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Citation Practice

Octavia Butler was shy as a child.

Bloodchild

Summary

In "Bloodchild" by Octavia Butler T'Gatoi uses humans as hosts to carry her young. T'Gatoi seems to be some type of alien like species called the Tlic and is the head official in charge of a Preserve. Some kind of eggs are given to the Terran to keep them healthy and fit enough to be able to support the eggs that are implanted by T'Gatoi. Those who are implated with eggs are called the N'Tlics. Gan is T'Gatois N'Tilc but has not been implanted before. One night, Gan and her family were in their house when T'Gatoi felt something was going on outside. She later discovered a man trying to reach a call box because he was ready to "give birth" and took him in and perfomed the "surgery" on her own. It seems that the stingers of the Tlic have some numbing power to help with the pain of being cut open to excise the larva. When T'Gatoi realized what was going on, she instructed Gan to go find and kill an animal, an achti, medium size so that she can place the young grub in the dead animal to feed after they are cut out of the man, Bram Lomas. Gan came back and witnessed this "surgery" and she couldn't bare the sight, it sickened her so much that she threw up everything she possibly could. She realized that since she was T'Gatoi's N'Tlic that she would have to go through this. She didn't seem to want to. She sat at her kitchen table thinking about it, about how people do that, how her father did it multiple times. T'Gatoi saw that Gan was troubled and uncertain about the whole process. She did not want her young to be implanted into someone who did not want them there so she told Gan to forget about and that she would make Gan's sister, Hoa, her N'Tlic. Gan did not want that so she stopped T'Gatoi and agreed for the implantation to happen that same night.

Quotes

• " The whole procedure was wrong, alien. I wouldnt have thought anything about her could see alien to me."
• " I had...never seen a person cut open before."
• " I'm healthy and young...N'Tlic.I'll take care of you."

The Evening and the Morning and the Night

Summary

In the short story “The Evening and the Morning and the night” Lynn is a teenage girl that is diagnosed with Duryea-Gode Disease. It’s a genetic disease that causes the people that have been diagnosed with to self harm and most of the time hurt others as well. Those diagnosed with DGD also have many problems that makes it difficult for them to go through a normal life. In the short story, Lynn’s parents were both diagnosed with the disease. One day after school Lynn comes home to find police officers and ambulances outside her house. She finds out that both her parents are dead. Her mom was killed and skinned by her father and soon after that he killed himself. Later on she goes off to college and rooms with four other DGD diagnosed students and they all get along very well. Later Lynn meets another DGD named Alan. She gets into a relationship with him and joins him to visit his mother at this home that treats DGD patients called Dilg. Towards the end of the visit she learns that she is a unique person that’s able to control herself and live a longer life then most people with DGD.

Quotes

• " I was convinced that somehow if I turned, I would see myself standing there, gray and old, growing small in the distance, vanishing."

• "Drifting is normal for every DGD sooner or later."
• " Most DGDs have the sense not to marry each other and produce children."

Speech Sounds

Summary

In the short story “Speech Sounds” a civilization has lost the ability to speak. Instead they communicate through sign language that they all understand. Nobody has names but rather, they are identified by symbols. The main character in the story named Rye, who still has the ability to speak, was caught in the middle of an altercation between two males on a bus when she was trying to make it out of town to find her family. The two men had delayed her quest and so she decided to walk the rest of the twenty miles where she ran into a man in a police uniform whom she named Obsidian from the pendant he was wearing. He offered her a ride in his car and she said yes despite the fact that she didn’t know him or what he was capable of. After making love, Rye asks Obsidian to go home with her and on the way there they run into more trouble. They see a woman who is about to be stabbed and try to stop it but instead Obsidian ends up being killed, along with the woman, by one of the men. After all is said and done and she is about to leave with Obsidians body, the woman’s children appear and it turns out that they too still had the ability to speak so Rye adopted them.

Quotes

• " She handed him her own name symbol a pin in the shape of a large golden stalk of wheat."
• "There was no more LAPD, no more any large organization, governmental or private. There were neighborhood patrols and armed individuals. That was all."
• "I'm Valerie Rye," she said, savoring the words. "It's all right for you to talk to me.""

Butler's Biography

Octavia Butler was born On June 22, 1947 in Pasadena, California. She had no siblings and was the daughter of a housemaid and a shoeshine man. when she was young her mother brought books and other articles and reading materials that were thrown away by white families for Octavia to read. one of the events in her life that could of possibly influenced her to write one of her stories was probably the fact that she lived in a very racially integrated area. another event in her life that could of influenced these fascinating short stories was when her aunt "Hazel" put her down by telling her that people like her werent meant to be writers. from that moment she took it upon herself to go on and publish her first story. Butler was also bullied in school and to add to that she had dyslexia that made her feel out of place, not like others, and therefore making her feel different. These events in her life had inspired her to come up with these amazing short stories that depicted little parts of her childhood and her life.

The Book of Martha

Summary

In the short story "The book of Martha" it creates this sort of image of "things aren't always what they seem to be." In one part of the story Martha meets This 12 foot white man who was considered to be god. But throughout the story he slowly shrinks down to her size as well as turning darker in skin color. This transformation through out the story also showed a sign of equality. He intended to make this change to teach her that we are all the same and not what others label us as. Throughout the rest of the story, He decided to choose Martha to basically be the next god. He did not only choose are but it seemed that she chose herself to be the one to have the power of god. This was intended throughout the story without her knowing that she truly was the one with the powers the whole time. She knew what it meant to be a minority as well as someone with alot of money. she understood equality and therefore she fit the play the part of god towards the end of the story.

Quotes

• "I'm afraid the time might come when i wont be able to stand knowing that I'm the one who caused not only harm,...might drive me out of my mind one day."

• " I wonder why you didn't care about time."
• "Exhaust them with pleasure"

Amnesty

Summary

In the short story "Amnesty" is about aliens coming to earth to try and live on earth. They came to earth to try and understand the complicated and ethically fraught relationship that comes close to humanity. They live the normal life of a human but yet get involved with a government overreach and get tangled up in the suspicion and the danger people usually cause to one another. this story was inspired by things that occurred to a Doctor named "Wen Ho Lee" who was from Los alamos back in the 1990s. According to Butler, He had his profession and freedom completely taken from him without any trace of the reasons why this had happened to him.

Quotes

• "Half the nuclear missiles were...returned?"
• "It was a short, quiet war."
• "Shall we join them?"

Crossover

Summary

In the story "Crossover" its about this woman who had a drinking problem that worked at a low paying job. Her drinking problem came from her work problems between her coworkers judging her because of the way she looked. As well as how good she did at work and how bad she did at work. nothing seem to be right for her. This lead her to basically drink her problems away. The more she drank the more this figure appeared that appeared to be human but it was all in her head. she created this man that basically controlled her in ways she couldn't explain. his creation was not intentional even she doesn't know that he's not real. But the drinking makes her believe so.

Quotes

• "She let the wino guide her towards the hotel. There was a scar-faced man coming toward them from down the block. she sucked another swallow from the bottle and waited for him to vanish."
• "She drank without giving herself time to taste or think or gag."
• "You must be lonesome here by yourself"

“I Hugged Myself”: First- person Narration as an Agential Act in Octavia Butler’s “The Evening and the morning and the night”

Summary

The source “I hugged myself” by Florian Bast talks about many parts that was analyzed in the short story “The evening and the morning and the night” By Octavia Butler. I this source Bast describes different ideas and thoughts that was put into this short story by Butler. Bast talks about so far two concepts like first person narration and the concept of We verse They. When he mentions first person narration. Bast explains Butler’s diverse oeuvre utilizes narrative perspective as it employs complex constructions of homodiegetic narrations. Such as Identity, power, control and freedom. Another concept that was mentioned in this article was the “We verse They” topic. One of his reason was how in the story Lynn was defining herself by picking different others against whom to contrast herself. Through these texts it establishes itself as a means of narrative construction of a self. He mentions when she discussed her life as someone marked with the main tag that DGD patients have to wear. This constructs a “they” type of idea that’s used by others to mock, marginalize and regulate her. These concepts plus many more was mentioned in this source about how it was used in this short story and was mostly a fight between the normal humans and the DGD Patients.

Quotes

• “I Propose that reading butler’s first-person narrations…”The evening and the morning and the night”- yields a fascinating views of the texts, Multilayered concerns with the creation of intersectional selves in…first person narration:”
• “Uses first-person narration to juxtapose the creation of self through language- For example, via changing we-verse-they constructions”
• “The most unbiquitous element in this … creation of we-verse-they constructions. As these change throughout the plot, they show Lynn defining herself by picking different others against whom to contrast herself…narrative constructions of a self.”

'There Goes the Neighborhood': Octavia Butler's Demand for Diversity in Utopias

Summary

This source talks about how butler’s novels and short story depicts Butlers ideas on fiction and the criticism. This source explains Butler’s science fiction utopias. She challenges various forms of cultural hegemony that adapts it for the purposes of social critique. Most of her novels focus on the exceptions to the rules she posits as humans other then exemplify them. Butler’s focuses on critiquing both human society and recent utopian fictions. The differences, disagreements,  and diversity that’s provided by butler in her utopias. She also goes to the topic of racism, class oppression, nationalism, religious intolerance and many other topics that involves animals and handicaps. These are all mentioned by butler. In Butler’s Bloodchild it mentions and depicts evolution that requires pan-human acceptance of alien ideas and values, that lead to merging with a new form of life. In “the evening the morning and the night” involves one group of humans accepting “alien” ideas and values from another group of humans. This depicts acceptances by those who judge.

quotes

• “The Evening and the Morning and the Night,” evolution involves one group of humans accepting “alien” ideas and values from another group of humans, taking personal responsibility for transforming themselves and the species."
• "Yet many of the texts that challenge that gender status quo ignore, erase, and repress other differences among people."
• "This tendency is the focus of Butler's critique of both human society and recent utopian fiction. Difference, disagreement, and diversity provide the life force of her utopias. Though the need to rethink women's roles in human society is a central concern, it is by no means the only problem attacked by Butler."

The technology fix

Summary

·     Article depicts Butler’s “bloodchild” as its interrogates the paradoxes of patriarchy

·     She was hassled by L.A police after paying for her groceries with a hundred dollar bill.

·     Explains that bloodchild simply explains that we are treated to a defamiliarizing view of sexual relations that interests us about how natural or inevitable our human self.

·     Explains that “the evening and the morning and the night” talks about genetic roles,

·     Posits unsettling questions about the biological determinism, social darwinisn and so on.

·     Explains other meanings for the rest of the stories in the “Bloodchild and other stories” By butler

Quotes

• "The horrible “Duryea-Gode disease” is the side-effect of a wonder drug that cures cancer, and a figure for the double-edged sword of the technology fix."
• Those who suffer from it are held in “concentration-camp rest homes and hospital wards,” kept open by “greed and indifference.”
• "One cannot help but think of our current problems with AIDS while reading this complex and disturbing story."