Octavia Butler's Dawn Analysis

1 I have been studying the traits and dispositions of the lower animals (so-called), and contrasting them with the traits and dispositions of man. I find the result humiliating to me. For it obliges me to renounce my allegiance to the Darwinian theory of the Ascent of Man from the Lower Animals, since it now seems plain to me that that theory ought to be vacated in favor of a new and truer one, this new and truer one to be named the Descent of Man from the Higher

Queen, by Audrey Flack is a very captivating piece of artwork. It was painted in 1976, originally Audrey Flack took a picture and then used it as the basis for this painting. Queen is a painting of box that is full of special mementos. It has features such as a quarter of an open orange, a rose, a pocket watch, a queen playing card, a locket of an older and a younger woman, lip balm, perfume, a chess piece, blush, and a chain necklace with the letter “F” on it. The painting almost looks like a vanity drawer or a keepsake drawer. However, realizing the fruits and flower in the painting I understood it to be a collection of the artist's memories as opposed to a drawer. Audrey Flack was demonstrating the many things that were significant to her while aging. Queen signifies the fight against time. It shows that no matter what possessions you retain it will not keep you young. No one can win the battle against time.

Spanish colonialism stripped away the land and practices of California Indigenous peoples, but their strength and perseverance prevailed. In order to survive the genocide of their peoples, California Indians had to adapt and learn to survive through various forms. Storytelling and violence, while very different practices, intersect when it comes to California Indians finding a way to survive. According to Deborah Miranda, California Indians have adopted storytelling to keep their violence and suffering remembered and acknowledged; through the use of second person point of view, rhetorical questions, and symbolism, Miranda demonstrates that despite the fact that such tragedies occurred long ago, they still have a recurrent effect on the

In Kindred, by Olivia Butler a main character name Dana traveled back in time where she battled the face of inequalities. Danas journey back to the past is to help the readers understand what African-Americans had to experience and what they had to go through as a slave to be a free person. There was a lack of human rights for blacks, blacks were vulnerability with sexual assault and rape. Dana had dealt with her own experiences has being a slave with discrimination from Rufus, rape, racism, and abuse. She had self taught herself about slavery which gave her knowledge to prepare herself for what she had coming.

The three stories question what it means to be human by presenting different perspectives on how humanity deals with certain topics and also what may be flawed with some of the choices they make in each story.

“I used to worry that computers would become so powerful and sophisticated as to take the place of the human minds,” expresses Lewis Thomas, the author of “The Corner of the Eye” [Thomas, 83]. A large part of Thomas’s fear of computers is due to the fact that “a large enough machine can do all sorts of intelligent things beyond our capacities” [Thomas, 83]. However, computers cannot replace us; he realizes computers cannot do some of the things that we can do, like being human. We like to be equivocal, imaginative, and self-conscious. Computers are the complete opposite of the traits that define us as human; or as Thomas states it, “they are not designed, as we are, for ambiguity” [Thomas, 83]. As witnessed by history, the present, and soon the future, it would be self-evident truth that computers will not take over us or be “us”.

Octavia Butler’s Dawn explores a world of the unknown after humans nearly destroy their kind along with Earth, causing an extraterrestrial species to intervene. The protagonist, Lilith, finds herself in a predicament as she is captured and locked in solidarity for a long. The extraterrestrial species that intervenes, Oankali, strip her of her clothes, mysteriously cut her and then tell her it is her role to mother a group of humans and prepare them for a return to Earth. In the novel Lilith is conflicted, she knows she has no control of her body and that humans have been “enslaved” by the Oankali but begins to trust and connect with them, especially Nikanj. Through the relationship of Lilith and Nikanj side by side with Humans and the Oankali, Octavia Butler explores the monstrous aspects of people and acts within the cultures.

Yuval Noah Harari’s, “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind”, give us a highly detailed description of the history of Homo Sapiens and how they came to take an evolutionary leap at a rate faster than any other living creature on Earth. At the forefront of Sapiens, is Harari’s idea about what made Homo Sapiens become so unimportant to rising up and becoming the most successful species on the planet. Throughout my analysis, I will bring up concepts and idea that Harari brings up throughout the novel.

Should Octavia E. Butler’s “Bloodchild” be classified as a slave story? The author claims that “Bloodchild” is not a tale of slavery, but rather a love story and a coming-of-age tale. Does “Bloochild” conform to the conventions of the slave stories, love stories, or coming-of-age tales with which you are familiar? What other classifications—in terms of literary genre, form, or mode—apply to “Bloodchild”?

Sooner than imagined, bio/technologists might find revealing patterns of gene clusters which clearly identify: (1) the Euro/Viking; (2) Mediterranean Man/Woman; (3) Euro/Asian Hybrid; (4) Purer Mongol; (5) Hybrid/Asian; (6) Afro/Black; (7) Euro/Black; (8) Iberian; (9) Hispanic/Indian; (10) Afro/Hispanic; (11) Native Amerindian; and (12) the Aborigine. Eugenically, over the span of thousands of years these subspecies of Humankind have been tailored to live-and-love via their particular behavioral patterns, such as: (a) cultural, community, and family lifestyles; (b) choices of religious media; (c) potential effectiveness, or likely less-effectiveness, or totally ineptitude, in dealing with the socio/political demands of democratic living; (d) gradations of formal, educational proficiencies; (e) success levels operating in a free-market milieu; (f) metabolic and immunity, disease propensities; (g) crime rates; and (h) the tendency to resist (or welcome) the learning (or use) of the most effective language ever devised by Mankind, i.e. English. Accordingly, within this complex socio/anthropology of a single species, i.e. the Homo Sapien, the 19th century political stage has been set for the

The book Obsidian by Jennifer L. Armentrout is based around the life of a young female named Katy who just moved to a small desolate town near West Virginia. The story begins with Katy's mom encouraging her to speak to the twins living next door. Daemon has a mysterious and arrogant vibe to him, and Dee (his sister) instantly hits it off with the protagonist. A friendship was forged on many levels between the three characters. For example, Daemon is very against Dee and Katy being friends due to their differences, he states "You don't need to be friends with someone...someone like her." although there is a void between Daemon and Katy the chemistry between them is undeniable even though their personalities seem to be incompatible. Strange

In the trilogy, Adulthood Rites, Octavia Butler define the “Human Contradiction” as intelligence and hierarchical behavior. In other words, humans are an intelligent species, but they vitalize social status as a determining factor in their society which has led to arguments, war, and ultimately the destruction of their world. During Butler’s interview at UCLA in 2002, she talks about how technologically advance our society has gotten especially in the weaponry used for war. Humans have developed the tools of destruction to show superiority but, in the novel, Butler demonstrates how those tools not only wiped out their enemies but the entire human species. In Adulthood Rites and Octavia’s interview, Butler demonstrates how social status has created an unjust division between neighboring societies whom have conformed to the superior and inferior binary of power. Octavia Butler also predicts that, if nothing is done to help minimize the level of influence of social division, this separation of power among humans could result in irreversible damages.

"My last night of childhood began with a visit home (Butler, 1995, p. 1).” In her short story Bloodchild, Octavia Butler presents the story of a boy named Gan raised in a dystopian society where two different species depend on each other to survive. From a psychological point of view, childhood is a process that marks a big part of your life. In Freud's subconscious theory, different events can be compared with the growth of Gan: the human mind structured as an iceberg, the memories of Gan and the last day of his childhood.

Alice Walker was born on February 9, 1944, in Eatonton, Georgia. She had a job as a social worker, teacher, lecturer and she also wrote: “Elethia” which was written on 1981 which means she wrote “Elethia” when she was about 37 year of age. The story Elethia is about the afterlife of Uncle Albert from her view. “Elethia” is a pleasant young girl who works at a restaurant which was owned by the man that had an ancestor who was slave owners of a big plantation in a town. At this restaurant slavery still existed in some ways even after the law was passed, which the commandment ended the slavery, but it still existed in lots of our communities. However, the scatter of slavery was still in the community because of the presence of slave owners who has experience slavery in different ways. The slavery was so essential for them that Uncle Albert was stuffed as a worker and has been made the attraction for the people in the community to view in the restaurant. Even though the restaurant was named after him, the racism and slavery have still been an unchanging fact for American word.

The idea that one day consciousness may spread throughout the universe has been considered seriously by physicists. Sir Martin Rees, the Royal Astronomer of Great Britain, has written, “Wormholes, extra dimensions, and quantum computers open up speculative scenarios that could transform our entire universe eventually into a ‘living cosmos’!” But will the mind one day be freed of its material body to explore the entire universe? This was the theme explored in Isaac Asimov’s classic science-fiction tale “The Last Question.” (He would fondly recall that this was his favorite science-fiction short story of all the ones he had written.) In it, billions of years into the future, humans will have placed their physical bodies in pods on an obscure planet, freeing their minds to control pure energy throughout the galaxy. Instead of surrogates made of steel and silicon, these surrogates are pure energy beings that can effortlessly roam the distant reaches of space, past exploding stars, colliding galaxies, and other wonders of the universe. But no matter how powerful humanity has become, it is helpless as it witnesses the ultimate death of the universe itself in the Big Freeze. In desperation, humanity constructs a supercomputer to answer the final question: Can the death of the universe be reversed? The computer is so large and complex that it has to be placed in hyperspace. But the computer simply responds that there is insufficient information to give an answer.