Octavia Butler writes a unique story of the modern world now in shambles due to climate change. Fashion and style, food, technology, and nature are now gone; deteriorating. It has affected so much of humanity. “A lot of the houses were trashed, burned, vandalized, infested with drunks or druggies or squatted in by homeless families with their filthy, gaunt, half-naked children.” (10). Neighborhoods are all built on broken pieces of rocks, whatever works as a house. It feels like something straight from Mad Max with how everything is detailed, you can see it in your head. A wasteland of a world, just barely hanging on, humanity fighting for food, stealing, killing, all to survive what they brought upon themselves. Constantly saying to each other: “The world will be back to normal!” as if forgetting how they got there in the first place.

The world has gotten so dangerous that adults carry guns, even the younger generation if see fit. They must fend their neighborhood off pests (birds, squirrels, etc.) to protect the crops they grow for food. In real life, birds and squirrels eat whatever they find, but in Parable of the Sower, they must be eliminated as crops are limited. “All three had to be killed, though. They ate our food or ruined it. Tree-crops were their special victims: Peaches, plums, figs, persimmons, nuts…. And crops like strawberries, blackberries, grapes…. Whatever we planted, if they could get at it, they would.” (38)

One thing I noticed that reminded me of Haraway’s article was creating kin. In Lauren’s (Main character), neighborhood, her father is practically the leader. They are in a small community but her father intends to keep everyone intact. He will have meetings with the community, building trust and having them protect themselves; and each other. “I have a wife and five children, he said. I will pray for them all. I’ll also see to it that they know how to defend themselves. And for as long as I can, I will stand between my family and any intruder. He paused again. Now that’s what I have to do. You all do what you have to do. By now there are at least two guns in every household.” (39) Lauren’s father has a strong impact on the community, whatever he says the people will listen, and they will follow.

This feels like slow violence.  The world is getting worse day by day. People dying because they have no food and because of natural disasters. But no one seems to bat an eye, like how in the real world no one cares about what will happen to our world. The world has already suffered, and the people in Lauren’s neighborhood may think “How worse can it get? It can’t get any worse, things will go back to normal.”

“I can remember the rain six years ago.” (47)

Butler’s book starts in the distant future of the year 2024. Butler tells us a story focusing on the main character, Lauren, and the world she lives in that has been affected by climate change. Within the first chapter of the novel Lauren tells us about her stepmother who lived in the old weather saying that “Kids today have no idea what a blaze of light cities used to be-and not that long ago.”(6) That description alone shows how the change in climate can happen so sparsely and yet have such a drastic impact on our lives as we know it. The stepmother puts into perspective how slow things were as she tells Lauren that the “lights, progress, growth, all those things were too hot and too poor to bother with anymore.” (5) This is when she was younger and as Lauren starts to grow up she gets to see even more stars as the need for the street lamps. All of this goes into the same line of what Nixon was talking about with the topic of “Slow Violence”. Nixon goes on to explain how a situation such as 9/11 was slow violence since the deterioration of the buildings and the collapse of the building happened over time. Nixon recalls the “Efforts to make forms of slow violence more urgently visible suffered a setback in the United States in the aftermath of 9/11.” (13)

Butler shows the downfall of humanity though. Showing the future of what could be as people are now trying to fix what they caused throughout the course of so many years. Lauren tells us of the day she is going to get baptized and how they ride bikes to the church. This is so that they don’t allow for the cars to burn more Fossil Fuels and increase the carbon emissions by driving everywhere. Lauren also tells us about how going outside doesn’t feel safe anymore but her parents and every other adult chose to got out so they can step back into the “good old days when there were churches all over the place and too many lights and gasoline was for fueling cars and trucks instead of for torching things”(8) The way that she describes these people and their actions it sounds like they entered the apocalypse. She describes this naked women and she questions if she was on drugs or if she was raped so many times that she went crazy. It seems that the people here have stopped caring about everyone else and started going crazy. This heat the walls that they had to put up most likely led to all of their psyche’s to break due to the isolation from the outside world. The way the world is in this story Butler created just further proves Nixons idea of “Slow Violence” as he brings up the fact that this newer generation doesn’t have a long enough of an attention span to even begin to process what is happening to the world around them. They are letting the world die out because no one is even noticing what’s happening they aren’t seeing the Earth decay and when it happens it will already be to late.

Butler’s text starts in the year 2024, where it is apparent the community that the protagonist, Lauren, lives in has been shaped by climate change and its effects. The first chapter implies that Lauren’s stepmother lived through a time when things were “normal.” As stated by Lauren’s stepmother, “Kids today have no idea what a blaze of light cities used to be–and not that long ago” (6). From this quote, it can be said that climate change didn’t have an immediate effect on the community. However, Lauren is now experiencing these effects. In the second chapter, Lauren is riding her bike to a church where she is to be baptized. While riding her bike, Lauren points out the conditions of some people in the community. As stated by Lauren, she sees “People stretched out, sleeping on the sidewalks…[and] at least three people who weren’t going to wake up again, ever. One of them was headless…” (9). Lauren also sees a naked, filthy woman. The conditions of these people almost make it seem like Lauren is living in an apocalyptic setting. This apocalyptic setting is further displayed when Lauren explains that her father once had a church, but after “it had been slept in by the homeless, robbed, and vandalized several times, someone poured gasoline in and around it and burned it down” (8). In addition, Lauren explains that instead of going to the church to be baptized, she could’ve been baptized in the bathtub at home. She states that doing this “Would have been cheaper and safer…” (8). Based on this statement, we can observe that climate change has made going outside dangerous for people. Lauren tells the others that being baptized at home would’ve been fine with her, but to the adults, “Going outside to a real church was like stepping back into the good old days when there were churches all over the place and too many lights and gasoline was for fueling cars and trucks instead of for torching things” (8). From this statement, it can be said that in the past, people were living “normal” lives. The adults believe that things like cars and trucks using gasoline were part of the “good old days.” But, this is ironic since cars and trucks using gasoline have contributed to the current state of the community since vehicles burn gases when they run. This released gas then stays in the atmosphere which contributes to climate change. This shows that everything happening in the community right now whether it’s less lights, people on the sidewalks, etc., weren’t seen or expected. 

All the things happening in the first few chapters of Butler’s text display the idea of Nixon’s “slow violence.” Nixon defines “slow violence” as violence that occurs over some time and out of sight, while violence has immediate impacts. Based on the text, we can see that the current state of Lauren’s community is most likely due to human activity like the burning of fossil fuels that contributed to climate change. As seen in the first chapter, Lauren’s stepmother states that kids today don’t know anything about how cities used to be blazes of light. This implies that all human activity that occurred then didn’t have any impact until now. In addition, Lauren makes observations about the people she sees during her bike ride where she sees people on the sidewalk and people who are dead. We can also infer that it is dangerous to be outside when Lauren states that being baptized at home would be safer than going to the church. Lauren’s observations help us see how her community has been affected by climate change. Furthermore, we can see that many people didn’t see this kind of future coming because the adults considered gasoline being used for cars and trucks as part of the “good old days,” even though it only made things worse. Therefore, the idea of “slow violence” is present in Butler’s text since Lauren’s community wasn’t always an apocalyptic-like place and many people can’t see that they have contributed to the current state of the community.

With Octavia Butler’s work I am very familiar with her way of writing speculative fiction. As she’s known for her story Kindred which includes time travel between the past and the future. This novel didn’t surprise me when it started off with the main character Lauren sharing her ability to feel others’ pain and that this story takes place in 2024. When I first saw that it made me realize we’re about to head into 2024 and this book was written in 1993. Octavia Butler had no idea what the future was going to look like, but in a weird way she described what she envisioned in 2024 to sound almost identical to our current day. 

The way Lauren speaks about being able to absorb the pain she see’s other’s go through as she said “I can’t do a thing about my hyperempathy, no matter what Dad thinks or wants or wishes. I feel what I see others feeling or what I believe they feel. Hyperempathy is what the doctors call an “organic delusional syndrome.” (ch 2). This made me connect it to my emotions. I definitely don’t feel it the way she does as she feels it more physically. I see it as I’m a very empathetic person. The world has been going through a crisis. Hate crimes, gun violence, massive natural disasters, drug abuse is going up, poverty, starvation, sex trafficking. The list could go on. When I see people or see the cases on the news I always feel a sense of my body having a reaction. There are more cases that will definitely make me more emotional but as Lauren said when she looks at something or someone too long the pain just starts to trickle in more. I feel like a lot of incidents I have seen on the news stick with me. I’ll think about it too much to the point where it’ll come into my dreams. I’ll do more research on it and watch video about an incident and then it becomes the algorithm that’s set on my phone. I don’t break down and hurt the same way people who are injured hurt, but emotionally when I get myself attached to any tragedy I believe I feel it more than some may feel and see like Lauren. 

When realizing this novel took place in 2024, and we were only a couple months away it made me compare Laurens living conditions versus our living conditions. As Lauren was describing her town she listed many incidents that occurred. Robbery , rape, drugs, food shortage, and the horrible living conditions the people live through. The list applied to us too. Lauren talks about how some of the homes look like “A lot of the houses were trashed—burned, vandalized, infested with drunks or druggies or squatted-in by homeless families with their filthy, gaunt, half-naked children” (ch 2). We live in a population of rich, wealthy, and luxurious lifestyles but there are homeless people on almost every corner you turn on and almost in every subway station you enter. As glamorous as New York City may seem, we are housing some of the poorest people. Some of them who may be on drugs, some of them who couldn’t afford housing, and some who made the streets their home. Los Angeles is known for the whole community of homeless people. In Philadelphia where it seems like “Zombies’ ‘ are walking around because people are drugged up on  K2, a drug so toxic to a human. 

The correlation is uncanny. How did Octavia Butler write this novel in 1993 and be accurate with her description? Part of me wonders if we’re just living in a cycle. Stuck in the same problems and the same living conditions. So many years pass but things don’t change. 

Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler started off with Lauren having a “reoccurring dream” that she doesn’t get into detail about, she proceeds to state that her and her birthday was coming up to initiate that although they have a close birthday they do not have a close bond. “I’ll try to please him” (3), this statement is to show . As I continued to read I began to understand that throughout the chapters Lauren is explaining her perspective about society, life, family members etc. “I’m learning to fly, to levitate myself. No one is teaching me. I’m just learning on my own, little by little, dream lesson by dream lesson. Not a very subtle image, but a persistent one. Ive had many lessons, and I’m better at flying than I used to be. I trust my ability more now, but I’m still afraid. I can’t quite control my directions yet.” (4). When reading this piece from chapter 1 I feel as if Lauren is expressing her understanding of life and how she takes it day by day. In order to progress in life you have to learn from what position you are placed in and over time you’ll understand and grow.

As a young girl who is about to turn 15 life can seem a bit complex and dramatic leading to the individual seeking for independence and freedom. In chapter two Lauren states that she no longer follows her fathers cultural practices and states that they once had a church but happened to always get robbed, vandalized or invaded and eventually someone burned it down while seven people were asleep. If I am being very transparent, when I read that section I automatically came to the conclusion that they were  not privileged or favored to have protection over their church. I also view Lauren as an outgoing teen because she is very observant and critical when it comes down to having an opinion, in the sense that she fully develops an idea before taking any action towards it.

When reading and understanding Lauren’s perception of society and people I began to understand that climate change can be viewed in many aspects. For these few chapters I’ve read, I compared climate change to Lauren as any obstacle that she faced because of the time, situations she was placed in. Something she had no control or way or avoiding but yet had to take action and structure herself because of what is happening around her.