Just for fun, here’s the poem the narrator references listening to, in audio format, in Part IV:

The Door by Robert Creeley | Poetry Magazine

It is hard going to the door

You can read and/or listen.

And here’s the wax cylinder recording of Whitman–one of the earliest audio recordings of a poem in history–referenced there as well:

For good measure, you can read the text here:

America by Walt Whitman | Poetry Foundation

Centre of equal daughters, equal sons,

And here’s the site of the Chinati Foundation, established by the artist and sculptor, Donald Judd. This page shows some of the aluminum boxes the narrator reflects on in IV, and you can also see the “totaled” art of John Chamberlain:

Collection – The Chinati Foundation

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Research question

• How does Octavia Butler create different perspective through the characters in Parable of the Sower to represent the different beliefs on climate change? 

Some troubles i found myself facing was how my question was worded. The research was limited and because of that I had to change my research question. In addition I realized what I chose to focus on many people were writing more pieces about Butler and Parable of the Sower from a racial or religious focus. What my question focuses on is climate change and the idea of a new world as well. 

Agusti, Clara Escoda. “The relationship between community and subjectivity in Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower.” Extrapolation, vol. 46, no. 3, fall 2005, pp. 351+. Gale Academic OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A141727001/AONE?u=cuny_hunter&sid=bookmark-AONE&xid=9600f11d. Accessed 15 Nov. 2023.

Blazan, Sladja (2022): Something Beyond Pain”: Race, Gender, and Hyperempathy in Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower

https://www.proquest.com/docview/2764532780?accountid=27495&parentSessionId=MAEpmJ4ZcdqtCkE%2Bqb4SWZx8MSfdmj7G2u5mPxJxkoo%3D&pq-origsite=primo

Stark, Doug. “A More Realistic View: Reimagining Sympoietic Practice in Octavia Butler’s Parables.” Extrapolation, vol. 61, no. 1–2, 2020, pp. 151–72, https://doi.org/10.3828/extr.2020.10.

Wiggs, Kimber L. “The Trouble: Family, Genre, and Hybridity in Octavia Butler’s Kindred.” Mosaic (Winnipeg), vol. 54, no. 1, 2021, pp. 129–45, https://doi.org/10.1353/mos.2021.0008.

Nesha Mooteram

Research Question:

How does the idea of the Earthseed highlight the central issue within Parable of The Sower? How might it critique or diverge from Christianity? What is Octavia Butler’s relationship with traditional Christianity and was there a conscious attempt to critique religion? 

Throughout Parable of The Sower I questioned why did Octavia Butler tackle the idea of religion, Christianity and the term “earthseed”. When searching to sources that will help me expand on my question, I came across five readings that speak upon Octavia Butlers motive and idea when involving christianity. All five of my cites are from the Hunter Database, one search. I used “Octavia Butler, earthseed, religion and christianity” as key words to find articles and reviews that will further my idea. I noticed that when copy and pasting these links onto google search they do not work, you must copy and paste it in the Hunter One Search database. I believe I will find out Butler’s big yet hidden focus about Christianity, what triggered or triggers her to tackle this topic and how does it affect the audience’s perspective as a whole.

                                                                  SOURCES:

               Melson, A. (2023). Adapting the White Man’s Religion: The Creation and Evolution of Religion in Octavia’s Butler’s Parable of the Sower and Alice Walker’s The Color Purple. The Midwest Quarterly (Pittsburg), 64(2), 209–136.

               Rezaei, Zahra, et al. “Freedom, Choice and Achieving Self-Realisation in the Dystopian World of Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler.” International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature, vol. 11, no. 1, 2022, pp. 47–53, https://doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.11n.1p.47.

                Jos, Philip H. “Fear and the Spiritual Realism of Octavia Butler’s Earthseed.” Utopian Studies, vol. 23, no. 2, 2012, pp. 408–29, https://doi.org/10.5325/utopianstudies.23.2.0408.

                Achachelooei, Elham Mohammadi, and Carol Elizabeth Leon. “The Past and ‘Discontinuity in Religion’ in Octavia Butler’s Parables: A Feminist Theological Perspective.” Journal of Language, Literature and Culture (Australasian Universities Language and Literature Association), vol. 68, no. 2, 2021, pp. 120–37, https://doi.org/10.1080/20512856.2021.1935492.

                Purifoy, Danielle M. “To Live and Thrive on New Earths: The Earthseed Land Collective and Black Freedom.” Southern Cultures, vol. 26, no. 4, 2020, pp. 78–89, https://doi.org/10.1353/scu.2020.0056.

The Novel 10:04 by Ben Learner is by far the most intriguing novel we had read in class. Ben Lerner is an author who is dedicated to writing novels passionately while dealing with his aortic valve condition that could be life threatening, he writes the importance of time since it is part of the theme in the novel. He referred back to the future quite often in the Novel which reminded me when Marty was accidentally sent back to the 50’s by a scientist and witnessed younger versions of his parents where through the journey he constantly worries about time. Ben worries about time because he mixes his personal life conflicts with his passion and for him it is writing. In the Novel it states that, “ I would still probably require, eventual surgery, but with a more distant threshold (5 centimeters), and the possibility of much slower progression. In either case , I was now burdened with the awareness that there was a statistically significant chance the largest artery in my body would rupture at any moment- an event i visualized, how- ever incorrectly, as a whipping hose spraying blood into my blood; before collapse a far look comes into my eyes as though, etc” (10). Life is unpredictable and anything could happen. This was a constant worry for the author because how if he dies before finishing his Novel. This also reminded me of how time is also prevalent, as a theme in Octavia Butler’s, Sower of the Parable. You never know what could happen and time is ticking, in an apocalypse you cannot waste any time. From running from the arsonists, from forming a group quickly to prioritize safety, time is valuable. What stood out to me is his characteristics in the Novel, is his resilience. It is important to talk about fear because it shows the truth of reality. Yes it is important to understand fear and how to deal with fear. It is normal for people who are diagnosed with certain diseases to feel fear, cancer patients have fear all the time, and heart problems could cause people to fear because you can collapse any time. Fearing for the future is what I think ties in the Novel you are constantly predicting the good and the bad possibilities of every outcome in life. In Octavia’s Butler’s novel, fear was inevitable , it is about how you deal with fear, how you handle it, and how to stay alive. Which is what both authors prioritize throughout the novels. 

In the novel, 10:04, the reference to the passing of time can be extremely complex and confusing. The narrator is always referring to how he’s losing his sense of time, especially in relation to his health condition. When he is being examined by three female doctors regarding his Marfan condition, he states “That they were Younger than I constituted an unfortunate milestone beyond which medical science could no longer stand in benevolent paternal relation to my body because such doctors would now see in my pathologized corpus their own future decline and not their past immaturity” (6). Due to the fact that people with Marfanoid condition are usually diagnosed by early childhood, the narrator is stuck in the pediatric wing getting examined. The medical professionals, who might have been like supportive paternal figures for the narrator, if he were a child, are now making him feel uneasy and infantilized, while simultaneously making him feel significantly older because all he believes the doctor see when they look at him is the inevitability of their death. Furthermore, he goes on to say that “my parts were coming to possess a terrible neurological autonomy not only spatial but temporal, my future collapsing in upon me as each contraction expanded, however infinitesimally, the overly flexible tubing of my heart”(7). The narrator’s condition is a ticking time bomb which has given him a heightened awareness of his own existence and the time he has left to live. He doesn’t know when he will die, but he can feel the future closing in on him with every beating of his heart which is scary but eye opening in a way.
This life altering condition propels him in some ways to decide to want a child. While cooking a meal, he suddenly begins to grapple with the idea that “nobody depended on me for this fundamental mode of care, of nurturing, nourishing” (47). While he has had meals prepared for him many times, the narrator realizes he’s never really had anyone to depend on him for something like that, therefore, in that moment of loneliness and dread he decides he wants a child. However, not too long after, he rescinds his statement and no longer wants a child because he believes his reasoning his selfish. Instead, he states that “What you need to do is harness the self-love you are hypostasizing as offspring, as the next generation of you, and let it branch out horizontally” (47). Rather than thinking only of himself in a very individualistic way, the narrator is stating that instead he should utilizing his self-love as a force for positive change on a broader, collective scale.
The narrators condition seems to have propelled him to move beyond the confines of his individual self and begin to start thinking of himself in relation to space and time.