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Citation Practice

Octavia Butler was shy as a child.

Bloodchild

Summary

Bloodchild is about these alien-like creatures who are living among humans and somewhat have their own community.  They are one big family. We see the mother, her sisters, brother and of course the main character, Gan.  We see this character that really sticks out and she goes by the name of "T" Gatoi, which is really closed with the family. She's best friends with the main character's mother.  She's described of having four limbs,  a tail and she can sting others which got me really confused at first. Gan (The Main Character) kept talking about her four limbs. A the beginning of the story it is told that they are having eggs I'm guessing for breakfast but later in the story the outcome is very different.  The main character is somewhat confused at some points and I feel like he's going with flow, like he's being pushed around. We come across with other charters in the story like Lomas which is a human,  which had a rough time.  Gan's father had long past and the mother still alive but she seemed a bit weak, worned out.  Gan kept talking about her physical state, her face, her gray-white hair. He also mention about his brother and how they never got along and her sister somewhat there.

Quotes

• "But tomorrow, she would remember all this as a humiliation".
• "I did not want to be part of a remembered humiliation".
• "Leave it for the family. One of them might use it to save my life someday."

The Evening and the Morning and the Night

Summary

In the short story "The evening and the Morning and the Night" by Octavia E. Butler, takes place in a setting where People are born with  or get it DGD (Duryea-Gode Disease), a disease which a person self-mutilation and self-harm. Lynn the main character, was born with DGD and both of her parents have the disease. Lynn tried to commit suicide but failed.  Later her father went on a rampage killing her mother and later killing himself.  She went to college, she got a Dilg Scholarship. She majored in biology and she had to wear this type of special badge/emblem for her own safety. She then later rented a house with  of couple of her friends. She made friends with Alan Chi which later on they both decide to get married. Lynn starts talking about her parents and Alan too starts to talk  about her mother. They instantly connect. Alan wants to visit his mother, his mother is located in Dilg. So they both decided to go.

Quotes

• “The day I realize I’ve started to drift. Thank God we get some warning.”
• “More like us to wind up chewing their fingers off in some DGD ward.”
• “I can’t say how I’ll act when we get there,” I said.

Speech Sounds

Summary

Rye living in Los Angeles wants to visit her brother and her family. So she took the bus to get there but there was a fight and she was forced to get off and she had to walk. It was a very long walk to her family's house. She gets a ride from Obsidian because it will be dangerous for her to walk alone. Along the way they see a women running away from a man, he had a knife out and was trying to stab her. The Assailant kills Obsidian and then rye then kills the attacker. Two young children were with the women and rye went to them. She finally spoke telling them her name. She tells them that its going to be alright.

Quotes

• “I’m Valerie Rye,” she said.
• “It’s all right for you to talk to me.”
• “It’s all right,” she told them. “You’re going with us, too. Come on.”

Butler's Biography

Octavia E. Butler was born on June 22, 1947, in California. She had no siblings, she was the only child. Her mother worked as a housemaid and her father as a shoeshine man. Her father later died when she was seven. Octavia Butler was shy as a child. Her mother would collect books, magazine so Butler would read them. She had this love for science-fiction at a young age. So she told her mom to buy her a typewriter which she can start to write her stories. She was so determined at a young age. Her aunt told her that colored can't be writer's. But this didn't stop here. She end up graduating from her high school. She work at the mornings and went to school at night. She won her first writing contest earning her 15 dollars. Later on she graduated from PCC earning her associates in arts & degree. But her mother wanted her to have a well payed salary, a steady income. She kept going no matter what. For the next years to come in her life, she had published many books, won many awards and rose to fame becoming a very powerful figure in literature. Unfortunately at the age of 58, she had suffered from a stroke leading to her unfortunate death. To this day many don't know how she died but many claim that head trauma was the leading cause of her death. But after her death, a scholarship named after her was established by the Carol Brandon society to help students of color to attend writers workshop.

Amnesty

Summary

The short story "Amnesty" by Octavia E. Butler, is about a woman named Noah who had been abducted by aliens and she was tortured and testing by the aliens. She then returns to Earth not knowing that she will also get tortured by the humans and that humans were going to treat her worse than the Aliens. Although all of her struggles she manages to overcome this ordeal , she can speak the aliens language, she's in charge of the work and she can recruit humans to work for the aliens. She's very unique, she can speak their language and she knows about their customs, culture, and how they live.

Quotes

• "I was held here in the Mojave Bubble from my eleventh year through my twenty·third," she began.
• "I gave up. I decided that they were never going to stop, that they would eventually kill me anyway, and until they did, I would never know any peace."
• "I gave up," she repeated. "I don't know how long I'd been there when that happened.

The Book of Martha

Summary

Martha is a black female, living on her own. She has this encounter with god, she's face to face with god. And god offers her a job but a job to save humanity. She doesn't say anything at that same moment but she seems a bit confused. Martha couldn't believed that she was actual talking with god.

Quotes

• "If you don't help them, they will be destroyed."
• "You're going to destroy them •.. again?" she whispered.
• "How could you not know? I was born poor, black,

Further Reading

"The Evening and the Morning and the Night"

Hammer, Everett. "Determined Agency: A Postsecular Proposal for Religion and Literature-and Science." Religion and Literature 41.3 (2009): 91-98. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25746546

"Amnesty"

Curtis, Claire P. “Theorizing Fear: Octavia Butler and the Realist Utopia”. Utopian Studies 19.3 (2008): 411–431. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20719919

Foster, Thomas. "'We Get to Live, and So Do They': Octavia Butler's Contact Zones." Strange Matings: Science Fiction, Feminism, African American Voices, and Octavia E. Butler. Ed. Rebecca J. Holden and Nisi Shawl. Seattle, WA: Aqueduct, 2013. 140-167. ISBN: 978-1-61976-037-0

Quote

"We Ina don't handle loss as well as most humans do. It's a much rarer thing with us, and when it happens, the grief is ...almost unbearable."

Butler, Fledgling, 265.

Theorizing Fear: Octavia Butler and the Realist Utopia

Summary

The article talks about realist Utopian politics. Noah was taken captivity by the aliens at age eleven. She then gets released back into society but she has this fear, the fear of having to face the humans. She doesn't know what will their response be like. After the humans heard about the incident, Noah gets tortured by her own government. The article also mentions that Noah doesn't fear the aliens but fears the humans potential of harming others. When the aliens first tortured Noah, the aliens did not know much but the humans were very aware of the situation. Only 30 humans can communicate with the alien and Noah is one of them. She doesn't fear the alien communities. She is later in charge of the communities and she starts to recruit humans to work. She wants a better tomorrow for the humans but she will never forget what the humans did to her. She wants to have the Sucreity for herself and for the others. She wants the aliens and the humans to get along with each other. She doesn't want to live a life with fear, the fact that humans are capable of causing destruction.

Quotes

• "She fears the willingness of humans to inflict pain on other humans while knowing full well what they are doing".
• "Noah is seeking security for herself, for other humans, and for the Communities".
• "Noah feels fear and, yet, manages to work through and often works despite the fear that they feel".

OCTAVIA BUTLER'S "AMNESTY" (2003):

Race, Aliens, and the U.S. Government in African American Science Fiction

Summary

This source talks about the U.S. government involvement and Noah is captured. All these incidents are related to one another. The U.S. is going against their own people, after Noah's release she prosecuted by the humans and she was basically left alone. It's hard for someone to forget this incident especially by your own kind.

Quotes

• In order to be able to interact better with humans, the Communities tried to diminish their otherness by adopting some human behavior.
• The U.S. Government, in contrast, takes its helplessness and disorientation out on its own people and by its inhuman interrogation methods seems to go even a step further than the aliens by treating its own species unethically.
• In contrast to the Communities' attempts of coexistence with otherness presented by human beings, most humans are suspicious of the Communities and many encounter them with hostility.