Tired of ads?
Join today and never see them again.
Advertisement - Guide continues below
Race
You may have noticed that most sci-fi novels feature white characters—or alien species whose ethnicity doesn't much reflect life in the United States today. Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower is very different: it was authored by a Black woman who wanted to "write herself in" to her stories and to American literature.
In this novel, the protagonist and narrator, Lauren Olamina, is a young Black woman. Race is definitely a factor in who's able to survive in Lauren's world and how—it's not something that Lauren can afford to ignore. She seems more eager to ally with people who are also minorities or who come from mixed background, perhaps seeing in them not only a kind of safety but also a strength that is ordinarily ignored or overlooked by people of the dominant white ethnicity.
It's wise for Lauren to ally with ethnic minorities.
People from ethnic minority backgrounds in this novel are strong in times of adversity because they're used to adversity.
Join today and never see them again.
Please Wait...