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Octavia E. Butler

Biography

Born on June 22, 1947 in Pasadena, California, during a time of extreme racial segregation, Octavia Estelle Butler was exposed quickly to the hardships that her mother endured while working for a white family as a house maid. Because Butler’s mother wanted the very best for her child, she dealt with the terrible ways her white employers treated her. Butler’s father had passed away when she was just seven, leaving Butler’s mother and maternal grandmother to raise her. This upbringing stood with Butler as she grew older and could express her feelings, and thoughts through her work as a writer.

Butler got her first break when she attended the Clarion Science Fiction Writers Workshop and sold two of her stories. By 1978 she was able to make a living solely on her writing, overcoming the stigma of the SF genre, which was predominantly written by white men. She furthered her success and solidified her presence in the SF community when she won honorable awards. Among these awards were the MacArthur Fellowship, which on its own is of great merit, however, she broke many barriers because she was the first SF writer to win this “Genius Grant.”

It’s because of Butler’s ability to create stories that highlight important, real issues such as racism, and most importantly how cruel people treat one another overall given the opportunity to, that Butler made such an impact through her work. A reoccurring theme of strong, African American, and usually marginalized female protagonists in her stories helped her deliver these messages subtly, yet loudly. Butler passed on February 24, 2006 and is still considered to be one of the best-known women in SF today.

“Theorizing Fear: Octavia Butler and the Realist Utopia”

Summary

In “Theorizing Fear: Octavia Butler and the Realist Utopia” Claire Curtis writes about how Octavia Butler uses the element of fear. Some people believe that if someone fears you, then you have a power over them. Curtis suggests that Octavia Butler uses that element of fear, in her science-fiction novels, in a non-violent or threatening way to get her message across to her readers. Curtis shows examples of Butler is able to do this through her short stories "Amnesty" and "The Book of Martha." In other words, fear can be used in a positive way to send the message to readers. In this paper, Curtis believes that the message that Butler is trying to give is that if society does not change how we treat one another, then it will crumble.

Quotes

• "Butler's characters are not superhero feminists. Rather they are the traditionally oppressed: female, minority, poor who see the worlds in which they live and aim to make those worlds visible to others."
• "Both concern female characters facing impossible circumstances; both recognize the fear that those circumstances produce; but both also see a way forward-not by denying fear, but by rejecting the presumption that the only way to solve fear is to give up the rights to someone sanctioned to use violence to protect us."
• "The only way really to be able to move forward is through honest and open communication about the conditions under which we live."

"Octavia Butler's "Amnesty"'

Summary

Elisa Edwards writes an encyclopedic styles article based on Octavia Bulter's "Amnesty." In this article she gives a summary about the short story, and goes into detail about what the possible meanings Butler was trying to convey when writing "Amnesty." Throughout the article she strongly argues that "Amnesty" is about how two species must learn to coexist with one another in order for the world to unite and thrive. She also goes on to say that another one of Butler's messages when writing this short story is that humans' biggest enemy is mankind itself, and we must learn to treat ourselves better to become a better world.

Quotes

• "...in order to peacefully coexist, the teo species have to communicate with one another. The fact that the new language is partly a touch language emphasizes that the two species have to 'get in touch' with each other..."
• "The biggest threat that humans face are still other human beings, because many of them are not able to treat their own kind ethically."
• "...symbioses...stresses the importance of the community and shows the weakness of the concept of individualism."

"Amnesty"

Summary

Butler's "Amnesty" is a short story about an alien species taking over the world. The aliens are called Communities. When the Communities came to Earth, they abducted, experimented, and killed humans. They wanted to know what the humans were able to do, resist, and handle. They were trying to figure out what the human species was. Once a form of language was produced to communicate between the two cultures, the Communities realized that they were harming the humans and thus set them free. Noah, the protagonist of the story was one of the people captured and tortured. She now works for the Communities as a translator. Part of her job as a Translator is to get other humans to become translators. Other humans are recruited and taken to a sort of seminar where they can ask all of the questions that they want about the job duties. The questions soon become more about Noah's personal experience with the aliens as someone who was abducted and as someone who allowed themselves to work for them after being tortured. Noah goes on to talk about all of the horrific memories she had as a captured human. However, once she was set free, her very own people also decided to capture, and torture her, only for answers that she could not give hem. They wanted to know everything that she knew about the Communities and when they wouldn't get the answers that they were looking for, they would torture her some more. They tortured Noah so bad that she tried to take her own life. Noah learns that she wants to fight for the greater good. For the peace between the two very different cultures. She understands them both from very different angles and she feels like she can help bring them together and make them a stronger society.

Quotes

• "I'm one pf maybe thirty people in this country who can talk to them. Where else would I be but here at a bubble, trying to help two species understand and accept one another before one of them does something fatal?"
• "They trust me to help would-be employers learn to live with a human being without hurting the human and to help human employees learn to live with Communities and fulfill their responsibilities."
• "This effect proves that humanity and the Communities belong together...We're fated to be together. They have so much to teach us."
• "I want to make them think. I want to tell them what human governments won't tell them. I want to vote for peace between your people and mine by telling the truth. I don't know whether my efforts will do any good, in the long run, but I have to try.

"The Book of Martha"

Summary

"The Book of Martha" is a short story written by Octavia E. Butler. It is a story about trying to create a perfect world. God asks Martha to come up with a way to help humans become less destructive because there is only a matter of time before they destroy themselves. At first Martha is a bit annoyed because she believes that God is just thinking of this task as a game for his personal amusement. However, Martha starts to think about ways that she can help humanity. She comes up with dreams. She feels that if people can have vivid, life-like dreams every night, that they will in some way make people be more fulfilled with their lives. She later adds that once the people wake up from these pleasurable dreams, that they are also taught that the pleasure they seek from the dreams also teach them to be more aware and productive in real life. She wants to make sure that they aren't delusional to other people as well as to their surroundings. This is bittersweet for Martha because as a novelist, she knows that people will no longer read books for pleasure since they will be seeking pleasure in their dreams. She is willing to risk her career, and the life that she has made for herself from writing novels, just so that everyone in the world can have some sort of fantasy that would make them become better people for humanity, eventually.

Quotes

• "This is what you're to do," God said. "You will help humankind to survive its greedy, murderous, wasteful adolescence.Help it to find less destructive, more peaceful, sustainable ways to live."
• "Each person will have a private, perfect utopia every night - or an imperfect one...whatever they want or need comes to them. I think if people go to a ...private heaven every night, it might take the edge off their willingness to spend their waking hours trying to dominate or destroy one another."
• "I'm afraid the time might come when I won't be able to stand knowing that I'm the one who caused not only the harm, but the end of the only career I've ever cared about."

"Digging Deep: Ailments of Difference in Octavia Butler's "The Evening and the Morning and the Night""

Summary

In Isiah Lavender III's article, "Digging Deep" Ailments of Difference in Octavia Butler's "The Evening and the Morning and the Night,"' he compares Butlers short story "The Evening the Morning and the Night" and "Speech Sounds" to racism. He shows how Butler's DGD characters are a form of cultural racism. He does this by comparing the text and its metaphors to modern day racism. Lavender creates different subtitles in his article that help his argument. They fell under the titles of Racing DGD, Racial Ailments, Black Matriarchies, and Deep Digging. Under each subtitle a new and different point of view that is intertwined with Butler's stories comes to play about racism and the way she is potentially delivering the message.

Quotes

• "...[W]hat if this story were also about race and the disease as a literalized metaphor for race?"
• " A segregation system much like Jim Crow, is one particular behavioral response to fear of this disease, where the rights of the DGD sufferers are curtailed by the discriminatory policies of the health care industry. Practically deprived of their citizenship, active DGDs are mandatorily removed and placed out of sight in government-backed hospitals by a society that considers the DGDs a problem."
• "While the surface meeting of this story is about a genetic disorder, the deeper meaning concerns the sociocultural illness of racism as it affects the lives of the characters."
• "...Butler's science fiction tells stories about what it is to be human, to be black, to be female, to be a slave, to be betrayed by biology, to be Other."

"Disparate Spirits Yet Kindred Souls: Octavia E. Butler's "Speech Sounds," and Me"

Summary

Sandra Y. Goven's "Disparate Spirits Yet Kindred Souls: Octavia E. Butler, "Speech Sounds," and Me" writes about how Octavia E. Butler's "Speech Sounds" helps explain current events and history from a different point of view and in some way, use science fiction to explore a type of resolution to a problem that we are facing today. She also expresses how Butler uses a African American woman as the protagonists to deliver these messages in her stories.

Quotes

• "Oddly enough, and of great interest to me, each of these protagonists in her own way is also a teacher."
• "Butlers decision to extrapolate from a contemporary event, turning problem to story, is a quintessential science fictional technique."
• "Tense, antagonistic, and unable to communicate, people generally attack rather than support; at the slightest provocation they irrationally vent their frustrations, and sometimes their desires, upon the more vulnerable or upon survivors perceived to be less impacted than themselves. Here Butler invokes the base dimensions of human nature--jealousy, envy, lust, territoriality, violence, the tendency to fear and to fight what we do not comprehend."

"Loss of Words: Octavia Butler's 'Speech Sounds'"

Summary

In Maria Holmgren Troy's article, "Loss of Words: Octavia Butler's 'Speech Sounds'" she explains how science fiction can help teach children, from a different point of view, how verbal communication plays a big role in society. Also, that the inability to communicate verbally may lead to social disorder, and complete breakdown of the world. compares science fiction to everyday problems. Holmgren uses different examples from Butlers short story to help prove her theory. She emphasizes on how body language, and loss of words have not only become the only means of communicating in the short story, but how they can also destroy the norm and become lost in translation.

Quotes

• '"Speech Sounds," a dystopian science-fiction story, centers on one important theme that can easily serve as a starting-point for discussion in the classroom: communication, or more specifically lack of verbal communication and its relation to violence and social disorder, social breakdown."
• "...body language is repeatedly used to express strong disapproval and obscenities and to warn people to stay away; it is a form of rough social control mechanism and it stands for some kind of interaction, but often with negative or destructive undertones."
• "Butler's story is not only an excellent introduction to the short-story genre; in the language classroom it also offers a starting-point for a vital discussion of the value of verbal communication.
• "Science fiction stories also often have a strong focus on one or a few major issues, an aspect that could be helpful in classroom discussions."

"The Evening and the Morning and the Night"

Summary

In Octavia E.Butler's short story "The Evening and the Morning and the Night," she writes about two individuals that were diagnosed with the Duryea-Gode disease. This disease came to be when the Hedeonco treatment was created as a cure for cancer. Unfortunately, if anyone conceived after taking this treatment, their offspring would be born with DGD. DGD was considered to be incurable, and if you had it you would eventually mutilate yourself, murder, and/or commit suicide. Lynn, a main character of this short story, was a double DGD, meaning her mother and father were both had DGD. Lynn didn't know that this was a significance to the DGD community until her fiancee Alan had asked her to go to the Dilg ward to visit his mother. This was one of the facilities that helped take care of people that drifted away due to the disease. Here is where they met Beatrice, a doctor that worked with DGD recipients. Beatrice introduced Lynn and Alan to his mother Naomi, which was an amazing encounter because she had drifted off and mutilated herself so badly, she gauged her eyes out, and yet she was able to speak, create art, and take orders to the best of her abilities with DGD. This was unheard of, and even hard to believe because after a person with DGD turned, for lack of a better word, savage, they were never able to do anything even close to what Naomi was. As a matter of fact, Lynn's father killed her mother and ripped out his own heart before killing himself after he had turned savage.

When the visit with Naomi was over, Lynn and Alan sat with Beatrice. This is when Beatrice explained the remarkable abilities of the Dilg retreat patients. She told them that it was due to a pheromone. This pheromone was inherited only by females that were born to parents that both had DGD. Females like Lynn and Beatrice. The only people that can sense the pheromone were men and women that inherit the disease from their mothers. This scent is very useful. It helps control the DGD patients who have turned savage into not causing any harm. They're able, with the help of Beatrice, to focus all of their energy into something else. Beatrice is able to influence them, with her pheromone scent, and put them at ease so that they don't feel the need to harm themselves or others. She also explains to Lynn that she would like for her to help build a retreat just like Dilg, where she can have her territory, and her scent help influence other DGD patients into focusing their energy. However, this has to be at another facility because females that were born with this scent are very territorial and do not get along when they are in each other's space.

After the visit at the Dilg retreat, Lynn had finally realized her calling. She once tried to kill herself because she didn't want to become a savage, but now that she's learned of her new ability to help people with DGD, she wants to try and make a change. Alan, on the other hand, doesn't really like the idea of him being influenced by his girlfriend, or Beatrice.

Quotes

• "If the pheromone were something only men had, you would do it."
• "The damned disease could be wiped out in one generation...but people are still animals when it comes to breeding. Still following mindless urges, like dogs and cats."
• "Being around him helped me understand why, against all sanity, two DGDs would lock in on each other and start talking about marriage. Who else would have us?"

"Speech Sounds"

Summary

Rye, who is the main character in Octavia E. Butler's short story "Speech Sounds," was on her way to visit relatives that she thought to be still alive in Pasadena. She got lucky, and was able to catch the bus as she was leaving her home. While on the bus, a fight began between two men, and eventually the bus came to screeching halt. Rye exited the bus, and waited to see if the fight would end so that she could get back on the bus and be on her way. That's when she noticed a blue Ford come down the street and make a U turn to where the bus came to a stop. A bearded, young man came out of the car, and he was wearing a LAPD uniform along with a baton and revolver. Rye found this strange because after the illness, (due to a virus caused by the Soviets and its ability to leave everyone without speech or language) the country had no sense of law enforcement. After the bearded man put the fighting to a stop by gassing the bus, he went over to his Ford and asked Rye to come with him. At first Rye said no, but then she became curious simply because he had asked her to go with him, and not demand it. She felt as if she would be safe with him. After Rye got in the car, the man tried to communicate with her the best to his ability. He handed her a necklace with a rock as a pendant, and Rye assumed that his name was Obsidian. Obsidian offered to take Rye where she wanted to go. He pulled out a map and had Rye point out where she wanted to go. That's when Rye realized that Obsidian can read and probably write. She became angry and jealous. She wasn't able to do so, and it infuriated her that he was. Obsidian asked Rye if she was able to speak through gestures. When Rye responded with a nod, he became jealous as well. Although he was able to read, he could not speak or understand spoken language.

A short while into the ride, Obsidian touched Rye's thigh and this was a gesture for them to have sex. Rye was reluctant because she didn't want to become pregnant. Obsidian must have noticed this because he pulled out a box of condoms from his glove compartment. Rye got in the backseat, put the condom on Obsidian and all else was history. After their sexual encounter was over, Rye asked Obsidian if he would go home with her. He nodded no because it was important to him to protect society. Rye then decided to accept him as he was and assured him that she was fine with him being this person of law and order. Obsidian agreed to be with her, and they were off to Rye's home. On their way, a woman runs across the car, with a man chasing behind her. Obsidian, being the man of law and order that he is, gets off the car and quickly goes to help the woman. As he confronts the man with his gun, the man stabs the woman, killing her. Obsidian then shoots the man. As Obsidian went to check on the man, who appeared dead, the man reached for Obsidian's gun, shot, and killed him. Rye then shot the man as he was aiming to shoot at her.

As Rye stood there with three dead bodies, two young children appeared. They were the dead woman's children. Rye decided at first that she did not want to raise the children. However, as she knelt beside Obsidian she decided that no one else should die and that Obsidian and the children's mother should be buried. When she tried to take the woman's body into the car, her daughter yelled. She spoke, and Rye understood. Just then Rye knew that she had to take the children home with her and protect and teach them language. She assured them that it was okay for them to speak to her.

Quotes

• "...how many more of him were there---people willing to destroy what they could not have?"
• "But he was literate and she was not. She never would be. She felt sick to her stomach with hatred, frustration, and jealousy."
• "She closed her eyes wearily, drew a deep breath. She had experienced longing for the past, hatred of the present, growing hopelessness, purposelessness, but she had never experienced such a powerful urge to kill another person."

"Bloodchild"

Summary

In Octavia E. Butler’s short story “Bloodchild,” two species are introduced. The Tlic and Terran. The Terran species are living in a Preserve that is located in the Tlic’s world. The main characters are T’Gatoi (Tlic) and Gan (Terran). T’Gatoi has chosen Gan to be the body that hosts her children. In other words, Gan is going to be pregnant with T’Gatoi’s children. On the night that T”Gatoi decides to impregnate Gan, an N’Tlic (a pregnant Terran), who is apparently in labor puts a twist on the nights plans.

T’Gatoi and Gan help deliver the babies. However, it was a gruesome, terrifying, alien like, maybe even disgusting experience for Gan. Being that he was going to endure the same pain that this N’Tlic just went through, he has second thoughts about becoming T’Gatoi’s N’Tlic and delivering her babies. T’Gatoi gives Gan the option to opt out. However, if he refused, his older sister would be the body to carry her babies.

At first Gan was okay with this decision, being that his sister wanted to be the chosen one, but at that moment, he realized two things. First, that he didn’t want his beloved sister to endure that dreadful pain, and second, that he wanted to be the person that carried T’Gatoi’s children because he wanted T’Gatoi for himself. Now, the decision for Gan to bear T’Gatoi’s children wasn’t just her own, but his as well. This made Gan fell more comfortable with the arrangement that was made for him before he was even born because he may not understand what he is now feeling for T’Gatoi right now, but eventually he will realize that he has fallen in love.

Quotes

• "There had been incidents right after the Preserve was established---Terrans shooting Tlic, shooting N'Tlic. This was before the joining of families began, before everyone had a personal stake in keeping the peace."
• "I had been told all my life that this was a necessary thing Tlic and Terran did together---a kind of birth. I had believed it until now. I knew that birth was painful and bloody, no matter what. But this was something else, something worse."
• '"And to keep you for myself," I said. It was so. I didn't understand it, but it was so."

Citation Practice

Octavia Butler was shy as a child.