Parable of the Sower
GOD
IS
CHANGE.
Our names are Alyssa and Makenna. We are students at Illinois State University. This blog is for our English 125 class which focuses on many unique dystopian and utopian novels, but we decided to target our favorite of the books which was Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler. We discuss some of the main characters through the critical theories we studied, such as Marxist Criticism Theory, Feminist Criticism Theory, and Postcolonial Criticism Theory.
Critical Statement
This blog is a written representation of how the main characters of Parable of the Sower are explicitly displayed. It is also key to see how each character acts through a Marxist, Feminist, and Postcolonial critical lens. We examine how Lauren, Zahra, Bankole, and Reverend Olamina evolve throughout their very own story.
We wanted to incorporate what we believed was the most important quote from the book, "God is Change", in the middle of the home page. This quote is the main character's mantra that she lives by throughout the book, and also shares with new-coming members that she deems worthy to live by it as well. The quote whole-heartedly explains Lauren and the doctrine "Earthseed" that she believes in. It is quickly realized that their world is ever changing and those who don't conform to change get left behind.
We also wanted to include a picture of each character that we believed would look like them in real life, while considering how they were described in Parable of the Sower. With this, we added a small biography consisting of their name, gender, age, religion, occupation, spouse, and other facts. This helps give an insight to how the characters are portrayed since the all details of their being were not described in our analysis.
The sunflower background coincides with what each character is in desperate search of throughout the book, which is a fresh start. Every year with the changing seasons, flowers come to find new life. When the community was destroyed it is up to the characters to be able to rise from the ground and carry on.
Works Cited
Andréolle, Donna Spalding. "Utopias of Old, Solutions for the New Millennium: A Comparative Study of Christian Fundamentalism in M.K. Wren's a Gift upon the Shore and Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower." Utopian Studies, vol. 12, no. 2, Dec. 2001, p. 114.
Butler, Octavia E. Parable of the Sower. Grand Central Publishing, 2007. Print.
"Ecclesiastes 3:1" The Holy Bible, New International Version. Biblica Inc. 2011. Print.
Lacey, Lauren J. (2008) Octavia E. Butler on Coping with Power in Parable of the Sower, Parable of the Talents, and Fledgling, Critique: Studies in Contemporary
Phillips, Jerry. "The Intuition of the Future: Utopia and Catastrophe in Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower." Novel: A Forum on Fiction, vol. 35, no. 2/3, Spring/Summer2002, p. 299.
Thiess, Derek. "Care Work, Age, and Culture in Butler's Parable Series." Femspec, vol. 15, no. 2, Sept. 2015, pp. 63-99.