Parable Of The Sower Essay

They also believe that her case of hyperempathy makes her weak. Opponents believe that Lauren’s condition is made up because of the way her family handles her issue. She was often mocked by her brothers and told to shake it off and forget about it (Butler 11). They assume that her condition can be reversed because of her father’s strong Christian beliefs. Reverend Olamina’s strong faith in God forced him to believe that all things are possible and when he would find Lauren struggling to cope with her issue he would often tell her that she could “beat this thing” (Butler 11). Opponents also believe that her hyperempathy significantly impairs her and many describe it as “a kind of sickness, a weakness rather than a strength” (DeYoung). On page 11, Lauren described how hard riding a bike was for her, “But it was hard, today, to keep peddling and keep up with the others when just about everyone I saw made me feel worse and worse” (Butler). Simple tasks were sometimes hard for Lauren depending on the dangers that could have

The last literary device Eugenia Collier exercises to deepen her sensation  of despair and disgrace is diction. Collier influences her words to carve her emotions into the reader, one can sense the feelings of puzzlement and the irascibleness it evokes. For instance, in this quote the reader can grasp Eugenia’s voice through her use of eloquent words “ I indeed lost my mind, for all the smoldering emotions of that summer swelled in me and burst - the great need for my mother who was never there, the hopelessness of our poverty and degradation, the bewilderment of being neither child nor woman and yet both at once, the fear unleashed by my father’s tears. And theses feelings combined in one great impulse toward destruction.” This quotes reveals the emotions the author choice to seal

Lauren views the people of Robledo, as deflective and isolative thinkers. They refuse to adapt to the environment around them and instead wish to dream about the good old days. Lauren views this neglectful behavior, as a coping mechanism. Eventually, it leads to the community’s untimely demise. In her writings, of Earthseed, Lauren postulates “People tend to give in to fear and depression, to need and greed. When no influence is strong enough to unify people they divide. They struggle” (91). During times of instability, the “influence” that once brought people together is long forgotten, people only look out for themselves. This stimulates the division of like people and as a result, the community struggles. Lauren sees the world around her when she occasionally goes outside of her town. Here she sees death, destruction and a despondent population. She wishes that people would view the pain of others, as she has felt through her hyperempathy condition. She examines every person around her to make sense of her thoughts and values and to find her place in the world. Therefore, she explains that humans show detrimental actions, during times of

Relegated to an underemployed underserved neighborhood by a combination of government policy and inaction, Lauren’s community is required to find a way to be self-sustainable despite lacking wealth and resources. Instead of submitting themselves to the abject poverty, they conceive of new ways to flourish given the few resources they do have, and with the guidance of religion to keep morale up. However, unlike in wealthy gated communities, Lauren’s primary objective is continued survival and perseverance. In her survival planning, she tells Joanne that they need to have a plan to “‘survive and rebuild’” (Butler, 55) so as to not end up impoverished on the streets of the world outside. Despite feeling unsafe and uneasy in their privatopia, she still seeks to recreate a similar community if she was to, as she says,“survive and rebuild” (Butler, 55). She cannot imagine an alternative to that type of living, merely aspiring to have a better, more sustainable version of her walled community. The wall separates Lauren and her psyche from the “pitiful, unwalled residential areas” (Butler, 10) not only physically but also cognitively. Her walled community does not encourage her to feel the pain of those on the outside as she would when empathizing with the members of her own community. It is easier to view the outside as other when physically separated by a wall; they are no longer

Nevertheless, Lauren is also an admirable brave character who recognizes there is a problem and fearlessly decides to address it. Lauren confidently decides to share her ideas to her friend Joanne after she drew conclusions from her father’s books. Wishing to help the community Lauren risked a negative reaction from Joanne and disapproval of her father. Lauren bravely tries to explain and convince Joanne that they must take action she says, “We can stop denying reality or hoping it will go away by magic.” (Butler pg. 58) She shows her frustration on the dismay of the community that ignores and denies the problems present. Lauren understands that thief’s will continue to take away their resources and in the process, kill those who get in the way. Lauren strongly wishes that her community would take upon themselves to help each other she states, “Nothing is going to save us. If we don’t save ourselves, we’re dead.” (Butler pg.

In the short story “From Behind the Veil,” written by Dhu’l Nun Ayyoub, the author changes how we feel about the main character throughout the sequencing of the plot. We as the readers learn more about how the protagonist really thinks coupled with what her motives are. The author also presents language that clearly expresses how the protagonist feels and uses examples to show an overall theme in the story.

Los Angeles possesses the characteristics of great fame and fortune as well as immense homelessness and poverty. Often times, young people are misled by the financial success of some and assume that is typical of city people. Writers Joan Didion and Carol Muske-Dukes characterize the realization that an adolescent’s lifestyle is not suitable for the demands of a city as signaling the dawn of the apocalypse. In the essay, “Slouching Towards Bethlehem,” Didion highlights how the failure of society is brought about by a family’s inability to fulfill traditional roles and a lack of education as exemplified during the Hippie movement. While poet Muske-Dukes utilizes gothic language and allusion to illustrate the notion of an apocalypse in the poem “Like This”.

In the novel Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler paints a picture of a dystopia in the United States in which the current societal problems are overly exaggerated into the worst-case scenario. Butler describes a world plagued with high unemployment rates, violence, homelessness, a flawed police system, and a crumbling education system. Butler focuses the story on the poor and the homeless by only giving characters with this background a voice in order to show the reader that society’s views and stereotypes of these groups are flawed. Butler shows the lack of attention they receive and over exaggerates the problem in order to show the extreme consequences if it is not properly addressed.

When the readers meet the young, subordinated wife of a physician, who remains nameless throughout the entire story, perhaps hinting at the commonness of such situations where all those women are the same: faceless and nameless, this woman’s dilemma becomes obvious. She has been stripped off the only function a woman in those times had, the domestic one, due to the fact that she suffers from a mysterious illness which requires the infamous bed cure. Gradually, she is treated more and more as a child, unable and even forbidden to express herself in a creative way, namely to write, being persuaded that it cannot do any good to someone in her condition. This is why the protagonist (who is simultaneously the narrator), takes it upon herself to write a journal about her experiences and the mysterious woman that haunts her from the

In Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Joan Didion writes many short stories in which she describes California in the 1960s, focusing on the subculture of a group referred to as “hippies”, who were characterizing a new way to live- in peace and harmony. John Stuart Mill argues that different experiences in living are beneficial to society, even the Hippie Movement of the 60s, because social experiments benefit societal progress. Didion’s condemnation of this social movement is illogical. The Hippie Movement shed light on the importance of acceptance and openness in sexual matters, religion, race, cultural diversity and emphasized the need for every individual to “find oneself” while focusing on achieving peace in society and opposing the government

Individualism plays a key role in this story and shows how being an individualistic society can be the downfall to the strongest country in the world. This essay will discuss the struggle of man versus man, man versus nature, and the author's intent in Parable of the Sower. Butler talks about many aspects of life and the struggle to survive, and this essay will explore three main ideas that occurred in this book.

The Parable of the Sower, written by Octavia Butler, is considered a science fiction novel, classified as dystopian. This novel depicts a post-apocalyptic world where the United States has fallen into tremendous poverty. Crime, such as murder, rape, and theft, run rampant to the point where no one is considered safe. The society in this novel is completely destroyed. The foundation has crumbled socially, politically, and economically. The citizens are left to fend for themselves in, what is now, a ruthless nation with just a hint of civilized communities. Our sensible and above all, brave protagonist, Lauren Olamina, is the heart of the story. She is one of the few characters who can be identified through several viewpoints. Lauren’s persona, beliefs, as well as her actions allow her to be classified through four different lenses such as classism, deism, fundamentalism, and, more accurately, humanism.

Kenton reflected in his reaction to Mrs. Kenton reaching for the book, “twisting [his] neck away at somewhat unnatural angle” (Ishiguro 167). Stevens causes himself physical strain to avoid the intimacy Mrs. Kenton projects towards him. Stevens’ reaction, concludes that he doesn’t handle intimacy in a natural way, in fact, it causes him some actual embarrassment. Stevens’ use of the word “still” (Ishiguro 167) to describe the atmosphere around him and Kenton connotes romance. This romantic connotation coincides with the idea that Stevens desires intimacy; he just can’t justify to his ideology. Therefore, Stevens’ reads these romance novels to deal with the feelings he dismisses to keep up the standard his ideology requires. Stevens betrays his ideology by allowing himself to appear off duty in the presence of Mrs. Kenton. This betrayal along with the intimacy causes his embarrassment. Ironically, Stevens rejection of Mrs. Kenton reflects his desire for intimacy through his refusal to give the book to her. He doesn’t want her to see the types of books he reads because the romance genre carries a connotation of intimacy. Therefore, Stevens doesn’t reject Mrs. Kenton out of want; he rejects her out of necessity to keep in line with his ideology. Stevens’ rejection furthers the belief that there’s no distinction between Stevens the human and Stevens the butler; his ideology of the dignified butler won’t allow

It is through the physical pain that the reader understands the emotional strain and turmoil of the protagonist’s plight. The juxtaposition of survival and living are never more evident here. Her children are kidnapped; killed or sold. She has a body still recovering from the birth of a child, and she is forced to take her mother’s place, as a victim of domestic violence and sexual assault. Walker cleverly crafts this sense of desperation with Celie’s soul baring letters to god, the reader realizes she is has no one else to turn to; her writing only re-enforces her father's control over her. Her persevering spirit is what makes her survival so unique in the sense that she does not become embittered through any of it. “I look at woman, tho, cause I am not scared of them.” Telling god that she has not been traumatized at all by her mother’s passing, in fact, she goes further on “Mabey cause my mamma cuss me you think I kept mad at her. But I ain’t I feel sorry for her. (Walker, 5)” This for the reader is the most heart-breaking stance that she takes, as the reader is aware of the fact that her mother hated Celie’s guts with writing agony because her husband choose to rape her when she could not have sex with him. The reader singularly carries this sense of desperation for the protagonist as she continues to power through the intensity that surrounds her.

In his The Painted Veil, W. Somerset Maugham tells a complex story that addresses sex, infidelity, marriage, personal growth, and life lessons. The tale being introduced in this literary work focuses on the primary female character, Kitty Garstin, and her husband, Walter Fane. The central focus of the story is the marriage between Garstin and Fane and how the two characters act and display their feelings towards each other. From the very beginning, it is transparent that the distribution of love and affection in the marriage in not mutual at all. Fane is completely love struck at the beauty of Kitty; she, on the other hand, feels a heavy feeling of hatred and contempt towards him. While his feelings towards her are common knowledge, her feelings toward her husband are concealed, or so she thinks. Kitty’s immaturity towards her marriage, her husband’s happiness, and her lover’s true motives land her in a situation that she finds quite horrid. However, throughout the duration of the story, Kitty begins to develop in both her “self” and her “non-self”. When faced with the aspect of certain death and despair in the cholera stricken Mei-tan-fu, the character of Kitty Garstin Fane grows in an exponential rate. She finally begins to understand the wrongs of her previous actions, the wrongs of her previous mental state, and the wrongs of her previous life as a whole. While she still cannot stand even the slightest thought of her husband, she is, arguably, a completely