Aggresive Apathy

"It took a plague to make some of the people realize
that things could change” (57).
Octavia Butler's The Parable of the Sower (1993)

Points for Reflection

O. Butler's the Parable of the Sower (1993), pp. 3-166

1. What role do Lauren’s dreams play in her self-conception?
2. Does her brother Keith share Lauren’s perspective on religion?
3. Which conceptions of God does Lauren mull over and discard?
4. Why does Lauren have such difficulty expelling Mrs. Sims’s fate from her mind?
5. Does Lauren’s conception of God grant God personhood?
6. To what degree can humans guide and direct “change”?  Does Lauren consider it inexorable?
7. By “change,” does Lauren merely mean evolution?
8. Why does Lauren place the word “Earth” before “seed” when forming her belief system?
9. Does Lauren believe she is discovering, or creating, her belief system?
10. What does Lauren identify as “the only paradox, or bit of illogic or circular reasoning” (78) in her belief system?
11. Why might Lauren adopt mutability, or “change,” as the key feature of her worldview?  Does her attitude towards this concept echo either that of Percy Bysshe Shelley, or of the woman from Sealand in John Wyndham’s The Chrysalids? [Ainsley M]
12. Why call “change” a god--the God-- instead of merely a guiding principle?
13. What role does Lauren believe that intellect should play in the power struggles involved with change?
14. Does Lauren envision a path through chaos led by fellow collaborators working in tandem, or by a single leader?
15. Lauren considers her father the best person she knows, but believes he has blind spots.  Does the evidence back up Lauren’s nuanced perspective?
16. Does Cory share her husband’s faith?
17. Do the social and structural troubles that beset Lauren’s world in the year 2024 appear extraordinary, or quite familiar?  Consider such issues as disease, drugs, education, food distribution, fuel, guns, law enforcement, marriage, racism, technology, transportation, violence, water purity, and the weather.
18. What benefits does Lauren locate in the Black Plague’s impact on Europe?
19. At what points does Lauren reference, The Bible, and to what purpose?
20. Lauren calls her hyperempathy “delusional” (11).  Is this an accurate assessment of her strange ability?
21. Why do Lauren and her family not speak openly about her hyperempathy?
22. Can Lauren make herself shoot animals?
23. Is Lauren’s father as short-sighted as she believes?
24. What woman serves Lauren as a strong and determined role model?
25. Why does Lauren “care about [Curtis] more than she wants to” (13)?  Why might she wish she cared less?
26. How complete is the rupture that emerges between Lauren and her best friend?
27. What is Lauren’s opinion about space travel?
28. What makes fires so frequent?
29. Why does Lauren keep a journal?
30. Does Lauren’s having grown up in a small, interdependent neighborhood lead her to highly value community?
31. Is Mr. Olamina’s and Mrs. Olamina’s marriage a strong one?
32. What motivational principles drive Keith’s behavior?
33. Why does Lauren not want Christopher Donner to become the U. S. president?
34. Lauren learns the constellations from an astronomy book owned by her father’s mother (5).  Is she as avid a reader as her grandmother?
35. What is Lauren’s slowly developed plan for survival, and how does it tie to her Earthseed belief system?

Sower at Sunset (1888)
Vincent Van Gogh

Dr. Paul Marchbanks
pmarchba@calpoly.edu