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Octavia Butler's Aha! Moment

Summary

The article showcases Octavia Butler's self appreciation as well as her realization in learning about other people. A cocker spaniel named Baba was the catalyst for Butler's newfound appreciation of others. After analyzing the dog for minutes, she began to notice eyes more, as it gave her in depth information about who the figure bearing those eyes was. As a child, she remembered going to the zoo and feeling empathy for the caged monkey as other children made fun of it. That memory helped develop a hatred for metaphorical cages at a later age. She was disgusted at how people segregated themselves from each other using various immature walls such as gender, race or class.Butler reflects upon these memories to state that she feels better getting to know someone else for who they are; that it sparks an interest.

I believe this short article will be useful for the paper I'll be writing mostly for the theme of self appreciation that Lynn or any other DGD inflicted person would feel after learning about other "diseased" individuals. The physical cage of that horrifying disease may separate people, but the potential a DGD person holds to become something greater than just an "ill" person permits an opportunity to demonstrate a certain entity of beauty among the chaos that DGD has brought upon an unfortunate generation.

“I Hugged Myself”: First – Person Narration as an Agential Act in Octavia Butler’s “The Evening and the Morning and the Night”

Summary

This article focuses on the technical aspects of Butler’s incorporation of first person narration within a first person narration as well as a detailed summary. “We versus they” and the “power of spoken voice” are themes presented here as well as a thorough analysis of the issues the story has brought up such as social exclusion and a lack of free will due to the affliction of DGD. Florian Bast touches on how Lynn gets a clearer grasp on her sense of self, learning about who she is and what her capabilities entail as a DGD diseased person while fully identifying with others suffering the same genetic mutation. He introduces a strong case stating the short story’s topic of segregation between DGD’s (Others) and people without the disease represented a similar situation with African Americans during their time in slavery and concludes that this literary piece is a voice of awareness.

Quotes

• “At first, discussing her life as an individual marked by the tag DGD patients have to wear for medical reasons, she constructs a “they” that encompasses healthy people who mock, marginalize, and regulate her, against which the “we” of the DGD carriers seems victimized but resilient.”
• “In Lynn’s ability to communicate verbally with a DGD patient, the text establishes an additional way of imagining the category of voice as capable of stemming the tide of genetic inevitability.”
• “Later, when she and Alan visit the ward, her construction of herself stands in contrast to those whose disease has erupted. Concurrent with the fact that genetic difference separates her from healthy people and genetic inevitability connects her to those who have an advanced form of the disease, this, construction is somewhat less stable.”

Digging Deep:  Ailments of Difference in Octavia Butler’s “The Evening and the Morning and the Night”

Summary

Isaiah Lavender argues that “The Evening and the Morning and the Night” in itself is a metaphor for racial discrimination displaying the point of views from both the outsiders (those unaffected by the DGD disease) and, more importantly, those actually going through the struggle of inevitable psychosis, self-mutilation and death. This article praises Butler’s potential efforts to address racial issues and focuses on the psychological effects of internalized racism, bringing up Alan’s self-hatred via sterilization. It is also brought up that Lynn’s race isn’t mentioned anywhere in the story in order to question the reader’s default portrayal of a protagonist. Matriarchal aspects are also discussed in which Alan’s unwillingness to be another drone under the rule of a “queen bee” remains a constant theme. It’s consistently argued that a biological defect can be used to express societal ills.

Quotes

• “This idea of internalization is a reminder of double consciousness, at least in that having this disease clearly causes psychological problems that rise solely out of society’s view of the disease rather than the afflicted’s day-to-day experience of the illness.”
• “Fear of illness exists between seeing and knowing something about the illness’s effect on the body. In this sense, fear and eyesight are connected because of possible harmful contact with a DGD. As an exclusionary rationale develops, to be diseased is to be feared as Other.”
• “Lynn begins to understand that her role in society is that of a healer in her own separate facility.“

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

Summary

Michelle Erica Green brilliantly summarizes the story and compares the DGD disease to AIDS presenting the theme that positive outcomes can derive from problems. She mentions scientific discoveries focused in improving the immune system through the unfortunate case of AIDS and how medical advances were made because of it. The DGD afflicted people, who are seen as monsters, can be proactive and create beautiful things such as art or even inventions. The fact that Double DGD females have a strong influence on their own kind suggests a feminist tone, making them the chosen leaders to guide their people. It is argued that humans have a violent quality to them and that if men were to have the same effect via pheromones, they would have no problem using their authority. Ultimately, Green confirms her gender based argument by calculating the violence displayed by both Lynn’s father and Alan’s mother as parallel.

Quotes

• “Butler never explains whether the violence stems from the diseases themselves, or from the rage and terror felt by the diseased individuals whose bodies no longer respond to their commands, although the latter seems more likely.”
• “Dilg, ­­named for the Dilg family, which made capital profits from the drug that caused DGD, and then funded research to cure it­­ also funds scholarships for DGD victims.”
• “Just as AIDS research has led to new discoveries about the immune system and provided valuable information in treating cancer, leukemia, and chronic viral infections, DGD produces highly intelligent individuals who devote their lives to improving life for others; the special value of double­DGD females was discovered by DGD victims, and their own laboratories represent the best hope for a cure.”

Amnesty

Summary

A woman by the name of Noah is a worker for an alien race, Communities, that have arrived on Earth. The first initial years after the Communities arrived were nothing but war and death. Noah was part of the second wave of people kidnapped for human experimentation and fortunately escaped the harsher realities the first wave of people had been through. She now works for the Communities in hopes of uniting both species. Her latest task entails calming down several recruits planned for employment by these odd plant-like creatures. Noah confesses many truths to these recruits about her experiences leading up to becoming a full-time worker for the aliens. Throughout the majority of the story, these curious and angry newcomers bombarded Noah with questions. They were concerned about their future while brimming with hatred towards the Communities they read so much about that invaded and vandalized their home. Despite having felt the same way at one point, Noah finds this banter irrelevant and continues to carry out the task given to her feeling there is no future were humans are supreme again.

Quotes

• “They come to our world and we have to learn their language.” – James Adio
• “She had lost all sense of direction, yet she felt totally secure, clasped by entities that had nothing resembling human limbs”
• “They trust me to help would-be employers learn to live with a human being without hurting the human and to help human employees learn to live with the Communities and fulfill their responsibilities.” – Noah

Book of Martha

Summary

The first words Martha hears are from God speaking to her, telling her she is free for the first time. Nothing but greyness surrounds her and she finds herself trapped in time in front of her maker. God gives Martha the task of finding a way to improve mankind reminding her she has all the time in the world to come up with an idea. Unfortunately, after fulfilling this task Martha is to return to her normal life as the lowest level of society. Frightened and confused she is reminded about Jonah, Job and Noah. They had to complete their jobs given by God and so did she. Martha is imbued with a small portion of God’s power and quickly finds herself creating her own world within this grey canvas around her. Suddenly, she comes up with the idea to make dreams more potent, that way humans can achieve their needs in their sleep, overwhelming them with pleasure and instant gratification so that when they are awake, they are much more peaceful people. With her decision set in stone, Martha tells God she doesn’t want to remember any of this when she returns.

Quotes

• “Exhaust them with pleasure while teaching them that pleasure isn’t everything. “ – God
• “No, I outgrew that trick long ago. You can’t imagine how boring it was.” - God
• “I’m afraid the time might come when I won’t be able to stand knowing that I’m the one who caused not only the harm, but the end of the only career I’ve ever cared about” – Martha

Butler's Biography

The American science fiction writer Octavia Butler was born on June 22, 1947 in Pasadena, California. She was introverted as a child and felt alienated from the rest of humanity while living in a white supremacist era. She would often read at the Pasadena Public Library and immediately relished in science fiction writings. Her aunt, unfortunately blunt, slightly discouraged Butler saying how Negroes can't find success in writing. Butler's unwavering determination kept her from giving up on her passion and proceeded to publish several stories throughout her junior-high and college years. Fueled by the need to find a voice within her work, Butler continued writing and blessed the world of literature with the Patternist Series. She finally reached a point where her writing was able to sustain her life but her creative drive didn’t stop there. Butler wrote several more stories including 1979’s Kindred, 1984’s Speech Sounds and 1985’s Bloodchild all receiving well-earned awards. Her fame paralleled the production of work she was putting out. Butler’s success skyrocketed with the publishing of The Xenogenesis Trilogy and the two Parable novels: Parable of the Sower (1993), Parable of the Talents (1998). Continued plans on the Parable novels were being considered, however, Butler decided to scrap them the more she immersed herself into the distressing mental state she consistently found herself in. Fledgling (2005) was her last contribution to literature. High blood pressure took a toll on Butler and medication unfortunately crippled her with writer’s block and depression. Despite those terrible afflictions, she proceeded to teach and earned induction into the Black Writer’s Hall of Fame at Chicago State University. On February 24, 2006, Octavia Butler was pronounced deceased at the tender age of 58. The Clarion West Writer’s Workshop, the same place Butler began perfecting her craft, offers the Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship to students.

The Evening and the Morning and the Night

Summary

Lynn Mortimer has been afflicted with Duryea-Gode disease her entire life. Her troubled past includes a failed suicide at 15 years of age and a father who "drifted" causing him to murder her mother and taking his own life in the process. The disease itself is characterized by signs of dementia, suicide and the need for self-mutilation, more-so because the affected individual wants to escape the prison they're in: their flesh. During her college life she begins living with other DGD afflicted people. There she meets Alan, who she forms a bond with. Alan wants to meet her mother who is located at a Dilg, which is a maximum security DGD ward that houses several patients susceptible to being manipulated by pheromones. Lynn ends up joining Alan and meet with Beatrice, the “queen bee” of the facility. Alan and his mother are reunited after years of being separated and realizes that DGD affected patients are usually influenced by female pheromones. Both Alan and Lynn discover the harsh possibility that efforts to better the lives of those afflicted with the disease may be futile.

Quotes

• "I won't be a puppet. I won't be controlled... by a goddamn smell!" - Alan
• "They can create something beautiful, useful, even something worthless. But they create. They don't destroy." - Beatrice
• "They try so hard, fight so hard to get out" - Lynn

Speech Sounds

Summary

The protagonist Valerie Rye finds herself in a world where communication has gone astray. People no longer spoke and were subjected to using hand gestures to express what they wanted to say. Her loneliness after losing her husband and children drove her to take a bus ride to Pasadena to join her brother and his two children. A couple of brief skirmished broke out in the bus which prompted the driver to pull over. Rye kicked open the rear door and left the scene, standing outside watching for the commotion to die down. A man in a vehicle, who we later come to know as Obsidian, pulls over in front of the bus and eases the situation, taking Rye with him on her adventure to Pasadena. They become intimate and learn about each other until a woman runs across in front of the car, apparently being chased by a man. Rye faces sorrow after witnessing all three die before her eyes in a heated fight. Two children run to see their dead mother. They speak and revitalize Rye’s hope for the human species, which prompts her decision to take care of these kids, assuming the future of mankind won’t be shackled by this disease in the future.

Quotes

• "The illness had played with them, taking away, she suspected, what each valued most."
• "She had experienced longing for the past, hatred of the present, growing hopelessness, purposelessness, but she had never experienced such a powerful urge to kill another person."
• "The illness, if it was an illness, had cut even the living off from one another."

Bloodchild

Summary

The protagonist, Gan, recalls the destruction of his innocence with a visit home. He lays cradled in the long embrace of T’Gatoi’s alien limbs as his mother, sister and brothers were made to share a sterile egg to eat. Gan was fed a whole sterile egg and finds out the reason for this later.  After they consume their rations a man named Bram Lomas approaches the door and T’Gatoi crawls over to relocate the suffering man onto the floor. Gan was told to go outside and murder an achti so that T’Gatoi can have a host to plant the parasitic grubs from inside Lomas’ body. This is the beginning of Gan’s loss of innocence and rapid development into the adult world. He kills an achti with a gun and comes home to find T’Gatoi positioned over Lomas’ body only to witness the wounded man being cut open to extract the developing larvae that were used to impregnate him. The gore Gan experienced was enough to mentally scar him for life. He was ordered to help with the extraction of living grubs as T’Gatoi removed each of them and shoved them in the achti corpse for them to feed. Gan almost lost it and exited the premises to vomit as the procedure was nearly done. Lomas  was still alive and his  sick Tlic partner T’Khotgif arrived to join him. T’Gatoi finished her procedure with Lomas and approached Gan in the kitchen to speak about what he had seen. The alien race, Tlic, uses human hosts to further their existence and Gan knew T’Gatoi needed someone to bear her offspring. Gan insisted she use his eager sister but couldn’t bear the fact that she’d have parasites nestled in her body the same way Lomas did. Gan offered his body to T’Gatoi and became the host out of love, rage and desperation.

Quotes

• "And your ancestors, fleeing from their homeworld, from their own kind who would have killed or enslaved them—they survived because of us. We saw them as people and gave them the Preserve when they still tried to kill us as worms." - T'Gatoi
• "Running inside the Preserve. Running in a cage." - Qui
• "What does Terran blood taste like to you?" - Gan

Citation Practice

Octavia Butler was shy as a child.