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Citation Practice

Octavia Butler was shy as a child.

Bloodchild Summary

"Bloodchild" takes place on an alien planet which is inhabited by an alien species called Tlic. The Tlic lay eggs and when they hatch, they release their poison into the human body and eat their egg casings but consume the host. When the Terrans or "humans" arrive, they treat them as animals in cages and only fed them toxic Tlic eggs. T'Gatoi is a government official that seeks a family and becomes close and comfortable with them. She was promised Gan, the younger son of the family, to be the carrier for her eggs. The Tlic would only use the humans to hold their eggs and nothing else. "We were necessities" (pg5). At first, Gan does not question why he is the carrier but he is happy to do it for T'Gatoi. But Gan soon finds out that the process is disgusting and he rethinks being the carrier for T'Gatoi. He hears from someone that had witnessed the process saying that one time a Tlic allowed the larvae to completely consume the human host because the Tlic had nowhere else to put the remains. " You're just her property" (pg18). This meant that Gan would never be himself or do anything he wants because T'Gatoi would always be in control. When Gan comes back with the animal that they instructed him to get, he watches for himself as the Tlic remove the eggs from someone's body and plant them on the inside of the animal. Gan questions himself and thinks whether he should have second guessed about being the carrier. But Gan finally decides that he should save his family rather then be a carrier.

Quotes

• "We were necessities" pg5
• "You're just her property" pg18
• " I was first caged within T'Gatoi's many limbs only three minutesafter my birth. I tell Terrans that hen they ask whether I was ever afraid of her" pg8

The Evening and the Morning and the Night

Summary

Octavia Butler creates this world where a disease known as Duryea-Gode disease, or DGD is destroying people's lives. Around the time people were middle aged, the disease would come into effect and they would brutally mutilate themselves until they died. Lynn, a fifteen year old girl, has this disease because it was passed down from her parents. She wanted to eat whatever she wanted but people that have DGD don't really have options. Lynn realized that people that didn't have the disease didn't want to be around them. She also discovers that she has a special pheromone that she got from her parents that allows people with DGD feel drawn to her and are compelled to do whatever she wants. Lynn starts this relationship with a guy named Alan, but feels as if it is dangerous and unhealthy to be in a relationship while she has this gift.

Quotes

• “They wanted me to see, they said, where I was headed if I wasn’t careful. In fact, it was where I was headed no matter what. It was only a matter of when; now or later” pg 35
• “I was convinced that somehow if I turned, I would see myself standing there, gray and old, growing small in the distance, vanishing” pg 68
• “People who don’t eat in public, who drink nothing more interesting than water, who smoke nothing at all-people like that are suspicious…I wore my emblem. And one way or another, people got a look at it or got the word from someone who had. ‘She is!’ Yeah” pg 38-39

Speech Sounds

Summary

There has been a mysterious disease that leaves a community unable to communicate. The only way that people can communicate is by gestures or sign language. In the story, woman named Rye is trying to find her remaining family members. She meets a man named Obsidian who offers her a ride because she would've ended up walking to her destination. Rye has a feeling inside of her that wants to not trust him and kill him. She tells him that she is able to talk and they become intimate with each other. When they are on the road, they see someone get chased by a man with a knife. While helping, the man grabs Obsidian's gun and shoots him in the head. After she kills the man she sees two children go to the dead woman's body. As Rye goes to the dead woman, the girl speaks in English and says "No". This is the first time she hears English from someone in a long time. She thinks about leaving them but ends up adopting them because she thinks it is the right thing to do.

Quotes

• "His use of the left hand interested Rye more than his obvious question. Left-handed people tended to be less impaired, more reasonable and comprehending, less driven by frustration, confusion, and anger."
• "He could probably write, too. Abruptly, she hated him-deep, bitter hatred. What did literacy mean to him-a grown man who played cops and robbers? But he was literate and she was not. She never would be. She felt sick to her stomach with hatred, frustration, and jealousy. And only a few inches from her hand was a loaded gun."
• "Rye glanced at the dead murderer. To her shame, she thought she could understand some of the passions that must have driven him, who-ever he was. Anger, frustration, hopelessness, insane jealousy...how many more of him were there-people willing to destroy what they could not have?"

Amnesty

Summary

In "Amnesty", Noah Cannon is the survivor of an alien abduction. She survived captivity since she was eleven years old. Not only did that happen but she now works for her captors as a Translator. The alien invaders are called The Communities. They are entities that are made up of hundreds or probably millions of separate creatures living together as a colony. They travel in ball shapes, each with their own little hive of minds working together. Noah discusses the experiences she had with both the Communities and the humans. While she was being treated as an experiment, Noah said that she never once faced as much cruelty with the Communities as she did with her own government. Noah became one of thirty people to be part of the enfolding process with the communities which enforces her bond with them. The reason for that is her ability to communicate with both species helps create a more unified environment between the two species.

Quotes

• "...They knew what they were doing to me, and yet it never occurred to them not to do it."
• "No payback. Just what I said earlier. Jobs. We get to live and so do they. I don't need payback."
• "The only solution to the new situation in which humans find themselves is self-determined interaction for mutual benefit and adaptation to the new circumstances."

Changing Bodies in the Fiction of Octavia Butler

Summary

Hampton represents a new era in Butler criticism as the volume is the first peer-reviewed book devoted solely to the critical discussion and investigation of Butler’s fiction. Combining sophisticated analysis with particular attention to issues of race, class, and gender, Hampton examines the needling questions of biblical authority, science fiction in biblical narratives, and the liberating aspects of the science-fiction genre, most notably as it relates to Butler’s African American female protagonists. Hampton’s work reshapes and redefines the questions, concerns, and scholarship that determine how Butler functions in the genre of science fiction and suggests that Butler appropriates science fiction to discuss the question, “What can science fiction learn from critical race theory and the African American woman’s experience, and vice versa?” The power of his analysis is that he offers a combination of grounded, well-articulated critical theory alongside a careful, attentive reading of texts—an important combination to further elevate current Butler discourse. In Changing Bodies Hampton’s keen insight and fresh perspectives on the subject matter, which has been featured in articles and reviews but not in a full-length critical study, allows his work to succeed in bringing together different theoretical frameworks (such as critical race theory, biblical hermeneutics, Womanism) to isolate and interrogate a specific corpus of African American female science fiction. In this regard, Hampton’s work stands as a high-water mark in the integration of critical race theory into mainstream science fiction.