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Octavia Butler's Biography

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Octavia Estelle Butler was born in Pasadena California, on June 22,1947. Butler was an only child, her mother was a housemaid and her father was a shoeshine man.as a child Butler was very shy it was very difficult for her to socialize with other children. Octavia Butler was a lonely child which made her spent more time reading a the Pasadena public library. at the age of 13 she encountered one of many obstacles her '' well-intentioned'' aunt told her that ''Negroes can't be writers''. This made her doubt herself for the first time, even that didn't stop her after graduating high school in 1965, she worked during the day and went to college at night. after graduating college in 1968, Butler continued to work in different jobs then she went to California state university, Los Angeles, ''but then switched to taking writing courses.''Butler finally caught her break during the Open Door Workshop of the Screenwriters' Guild of America, West, a program designed to mentor minority writers.'' ''Butler's rise to prominence began in 1984 when "Speech Sounds" won the Hugo Award for Short Story and, a year later, Bloodchild won the Hugo Award, the Locus Award, and the Science Fiction Chronicle Reader Award for Best Novelette.'' on of Butler main influence was her mother because she saw her mother struggles to provide for her and made sure she got and education. during the years prior to her death Butler suffer from high blood pressure and the medication cause her depression and lack of writing, ''Butler died outside of her home in Lake Forest Park, Washington, on February 24, 2006, aged 58.^[8] Contemporary news accounts were inconsistent as to the cause of her death, with some reporting that she suffered a fatal stroke, while others indicated that she died of head injuries after falling and striking her head on her walkway. Another suggestion, backed by Locus magazine, is that a stroke caused the fall and hence the head injuries.''

• '' Butler's protagonists are disenfranchised individuals who endure, compromise, and embrace radical change in order to survive''.

• ''Butler's stories, therefore, are usually written from the perspective of a marginalized black woman whose difference from the dominant agents increases her potential for reconfiguring the future of her society.^[30]''

• ''As a writer, Butler was able to use her writing as a vehicle to critique history under the lenses of feminism.''

Edwards, Elisa. “Octavia Butler’s ‘Amnesty’.” (2003) in Race, Aliens, and the U.S. Government in African American Science Fiction. Münster [u.a.: Lit, 2011.]

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this article is a recount of the short story''amnesty'' is a more detailed summary of the story in which we learn more about the story. this article is narrated in the third person which is like someone telling the story. this article describes a reality which inspire Butler to write ''amnesty'' which is about a doctor scientist who was falsely accused of conspiration against the U.S government during the 1990's he was sent to jail even though they later release him because he was proven to be Innocent.

• ''amnesty is a story about an African American woman named Noah cannon, who had been abducted by alien's when she was eleven years old and held captive in the alien's bubble colony on earth for twelve years''.
• "'Through a series of flashbacks, Noah is given an educational journey in which she learns that it is not the aliens, who once abducted her, who want to harm her but that it is her own human government that inflicts grief"
• '' the biggest threat that humans face are still other human beings, because many of them are not able to treat their own kind ethically"

Curtis, Claire P. “Theorizing Fear: Octavia Butler and the Realist Utopia”. clare p.curtis

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Curtis describes how Butler uses science fiction such as ''{Aliens,other planets,plague,visits from god} to create scenarios of fear'' this article portrays Butler as the ''theorist'' of fear it describes that all Butlers short stories resemble some type of fear in human's in which stories she creates the perfect world ''Utopia'' for humans. according to this article butlers stories ''amnesty'' and the "book of Martha" are mainly about fear and about our desire, because of the fear in both of this stories the female protagonists wants to change the world and the author explains that its because of fear and the circumstances they face in each story plot. This author summarizes ''amnesty'' and the "book of martha'' and focuses in each story main point which according to Curtis is the same.''This is the point where the two stories come together. If one were to dream a world without sexism, racism and other oppressions, then the gap between the dream life and the waking life would be all the more jarring, but the lesson to be learned is not that the waking life would radically change if everyone who experienced oppression realized the gap between freedom and oppression''.

• 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.
• If fear is not universal, then peace is not possible.
• If we imagine Butler's works playing the same role that the parent plays when confronted with a child's nighttime fear of monsters, then we must understand Butler as doing something very particular as that parent. 

"Amnesty."

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in this story we can see that the protagonist Noah was kidnapped by aliens or ''the stranger- community'', she was kidnapped as a result of experimentation by the alien. as an abductee she was mistreated but after many years she was release in to humans kinds again, but the humans kidnapped her and torture her to tray to get information about the aliens, Noah was a very brave person she wanted peace for both sides the aliens and the humans, she wanted to serve as mediator to try to work things out between both species, she was the only one in between both species that knew each side and she knew what to expect from both species which gave her an advantage and helped her on her pursue of peace.

• ''the communities were not plants, but it was easier to think of them in those terms since most of the time, most of them looked plantlike''.
• "so they kidnapped you and now you work for them?"
• ''they're not like anything that any of us have ever known''

''The book of Martha''

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The book of martha is story about decisions that affect our lives, we are what we as human being decide to be.God has given martha the oportunity to change humanity, the oportunity to do something different something that can save humanity. in this story we see how Butler refers to Race for instance when martha says to god " i was born poor black and female to a fourteen - year old mother'' in reference to the lowest of humanity, also gender plays a role martha was a female which is seemed by society as the weak gender and also social status when she mention that she came from a very poor back ground. this story is very powerful it makes one question weather we are leaving a dream a reality or if we are seeing the future as we leave or lives day by day, in this story the reader has the experience to travel in time and imagine society in different ways and imagine how great could it be to able to change something in our society.

• '' I was born poor, black, and female to a fourteen - year- old mother who could barely read''
• '' If humanity is changed, it wont be humanity anymore.''
• ''I want them to have the only possible utopia''

"Digging Deep: Ailments of Difference in Octavia Butler’s “The Evening and the Morning and the Night”. Isiah lavender 111

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Lavender's article about ''The evening and the morning and the night'' its all about how the DGD generic disorder is a comparison to race specifically about African American people, according to lavender this particular story targets discrimination against african american, this author contradicts Octavia Butler afterword from ''the evening and the morning and the night" Butler specifies how one of her main inspiration sources to write this story was her ''fascination'' with biology as opposed of what Lavender says in his article ''consequenlty, Butler does not have a biological model of race in mind for ''the evening and the morning and the night'' . lavender also shows how biology is related to race by explaining that some disease come from africa and that there are disease that only affects african americans. by what lavender portrays in this article the reader can create another point of argument which is to look at the story from a race perspective, also in this article lavender suggest that the disease is like being trap in your own body which he suggest that is like how african american feel about being african american

• ''society often fears diseased bodies''
• ''while the surface meaning 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.''
• ''In this respect, 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, "speech sounds'' and me Sandra y. Govan

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In this critic from ''speech sounds'' the author does a great job explaining Octavia Butler main point about writing this story. Govan uses simple language to express Butler's purpose in this story yet she accomplishes to give the reader a clear understanding of Butlers objective, this article supply a more thorough explanation and a more factual source about ''speech sounds''. human behavior is one of the themes discussed in this story the behavior of humans when we lack communication skills such as language, by reading this critic a reader can understand better what ''speech sounds" is about, Govan describes every paragraph from a third person point of view which gives the reader a much clear understanding, Govan interprets every little detail about the story which helps the reader relate the story with our reality today of what's going on in our society and the reason why society is the way it is today, also this critic shows a psychological view of the story , Sandra Govan explains that science is one of the key points in ''speech Sounds''. according to Govan Butler uses information from "developments in neurobiology, neuroscience, educational psychology,and neurolinguistics." then she incorporates this information into ''speech Sounds'' which makes the story more interesting and authentic to the reader.

• "The most distinctive aspect of the story, however, is its authentic engagement with science."
• "like most of Butlers women, Rye is an engaging and fully rounded character, an intriguing individual."
• ''Rye will nurture and guide these children, and others like, them who will have survived, as they grow.''

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

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In this short critic loss of words, Troy proves how Octavia Butler uses science fiction to show society the importance of language and communication. troy argues that by using science fiction in linguistics Octavia Butler attracts the younger crowd. some might argue that science fiction in linguistics and language is irrelevant but in Troys critic shows the contrary, in this short critic troy shows facts about how using science fiction is a great way to help a reader connect with the story it helps the reader explore different ideas, the reader can see his reality from a different aspect.'"speech sounds" as a short story of science fiction portrays the importance of language in our society and the many problems that can cause the extinction of language from our society, in the plot from " speech sounds" butler shows the many problems that evolve from the loss of language.

• science fiction, linguistic and education might seem incompatible, as the title of Beverly friend's article "strange bedfellows" indicates but in fact they are not.

• In schools, then science fiction may help to defamiliarize everyday life and offer a different point of view and some safe distance from which to address problems that are relevant to pupils and their environment.
• ''speech sounds", a dystopian science-fiction story, centers on one important theme that can easily serves 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.

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the evening and the morning and the night portrays the life of a young woman named Lynn Mortimer, she was the daughter of two DGD's which is a generic disorder also called the Duryea- Gode Disease it causes people to harm themselves and others people as well, it affects mostly in the adulthood, one of the challenges that people with DGD face is passing the disease to their children. Octavia Butler simulates the many challenges that people with genetic disorder face in real life by creating this fictional disease in ''the evening and the morning and the night" Lynn tried to commit suicide when she was fifteen but her father found her before she die, her father killed her mother and then killed himself. Lynn went off to college and decided to study biology as she went on with her life she found herself wondering when will be the time that she'll begin showing signs of DGD but she was showing no signs at all, she was on a special diet and had to wear certain designs to show that she was a DGD, Lynn had no normal friends do to her disease and because normal people would stay away from people with DGD, she decides to move in with a few DGD's in that house she meets Alan Chi who also was a double DGD, they become friends and start dating each other they find themselves talking about the future about getting married but not having kids do to the fact that their kids would also be DGD's and will face the persecution from society. Butler wrote the evening the morning and the night to show how society deals with generic disorders and as way of demanding change in the way society treats generic disorder.

Quotes

• ''My father had killed my mother,then killed himself."
• ''how was it i'd had the courage when i was fifteen but didn't have it now?''
• ''Most DGD's have the sense not to marry each other and produce children''

''Bloodchild"

"Summary"

The story bloodchild shows the strugle of a young man who's having a hard time accepting what the Aliens do to Humans, this young man family lives in this planet, which is dominated by Aliens. each family or human gets assigned one Alien who's going to use the humans to reproduce. This particular young man is Gan who's very especial to his family Alien; Tgatoi, Gan has reached the age where he is going to be use for reproduction of the Alien which is when the Alien "Implants''eggs in to the human body and then they become pregnant with the Alien babies, in this case is usually males who are use as mates to breed and bring more Aliens in to this planet. Gan was having mixed emotions about the breeding process after he saw Lomas another young man who was sort of giving birth to baby Alians, Gan got traumatized after seeing the entire process and did not wanted to go through with the breeding process and asked Tgatoi if she could use his sister Hoa who was happy to do it, yet Through out the story the reader can see the way Gan feels about Tgatoi which is the connection they have towards each other and what made Gan changed his mind once Tgatoi was ready to implant her eggs to Hoa, Gan made it seem like he was protecting his sister however his actions showed his feelings towards Tgatoi. In this story you can conclude that the Aliens needed the humans to reproduce, but also the Humans need the Aliens so they can continued on living in that planet and that will be the price they have to pay the Alien by the exploitation of their bodies, which resembles a little bit of slavery because of the subjugation the humans were exposed to, even though the author explains that this story has nothing to do with slavery. to me is very interesting the fact that the males were the ones getting pregnant by the Aliens its very peculiar to see this which makes the story much interesting and keeps the reader hooked to the story.

''Quotes''

• ''T'gatoi was the Tlic government official in charge of the preserve"
• ''The thought of her doing it to Hoa at all disturbed me in a different way now, and i was suddenly angry"
• '' I wil implant the first egg tonight''