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Citation Practice.

Octavia Butler was shy as a child.

"BloodChild".

Summary:

“Bloodchild” written by Octavia E. Butler is set in a foreign land, perhaps on another planet, where Terran (humans) and Tlic (aliens) coexist within the same place. Gan, one of the main characters, is a young Terran and T’Gatoi, another character who is a Tlic and government official in charge of the Preserve, who becomes close to Gan's family. T’Gatoi visits the family and brings her sterile eggs that helps lengthen the life of Terrans. Both the Terrans and the Tlics have an understanding to live in a peaceful environment because other Terrans from before tried to eliminate them. During T'Gatoi's visit, a fellow Terran named Bram Lomas asks for help in assisting in his childbirth with a Tlic. Young Gan has to watch the Terran be cut open so they can remove the grubs (baby Tlic) before it would eat Lomas alive. Because Gan was the chosen one for T’Gatoi's eggs, she explains to him that Terrans are used as hosts because they are what keep the Tlic population intact due to the Tlic babies being born healthier to have a better chance of survival. Not only that, but in doing so, both the Terrans and Tlics in a way become associated as family. Gan's initial reaction was negative opposing the idea of being the host as well as threatening to kill himself. He tells T'Gatoi that his sister Xuan Hoa should take his place. The only problem with that was, his sister Xuan also had to implant her eggs around the same time. When T'Gatoi agrees to follow Gan's wishes, Gan suddenly changes his mind. Although Gan doesn't want to participate in being the the host and experiencing this horrible extraction of the Tilc birth, he didn't want to put his sister in that position because he loves her and he was becoming so attached to T’Gatoi. Gan decided to become the host for her to show how much he cared.

Quotes:

• “I’m healthy and young,” she said. “I won’t leave you as Lomas was left-alone, N’Tlic. I’ll take care of you.”
• "And to keep you for myself," I said. It was so. I didn't understand it, but it was so."
• T'Gatoi looked down at him. "I wish you Terrans could do that at will."

"The Evening and the Morning and the Night".

Summary:

The short story, "The Evening and the Morning and the Night" is about a disease called Duryea-Gode, also known as DGD, which was caused by a drug named Hedeonco. DGD takes over the body and results in self mutilation to the person with the disease as well as possible others. Within age they become unstoppable unless given the right precautions such as restraining and drugging. This disease has to be maintained with a proper diet as well. One of the characters named Lynn Mortimer, suffers from DGD which was genetically passed down to her from her parents who also have suffered from it. She was taken to a disease ward, by her parents due to her lack of eating habits and diet.This facility was called Dilg and was run by DGDs. It was the only known facility to be able to maintain the stability of the disease preventing harsh effects on the patients. While she was there she witnessed disturbing things that caused her to attempt suicide. Luckily, her father saved her in time before she could do so. Lynn's boyfriend Alan is also familiar with this disease due to the fact that his mother is at the facility as well. One of the doctors named Beatrice explains to them that normally men and women would only inherit the disease from their mothers due to a pheromone within it and that it was rather unusual that both DGD parents would have a girl. She also states that Lynn has a special gift just like Beatrice herself and wants her and Alan to work at Dilg after they graduate college. Alan immediately is opposed to this idea but Lynn is somewhat hesitant. She's been through a lot of hardships throughout her life due to this disease, having to go through many trials since the age of fifteen years old like coping with both her parent's deaths after her father killed her mother then himself afterwards via self-mutilation. She was open to the idea at first but changes her mind as her and Alan leave Dilg.

Quotes:

• “This and much more. Our people work instead of tearing at themselves or staring into space.”
• “I was convinced that somehow if I turned, I would see myself standing there, gray and old, growing small in the distance, vanishing”
• People who don’t eat in public, who drink nothing more interesting than water, who smoke nothing at all-people like that are suspicious…I wore my emblem. And one way or another, people got a look at it or got the word from someone who had. ‘She is!’ Yeah

"Speech Sounds".

Summary:

The short story, "Speech Sounds" takes place in Los Angeles focusing on a girl named Rye who is on a bus to Pasadena in search of finding the remaining people in her family, her brother and his two kids. She witnesses an argument between two young men leads to a fight where others as well as Rye decide to leave the bus. Rye then meets Obsidian, a man in a police uniform who attempts to restore order, offers her a ride in his car out of the city in which she accepts. Rye learns that Obsidian can read a map and struggles with her urges to kill him, but instead reveals to him that she is able to talk bringing out an intimate moment between them where they have sex. Rye talks Obsidian into joining her on her journey home. While driving, they come across a woman being chased by a man with a knife in which they felt the need to help the woman, however she ends up getting stabbed by the man. Obsidian walks over to the man thinking he is dead but ends up getting shot in the head by the assailant where Rye then kills him. Rye is suddenly approached by two children who can also speak. Noticing that the woman was probably their mother, she introduces herself and decides to take them with her on her journey.

Quotes:

• "She watched the two carefully, knowing the fight would begin when someone’s nerve broke or someone’s hand slipped or someone came to the end of his limited ability to communicate"

• I’m Valerie Rye,” she said, savoring the words. “It’s all right for you to talk to me"
• "The illness had played with them, taking away, she suspected, what each valued most"

"Butler's Biography."

Octavia E. Butler was born on June 22nd, 1947 in Pasadena, California. She was an African American science fiction writer who grew up in a racially diverse community during the segregation period. She witnessed racism firsthand from the way her mother was treated by the whites. Her mother wanted her to take a liking to reading in which Butler spent most of her time doing at the library. This was her escape from the harsh world of torment her and her family faced. One of Butler's works was published in a science fiction magazine from the help of one of her teachers. Butler later became the winner of a short story contest from Pasadena City College and won many Hugo Awards for best short stories. This led to her induction in the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2010. Butler continued to further her career in science fiction writing where she was awarded the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation fellowship. The devastating event of her mother's death led Butler to move to Lake Forest Park, Washington. With Butler having high blood pressure, she suffered many side effects, like depression, from the medication she was taking which contributed in developing writer's block. She continued with her writing and taught at Clarion's Science Fiction Writers' Workshop. She was inducted in yet another Hall of Fame for International Black Writers at Chicago State University in 2005. Octavia Butler later passed away outside her home on February 24th, 2006 at the age of 58.

Butler, Octavia 1947–2006." Black Literature Criticism: Classic and Emerging Authors since 1950. Ed. Jelena O. Krstovic. 2nd ed. Vol. 1. Detroit: Gale, 2008. 244-258. Gale Virtual Literature Collection.

Gant-Britton, Lisbeth. "Butler, Octavia (1947– )." African American Writers. Ed. Valerie Smith. 2nd ed. Vol. 1. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2001

"The Book of Martha".

Summary:

The short story, "The Book of Martha" is about a middle-aged woman named Martha who is surrounded in a grey area where she realizes she is talking to God. She comes to the conclusion that she's dead but God explains to her that she is very much alive and that he has a task for her. Martha has to make a choice whether it be to make a struggle for improvement or an easier path of continuing as people are. Martha is perplexed at the idea of why God has this mindset towards human kind and why would he chose her in the first place opposed to him doing it himself. God guides her leading her with more questions of the task itself. He tells her that no matter how much of a good deed she tries to do with good intentions, there will always be consequences to those actions in which could eliminate the existence of humanity. Martha makes her decision stating the way to bring change to human kind is within their dreams, with everyone having many different and unique experiences. This could maintain the way people think negatively making them more aware of their actions and the consequences those actions make have. Martha didn't want the memory of her decision so she had asked God to forget of their meeting and what they had discussed just as she was standing in her living room looking out the window unaware of what she actually wanted to forget.

Quotes:

• "Don't you know everything?" God smiled. "No, I outgrew that trick long ago. You can't imagine how boring it was."
• “It’s difficult, isn’t it?” God said with a weary smile. "You’re truly free for the first time. What could be more difficult than that?”’
• “All in all, the dreams will probably give humanity more time than it would without them.”

"Amnesty".

Summary:

The short story, "Amnesty" is about a girl named Noah Cannon who was kidnapped and experimented on as a child by aliens.They feared humans due to the fact humans were trying to destroy them so they experimented on them to find out what the human species was all about. Upon her release the US government held her captivity for several years where they tortured her for information. Noah had survived captivity for twelve years since she was eleven years of age and now works for her former abductor aliens as a Translator, where she talks to and recruits the human contracts about how they will serve in their harmless experiments in which they intend on bringing peace between humans and aliens. Those aliens are called "The Communities", which are entities that are made of various creatures living together as a whole. Through her experience being captive from both the aliens and the humans, she realized that both don't serve a threat to one another and she had the power by having learned what they were all about and how each did things. Her and the other recruiters work on ways to help keep the helps serene and at peace. Amnesty is mainly a long dialogue between Noah and 6 characters who are also human recruits where they get to know one another and share their life stories on how society is different and that there are two options, one being you have to figure out and learn ways to survive or else face the risk of annihilation.

Quotes:

• “They’ve settled here and they’ll fight to keep the various desert locations they’ve chosen for their bubbles. If they do decide to fight we won’t survive.”
• "So they kidnapped you, and now you work for them?"
• “I want to vote for peace between your people and mine by telling the truth. I don‘t know whether my efforts will do any good, in the long run, but I have to try.”

"Crossover".

Summary:

The short story, "Crossover" is about a woman who has a lousy job working at a factory in which she hates and struggles with alcohol as well as staying with her criminal boyfriend. With her constant fear of loneliness and death, she suffers from low self esteem issues where she doesn't value that someone like her could have a man like him thus pushing her boyfriend away. She had planned on suicide but was too scared of actually going through with it. As the story continues, her actions and behavior become more self destructive where she constantly visited the liquor store and began binge drinking as well as going to a man's hotel room for more alcohol. She had been around drunks most of her life that she got used to this habit and the more she drank the less things would matter. Octavia Butler compares this story to her real life by stating that it was about her own fears of failing as a writer because she didn't want to end up like this character.

Quotes:

• "What would a decent-looking guy want with me?

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

Summary:

In the essay 'There Goes the Neighborhood':Octavia Butler's Demand for Diversity in Utopia' by Michelle Erica Green, a sub section of the essay titled "Ex-communication: “Speech Sounds” and “The Evening and the Morning and the Night”" details a comparison between the two works and discusses Butler's essentialistic view's shown in both works. The works deal with the collapse of a perceived Utopian society through human oversight in the face of great achievement and challenges the notion that humans are in control of their physical being and destruction of verbal communication through the use of disease. In regard to "Speech Sounds", she notes Butler's intention to show that without the ability to communicate, people will separate from each other and society as we know it will cease to exist. In "The Evening and the Morning and the Night” she talks about the strangeness of the Dilg utopia, the amount of prejudice faced, the relationship between men and women of DGD, a feminist view as inclusive of men and not separate, the exploitation by Dilg, and the role of women with DGD.

Quotes:

• "The future of our earth may depend upon the ability . . . to identify and develop new definitions of power and new patterns of relating across difference."
• The stories thus concern methods for interpersonal contact when verbal communication fails, and when the possibility of life ­threatening violence is just under the surface of all relationships. Although grounded in the biology of individual bodies, the problems that arise are primarily social in nature."
• "The story focuses on the prejudice still-healthy DGD carriers suffer as they are ignored or abused by uninformed and frightened associates."

"I Hugged Myself":First-Person Narration as an Agential Act in Octavia Butler's "The Evening and the Morning and the Night"

Summary:

In “I Hugged Myself”: First-Person Narration as an Agential Act in Octavia Butler’s “The Evening and the Morning and the Night" by Florian Blast, who gives a synopsis of the short story and discusses the exploration within the complexity of what it means to be human given the example from Butler's story. Bast states the significance of first person narration within the context of African American literature where it can be connected to slavery due to the fact that slaves composed collections of memoirs/journals where it told the stories of self accounts of their lives. A story viewpoint of Butler's "The Evening and the Morning and the Night", suggests the deconstruction of both the psyche and the body. Lynn being the main character, discusses her sickness with DGD , the unfortunate demise of her parents, and foresees her future life and what has yet to come.

Quotes:

• “In many ways, this story represents a prism of Octavia Butler’s work: like most of Butlers writings, it revolves around its character’s body.”
• "Thus, on yet another level, the text pits the voice of its main character and narrator against the forces of genetic determinism, as a voice that has the power at least temporarily to stay what in the beginning of the story seemed to be an inevitable, genetically determined fate, even in others."
• If "(t]he telling of a story is always bound up with power, with questions of authority, property and domination" (Bennett and Royle, 2004: 52), then the textual act of first-person narration constitutes an agential act."

"Diversity, Change, Violence: Octavia Butler's Pedagogical Philosophy."

Summary:

In "Diversity, Change, Violence: Octavia Butler's Pedagogical Philosophy." by Sarah Outterson, she states how the majority of Butler's stories are faced with the depiction of violence and conflict whether it's physically, mentally, or technologically. In Butler's "The Evening and the Morning and the Night", it's stated that Lynn attempted to commit suicide also her father murdering her mother as well as himself. Butler uses a variety of characters to portray both the crucial point of separation and the great lengths of different viewpoints coming together as she engages the controversial issues that unity in a community or society is in fact an idealistic possibility. Outterson states how Butler argues that those who have authority or power are never free of control, and those who go against authority or commit acts that seem violent, are in itself boundary-violating systems. Thus with experience of slavery through Butler's stories, it makes those aware of freedom and the path to a world of change.

Quotes:

• "Compulsion brings us together through the painful violation of individual boundaries and the death of our precious past selves."
• "On the most basic level, violence is bodily harm that inflicts suffering. Abstracted, the word has developed to include cultural harm; that is, restriction or imposition on rights and freedoms both systemically and deliberately."
• "Butler's oft-expressed fear that humanity is in trouble because "hierarchical behavior is too much in charge, too self-sustaining"

"The Effects of Segregation and the Consequences of Desegregation A (September 1952) Social Science Statement in the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka Supreme Court Case."

Summary:

This article provides a summary of what segregation really is and the effects it leads on society. It questions whether the inclusion of having a group that’s not as intelligent may threaten the education of the more intelligent group by lowering educational standards or cause damage to the less intelligent group by placing them in a scenario where they are more disadvantaged. It also states how segregation gives people a blurry sense of social reality where it creates negativity towards others and leads to violent outbreaks of racial tensions. This idea relates to the story due to Butler’s comparison of DGD suffers as those who have a disability or are born differently. This will be used in my paper to show how the rest of society sees people with a disease, such as DGD, as a threat or burden because they assume that those sufferers don’t have the intellectual capacity as those of the rest of humanity.