other sci-fi short stories we had read these past few weeks. It’s not like dropping you like a bomb out of nowhere not knowing anything about your surroundings. In this story you can easily adapt to the settings and wouldn’t be confused.

                  Comparing it to Misha Nogha’s, “Chippoke Na Gomi,” Ursula LeGuin’s, “Nine Lives,” and Philip Dick’s, “We can Remember it for you wholesale,” J.M.’s, “That Only a Mother” is quite straightforward. The setting is not from the unknown world with clones, it’s not about weird dust stuffs, it’s not about confusing dreams about Mars and especially, it doesn’t have invented sci-fi terms that is pretty mind-boggling at times. The story contains simple things we can relate to. Like War, Bombs and a mother.

                 The story begun portraying Maggie with indications of pregnancy. Her husband, Hank, is a technical lieutenant in the force, who was sent in an assignment.

                   Having a baby in that century was never a good thing. The reason is because of radioactivity. Nuclear bombing has been happening around them, especially the men who are sent by the forces. They had been exposed to radiation that will cause them to be affected by it. Procreating a child with a parent exposed to radioactivity can cause mutation. 

                    Mutation is a change in the DNA sequence that makes up a gene. So if you had been exposed to a high-level radioactivity such as the nuclear bomb it can cause your off-spring a bad genetic variation. That’s the reason why Margaret was bothered, considering she might gave birth to a mutant.

                    Furthermore, the story also revolves around the letter exchanges between Margaret and her husband, Hank. After Margaret gave birth to Henrietta, she was enraptured and captivated by the wonders of childbirth. Delighted by the wonderful news, she immediately sent a letter to her husband stating that their child is normal and healthy. I also took note of Margaret ranting about the nurse who has been described as a “hatchet-face female with mutation mania” in the story. She tremendously loathed the doctors and nurses because according to her they developed a God complex. Which perplexed me. Why was she hating on the doctors and nurses? I learned the answer as i go through the story.

                    As they go on their messages to each other. Margaret indicated that Henrietta is a prodigy because she can already speak at the age of seven months old. Margaret was ecstatic and extremely proud of her daughter’s rapid improvement. The letter exchanging continues, until the day that Hank sent a telegram to Maggie informing her of his one week leave to work.

                   Hanks returned home and was warmly welcomed by his wife that he hadn’t seen for eighteen months. After greeting his wife, he then heads to her daughter. Henrietta lay asleep in her crib wrapped in a bundle of clothes. Margaret woke Henrietta up and let her husband greet their baby a “hello.” Hank was surprised of Henrietta’s response despite of knowing she can actually speak. Margaret then boasted Henrietta’s talents to her husband.

                    This is where the first clear hint behind Henrietta’s true physique. 

“What’s the matter?” Hank’s voice was still casual, but an undercurrent in it began to charge in the air of the room. “I thought they turned over first.”
“This baby”—Margaret would not notice the tension—”This baby does things when she wants to.”

 This baby’s father watched with softening eyes while the head advanced the body hunched up propelling itself across the bed .

                   (Of course, i didn’t notice that this was a hint until i finished the story. I was tricked by the author and as a reader i am meant to be one.)

                   As the story continues, the mystery slowly unfolds. Is Henrietta a normal baby or not? It was explained that she was way above in intellectual aspects compared to other normal children of her age. Margaret only stated positive things about Henrietta that led us, the readers, to an unknown confusion. We brushed off Margaret’s mother, the geneticist, the radiologist,the doctors,and the nurse’s remarks about mutation, as Margaret ignored them too. If we analyze it, we only see things in Margaret’s point of view. As i learned in our class about scrutinizing details, we see things via the camera man who was holding the camera depending on whose point of view the director of the film, or in this case, the author of the book wants us, the readers, to sympathize with. But at the time the camera man sat beside the husband, we suddenly see things in a different way and now, we think differently too. We started to doubt and slowly grasp that there’s something enigmatic about Henrietta. She’s not normal.

                    This is the second clear hint about Henrietta’s true physique. (The part where Hanks decided to fix Henrietta’s sleeves)

“I’ll do it, darling.” Margaret tried to get there first.
 “Don’t be silly, Maggie, This may be your first baby, but i had five kid brothers.” he laughed her away, and reached with his other hand for the string that closed one sleeve. He opened the sleeve bow and groped for an arm.

                   I emphasized the scene where Margaret acted suspiciously. From the sentence, “Margaret tried to get there first.” It means that she was trying to hide something and she doesn’t want her husband to know about it. Unfortunately, she failed hiding the secret.

                       This is the third and last part where the truth would be revealed.   

“Is she wet? I didn’t know.”
She didn’t know. His hands, beyond control, ran up and down the soft-skinned baby body, the sinuous, limbless body. Oh God, dear God—his head shook and his muscles contracted in a bitter spasm of hysteria. His fingers tightened on his child— Oh God, she didn’t know…

                  The mystery was Henrietta is a mutant after all. She doesn’t have arms and legs. Moreover, the fact that Margaret was delusional and mentally unstable. Why? Because she kept telling other people that Henrietta was stable and normal, in a way it becomes a delusion of making things seem okay convincing herself that “her baby” was in fact a normal child, even though she really isn’t. Maybe all the anxiousness and fear goes straight to her head making her loaded and a little crazy. 

                 Also, what bothers me is how Merril portray a disabled child. Can’t they accept a child having no arms and legs? Sure it’s hard, therefore that doesn’t mean that she can’t be intellectually normal. She won’t be physically stable, ever. However, she can still live her life. And so i realized that, she may have written Henrietta as a limbless child but still, she was described as a prodigy. Meaning that, humans all have their own faults but there’s always one thing that can make up for the loss.

              In addition to that, i was a little confused by the last act at the end. Was he trying to kill the baby? Maybe he is. Did Hank killed Henrietta? Wikipedia said he did murder her child. If so, for me, that would be a really cruel ending. Why exactly did he do that? Maybe the war made him do that. Maybe the things happening around the world make a normal people do psychotic stuffs. The only thing i know for sure is that having a child like Henrietta would be a difficult challenge and struggle as a parent. Therefore, killing your child wouldn’t be a normal response to do so.

              To sum up the story, what Merril wants us to realize reading T.O.A.M. What she wants to expressed writing this story is to relay how far and in to what extent a mother’s love can stretch. Margaret’s fear of having a mutant child and it happening actually made her blind. Her love and desires made her blind. Love can make you blind.It was tragic yet a fulfilling and inspiring story.

               “That only a Mother,” was a good read for me. The story made me think and write about a lot of things. It was brilliantly written and i loved it. No matter how tragic the ending is, the most important thing is that the author created this for us, to know that we can accept everything if we only let our hearts and minds embraced the truth and learn to “love” the “hate.”