How we cite our quotes: The main text of the story is cited (Chapter.Paragraph). The date headers are not counted as paragraphs. The verses in the chapters with a single passage from the narrator's religious texts are cited (Chapter.Verse.Line#). In chapters with multiple passages, the verses are cited (Chapter.Verse#.Line#). The four section pages with the years and passages are cited (Year.Verse).
Quote #4
[The bubonic plague in medieval Europe caused] slow changes compared to anything that might happen here, but it took a plague to make some of the people realize that things could change. (5.94)
In the first half of the novel, a chief problem Lauren faces is that no one will believe her about the importance of change. She says here that in the past, it took a plague—an obvious and profound threat to a society's physical health—for people to even realize that big change was possible. Indeed, in our daily lives, the revelation of severe health issues, something like a cancer diagnosis, often turns out to be the stimulus that motivates a person to fundamentally reevaluate his or her own life. Parable of the Sower seems to ask: why can't we adopt the mentality that we're always updating ourselves and our environment? Why do we need to cling to dogmas when everything is always changing?
Quote #5
"Things are changing now, too. Our adults haven't been wiped out by a plague so they're still anchored in the past, waiting for the good old days to come back. But things have changed a lot, and they'll change more. Things are always changing. This is just one of the big jumps instead of the little step-by-step changes that are easier to take. People have changed the climate of the world. Now they're waiting for the old days to come back." (5.96)
Lauren says this to Joanne to try to get her to see the truth. In our narrator's Robledo world, the people trusted to solve problems, such as her father and other adults, are caught in a reactionary mindset: they're all about the past, the supposed good ol' days. Lauren seems to think that attitude explains why they can't recognize the importance of change. It's like that saying among people trying to change the world: don't trust anyone over 30.
Quote #6
"But [Change is] not a god. It's not a person or an intelligence or even a thing. It's just . . . I don't know. An idea."
I smiled. Was that such a terrible criticism? "It's a truth," I said. "Change is ongoing. Everything changes in some way—size, position, composition, frequency, velocity, thinking, whatever. Every living thing, every bit of matter, all the energy in the universe changes in some way. I don't claim that everything changes in every way, but everything changes in some way." (18.29-30)
Travis objects that change is an idea, not a God, and Lauren says this criticism isn't so bad. Usually we associate religion with a deity, but in Parable of the Sower, that isn't exactly what's going on. Lauren says it's okay for God to be just an idea. In real life, too, there are some instances where religious believers do not have a deity in mind. Consider Gandhi, for example, who in The Story of My Experiments with Truth sees God and Truth as the same thing. Or maybe people are just quibbling with Lauren: what the definition of a religion (or a deity) in the first place? Hint: there's no hard-and-fast answer to that question. As they say, there are as many religions as there are people.