The Underground Railroad in Parable of the Sower

Throughout Parable of the Sower, Butler alludes to the Underground Railroad and to colonial American slavery, fitting the situations of character from different minority races into this example of a racial struggle. The story Travis and Natividad Douglas, a black man and a Hispanic woman, could be set, as Lauren herself notices, in a different time period: the slave boy son of a cook steals books from his master to learn how to read before falling in love and saving the house maid. Emery Solis’ and her daughter Tori’s story has similar aspects of a plantation-style living that feel impossibly antiquated for a world supposedly less than two decades in the future. In the workplace and in the cultural mindset, races have in many ways returned to where they were in the 18^th century. Whites are trusted – both Bankole and Emery inform Harry, the one white member of the group, of his easier job prospects, and can run or own the lives of others, workers in factories and homes who may as well be considered slaves for their meager salaries and indebting careers. Colored people are often mistrusted, often sold or used as slaves (the Moras, the Solis’s, the Douglas’s, and the Moss wives), and are seen as suspicious in mixed couples.

In fact, some of the characters don’t even seem surprised at, or have accepted, the nature of the work put on these workers: Lauren questions how far masters went in beating insubordinate servants but thinks little of the nature of modern day servants; Emery calmly recommends the high-paying job of “driving” such workers at a factory to Harry and seems to think the line of work is an acceptable or inevitable part of the world. Within a few decades from when the book was published (1993), the world is accustomed to racially fueled hatred, enslavement, and profiling.

Lauren’s troupe of likely Earthseed converts is often referenced as slaves fleeing by way of the Underground Railroad to a better future up North. Their travels, and those of the many poor around them, greatly resemble the Railroad and further hone in on the slave-like aspect of their lives before joining this family: “Now it’s a highway, a river of the poor. A river flooding north.” (223) Like the Abolitionist leaders of that time period (such as Frederick Douglas, whom Bankole is even compared to), the leaders of Lauren’s group are trying to figure a way for these outcasts, ex-slaves, to live remotely with their independence and their own community.

The notion behind all this is that our seemingly progressive nation will quickly revert to racial enslavement and abuse when society collapses. The world portrayed shows none of the racial sensitivity or equality we take for granted today; years of struggle for equality have disintegrated with the rest of our social structure. In absence of wealth or class, people reverted to racism as a means of division, as race only remained to categorize the countless homeless and poor. Reading this dystopian view of our future makes us question the steadfastness of our attempts to move past race, and also to question whether we have moved past them at all.

Mother Africa

Through the readings and movies, Parable of the Sower, Children of Men, and 28 Days Later, we are given the image of a black woman as the survivor in a dystopian future. In a large amount of science fiction media, black woman come to represent that which is most human. Jayna Brown remarks how they alone seem to be “visionaries of the apocalypse”, and they “receive the apocalyptic message.”

Jayna Brown explained how the black women in both Children and 28 Days were both ‘outsiders’ in british society thus closer to the apocalyptic truth. Kee from Children is an immigrant, and throughout the course of the movie very rarely moves beyond the symbol of humanity’s hope for the future. She is rarely shown beyond her biological worth and sexual function. This has unfortunate parallels to the representations of black women during the era of slavery, when black women were nothing more than tools. And, to many of the characters in Children of Men, Kee is just that. The Fishes want to use her to incite rebellion, and the progressive, peaceful, humanistic and scientific political left represented by Theo’s wife Julian, and the Human Project, wants to use her to try and remedy humanity’s infertility.

However, Selena’s representation in 28 Days Later is not that of a tool like Kee’s. Brown argues that “Selena is rendered the most human”. Unlike Kee who was a refugee, a complete outsider of the white british patriarchy, Selena is both Black and British. As an outsider she is able to see and accept the breakdown of this white patriarchy in the world and move on.

Lauren in Sower is also another black woman that recognizes the rotting society around her, leading her to begin anew with her religion of Earthseed. One of her Earthseed passages is;

A tree
Cannot Grow
In its parents’ shadows

And thus it takes someone on the outskirts, the black female, to bring the world to Utopia, to “take root among the stars.”

Brown speculates that the centrality of Black women in dystopian futures, “signifies the necessary death of white privilege in a potential utopian future.” When the White, Western, European patriarchy is destroyed, whether it be by the rage virus or by infertility and xenophobia, the most human of us will rise from the ashes; the representation of Mother Africa, the cradle of humanity. To start over from an apocalypse we have to go to the beginning, and the beginning starts with a black woman.

Michael Randolph

In “Progress vs. Utopia,” Jameson argues that science fiction is not a portal into a possible future, but rather a look at current modern society. A science fiction work puts distance between the constructed future and reality, reducing an audience’s instinctual need to justify its surroundings and practices. If Alfonso Cuaron and Octavia Butler buy into this theory, then apparently they both have similar views of modern day life.

People, they seem to suggest, are trapped. By their neighborhood or by their country, society has drawn lines to separate an “us,” determined by birth into that community, and “them,” those that lie outside the firm boundaries who clamor to use and abuse resources. The community is doomed within the walls, but the path to salvation and redemption can grow from within the boundaries to flourish outside it.

In Parable of the Sower, the gated neighborhood acts as a small scale version of “Men”’s Britain, paranoid of the outside and militarized against it. In either world, intrusion drives the insiders to acts of cruelty and violence, solely in the name of protecting what is inherently theirs. The fear of intruders is obsessive, inspiring the neighborhood watch in Parable and bombarding Brits with warnings and cages for interlopers in “Men.” Mr. Olamina, a preacher, explicitly admits that he would kill an intruder (PoS, p. 70). This fundamental betrayal of societal ideals and morals (Thou shalt not kill) shows the flimsy bonds society holds on people from acting on their most brutal instincts. Rather than predicting a future slide into paranoia and brutality, these narratives show where we are, warning intruders that we will shoot.

Where can we find redemption from our own fear from ourselves? In both works, the answer is that it is already inside. The solution in Parable comes when Lauren “discovers” Earthseed, rather than “invents”, and Kee discovers her pregnancy in “Men,” suggesting salvation, the answer to our own fears is already within. Whether it is a growing hope for the future, like Dylan, or a plan to build away for fear, depends on who is doing the discovering.

To begin, I would not recommend either Parable of the Sower nor "Children of Men" while eating. This may seem like a spontaneous, and irrelevant point to make, but in fact, it seems to be a rather integral one. The shocking, often gruesome, and always jarring scenes of violence and unrest in both of these works serves as a pro-active attempt to force the observer out of his or her comfort zone. These works obtain the level of attention and emotional significance by striking on situations that logically follow from our actions today in a very real sense. It is not only the gore that stirs my stomach, but also the fact that both media outlets create logical, linear outcomes to current societal problems - and not only that, but they are not welcome conclusions.

Racial equity and future societies seem to go hand in hand with each other when it comes to idyllic and expected futures, but from a realistic point of view, this is not possible without an upheaval of the incredible stigmas society heaps on its participators. At this particular moment in time, the scales weigh heavily on the side of prejudice and discrimination. Although it is quaint to assume that the simple movement of time will change this, Parable of the Sower makes it very clear through the character Lauren, and "Children of Men" through Theo, that our reality and change in it is an inevitability that can only be acted upon by people of action. Those who sit by and allow time and change to pass without them can only expect, as was mentioned briefly in Parable, that the universe will follow the 2nd law of thermodynamics - entropy will increase, and society will grow cold.

The significance of having two female, black women as almost-religious symbols of the future is an important one. It signals an escape from the white, male protagonist trope, but also invites in the ideas of going back to spiritual roots of ancient African traditions. From Lauren's last name to Kee's chanting, there is a return to the past in order to reshape the future. In a more negative sense, this concept is contrasted with the decrepitude of the urban environments which are becoming more and more run down and uncivilized. This de-evolution allows the problem of race and alienation to be exacerbated, and thus invites the idea in a backtrack progress both in cities but also in society.

last one to die please turn out the lights

Upon discovering Lauren's condition of "hyperempathy," through which she feels the pain of others (quite literally, as it turns out), it occurred to me that each imagined future we have examined in the course thus far contains some supernatural or science-fictiony element. You may be saying "duh" to yourself right now. But it is strange to me that even the more realistic expressions of the future have in them something that is outside the realm of human possibility.

Though Neuromancer presented perhaps the most radically altered version of future-earth, the cyberspace and AI in the novel are not out of the question in terms of what someday could be real. But Lathe of Heaven, whose future-earth seems much more like our current one than Neuro, has effective dreams, and Parable, which also feels quite real (in the sense of not science-fictiony) in its depiction of the future, has a neurological condition that causes one to experience another human's (or animal's) physical pain. Neither of these are possible. What is it about dystopian/futuristic writing and film that inspires such inventions, such ideas that cannot be true in our real world?

(Children of Men's dystopia seems rather realistic as well, but is based upon the sudden and unexplainable sterility of all of mankind.)

It was interesting to track the progress of Parable's allegory of a freedom train - heading north, towards freedom, escaping slavery. Jill and Allie were sex-slaves, Emery a company-slave, Zahra a former slave to her husband. The diversity of the group was striking: black, white, hispanic, and by the end of the novel when Emery joins the Earthseed clan, a half-black half-Japanese. The clan does find freedom, or at least hope, in the end: the creation of the Acorn community, a utopian-like vision, amidst such a hellish, dystopian earth.

Strength as a Savior

In both Children of Men and Parable of the Sower, the character with the potential to save the world is a young black woman. Both Lauren Olamina and Kee live in worlds where overt racism is ubiquitious and they would not be valued as much because of their gender and race. However, the way the two works treat these characters varies drastically.

Lauren is a leader. Through the course of the novel, she attracts followers to her and spreads her religious beliefs. Even her religion is reflective of her power. Her God is change, but she believes that, rather than submitting meekly to change, people should "Become a shaper of God" (PoS 31). Her character is one of action and could not flourish until she could act freely.

In contrast, Kee is an incredibly passive character. While she has the potential to solve the world's infertility, it is not due to her actions, but rather her body. She acts only to save herself and her baby; Kee does not choose her actions, but rather reacts. The result of these differing treatments is that Lauren seems to rise above the chaos around her while Kee is tossed by the tempest and survives by chance.

Even though racism, segregation, and slavery are on the rise in Lauren's world, the reader is led to hope that through her teachings, the world might eventually improve and perhaps even become a utopia. However, because Kee is so passive, the audience has little hope that all will end well. All those who helped her along have died, leaving one of the weakest characters to save the world. How can one hope for the rampant prejudice against and unjust treatment of immigrants to end when the savior figure is alone and at the mercy of an organization of which little to nothing is known? At the end of Parable of the Sower Lauren is just beginning her mission of spreading Earthseed. However, the end of Children of Men is also the end of Kee's foreseeable independence as she becomes a subject for research rather than a person.

E

It is not surprising that Children of Men and 28 Days Later, both blockbuster hits, contain intense action sequences, but it is interesting that The Parable of the Sower contains similar scenes. They are similar because all three focus on an escape, a journey to freedom. Children of Men describes a desperate dash to escape the oppressive and racist confines of England. 28 Days Later similarly is a story of survival and escape from a apocalyptic England. The Parable of the Sower chronicles a band of slaves as they make their way north through the ruins of the collapsed west coast.

The relation between slavery and race is obvious in The Parable in particular. Lauren, the protagonist, is a young black women, as is Kee in Children of Men, and Selina in 28 Days Later. All three characters carry with them the seed of a new order. In Kee’s case this is literally the ‘key’ to fertility, to life, and for Lauren it is a new community and religion. Selina has the knowledge and ability to save their small group. The association between race and rebirth here is obvious. As Janya Brown points out, the race of these three women cannot help but influence the viewer’s, or reader’s, perception of the journey. It becomes an escape from slavery. Literally perhaps or from sexual slavery, as in The Parable; or from the cages and confined racism of Children of Men; or simply from the infected or brutal soldiers in 28 Days Later. I disagree with Emmet’s assertion that race in these cases does not invoke the perceived animal or spiritual connection of “blackness.” The ‘return to basics’ theme of all three stories cannot help but highlight that connection. This goes back to our discussion from last week about the associations we make with “blackness” but not with “whiteness.” I don’t want to say that either Octavia Butler or the producers of either movie are racist. On the contrary, I think that such associations are used in all three stories to great effect. The invocations of slavery and rebirth they call up are not negative or ignorant but interesting to see and think about.

Dystopian Heroines

When one reads Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower, Frederic Jameson’s “Progress Versus Utopia; or, Can We Imagine the Future?”, Jayna Brown’s “The Human Project: Biological Dystopia and the Utopian Politics of Race in Children of Men and 28 Days Later”, and sees Children of Men the ideas about dystopia presented in each meld and become one dark vision of decay, disease, and agony. In Parable of the Sower, Butler introduces the reader to a dark future where people live in gated communities for increased security, not just privacy. Butler’s dystopian society shocks the reader into accepting a world devoid of what we know as normal, where the fear of fire fills everyone’s mind.

The idea that corporate America has led to the downfall of America is evident in Frederic Jameson’s essay. Jameson says that capitalism prepared us for an individualistic future, one where people only care for themselves. This is evident in the Parable of the Sower because it is no longer human instinct to automatically trust people, instead everyone is out for him/ herself, and the setting up of unified communities and large traveling groups is very difficult. Jameson is not surprised by American dystopian fiction because people know that the present cannot last forever, so our ideal society will eventually crash, becoming corrupt, with a government that doesn’t work.

Butler introduces her heroine, Lauren Olamina, a teenage African American girl who is constantly preparing for the world to crumble, as a prayer of hope for the world. Lauren is a sharer; she can share other people’s emotions. Lauren is a neo-prophet who is evolving a religion called Earthseed where “G-d is Change,” and everyone shapes G-d. She says that she “[b]egan to discover [Earthseed] and understand it,” meaning Earthseed comes from a higher authority, and not her imagination. After Lauren’s community is destroyed, she takes off for the north with two other refugees.

Lauren eventually becomes the heart of the group, adopting four ex-slaves. In a scene after Allie’s sister Jill dies, Lauren shows her compassion and strength by hugging Allie who wants to be alone and away from the group. Her compassion may be what saves her companions because she is what ties them all together and without her, they would likely be dead on the highways.

I find it interesting that Butler had a young black woman become the leader of the society because until last year, the leaders of American society have always been older white men. However, Lauren being a sharer might actually be what makes her a good leader. She can feel how others feel and is more trusting than her companions. Lauren has the strength to survive that characters like Robert Neville in I am Legend have, she never gives up hope and believes in the possibility of the return of American success, even though she never experienced it.

In part of the novel, Lauren says that she thinks that Travis, Natividad, and Dominic are “natural allies—the mixed couple and the mixed group.” This suggests a world that never went through the radical racial empowering of the mid to late 20^th Century. There is still a racial divider, yet it is skewed by the predicament that Butler presents. In terms of race, Butler depicts the “pyro” druggies as mainly being rich white kids, while modern society tends to see it as a reversal of roles between who is involved in drugs, and who isn’t. In the last part of the novel, Bankole, a member of their group, makes a reference of society going back two hundred years. There are allusions to the Underground Railroad by once again having a group, predominately of colored people travel North to Freedom. As the group continues, they become a brigade of diversity. The group shows a united world, in the fact that they all have different backgrounds, yet they work together to survive. Butler seems to create the visionary racial dream of the 20^th century in her group, but it isn’t race that is important, it is the bonds that form and the stability in the group.

The idea of an African girl becoming the source of hope is also evident in the movie Children of Men. In the movie, Kee is the first person on Earth to become pregnant in this dystopian society in years. In the movie, as Butler’s novel, Kee is also trying to get to safety, the Human Project, via Theo, an ex-member of the Fishes, the resistance movement. In 28 Days Later, Selina, a strong African woman is also the leader and bringer of moral strength. Like in Children of Men, the people have been stripped of a government, and a black woman is the source of hope. While Lauren and Selina are smart and resourceful, Kee is helpless. She is the symbol of hope because she is still able to reproduce, unlike others.

Jayna Brown raises the idea that Kee is the savior because African women are symbolically related to sexuality and animals. However, Brown says that Kee becomes the savior because of what her body can do and not because of her own spirit. Brown also raises the point of women as solely sexual beings when discussing 28 Days Later where the military wants to use the surviving women as tools for breeding, and nothing else. However, I disagree with this statement. I think Kee’s color has more to do with the characteristic strength associated with black women. While this may seem stereotypical, the heroines of the novel and two movies all show the characteristic strength and willingness to endure and believe. While Kee may be the weakest of the three women, she is still strong and willing to survive. In both cases, the color of the skin isn’t the key factor in why they are the hope. It is the job that they set out to do. Ironically, all three women are outsiders, not due to the color of their skin, but due to the way they interact with society, being a sharer, pregnant, or a woman with only a will to survive. These women show that people can overcome their hardships and that we can and will survive in the most unlikely dystopian societies.

Our Neighborhood is too Small to Play those Kind of Games

Early on in Parable of the Sower, Lauren Oya Olamina describes her community out on a practice shooting trip: "The Garfields and the Balters are white, and the rest of us are black. That can be dangerous these days. On the street, people are expected to fear and hate everyone but their own kind, but with all of us armed and watchful, people stared, but they let us alone. Our neighborhood is too small for us to play those kinds of games" (Butler 36). This passage is remarkable as a moment of definition. Although Butler describes Olamina's community previously, this is the first instance where the racial identity of the group is described. It is extremely notable that this distinction is made when the group is most vulnerable, on its journey from its walled neighborhood through the city.
If one interprets science fiction as Frederic Jameson urges, it is not a prediction of the future, but a reflection of the present. And, its prophecy is "to serve as unwitting and even unwilling vehicles for a mediation..." (153). After all, each version of the future is inextricably tied to the reality of its creator.
Thus, we should be warned by the racial tension Butler forsees. President Donner's creation of effective legal chattel slavery as a solution to economic woes, especially when combined in the absence of political power in most communities, should act as a warning to those not concerned about the plight of undocumented workers. Combined with the corporate ownership of Olivar and its quid pro quo segregation (the description of Olivar as "upper middle class, white, literate" is not unintentional), it underscores the level of racial stratification in modern society.
It is extremely notable that multiracial characters, couples, and relationships factor strongly in Parable, particularly in relation to the identification of the sharers. Butler suggests that their roles in more than one culture both make them more vulnerable and more sympathetic to pain. In a society which functions on divisions, the sharers are in constant struggle against pain. Yet, in a society which emphasizes camradarie, like Olamina's Earthseed, they are the pillars. Their diversity becomes their strength.
Children of Men offers an image which appears similar on its surface, but is in fact quite different. In the midst of a global sterility crisis, Kee, a young woman of African descent and a refugee in England, becomes pregnant. Her body quickly becomes a pawn for power in the struggle for control of the human species. As Jayna Brown notes in "The Human Project," "By natural inclination Kee is the biological force to counteract the sterilizing effect of a contaminated world. She is, by tired cliché, ‘Africa, mother of civilization' " (7). In thus, it is notable that she is completely lacking agency; things are done to her and for her, not, save with few exceptions, by her. One can not entirely pass over the symbolic impact, though, that a Black girl is the first child born in the new age, to a mother that bears some symbolic resemblance to the Virgin Mary.
Considering Thompson's comment that some sort of fences are necessary, that a group is defined by what it does not include, and in light of initial quote, how do we define our own kind? What sort of loyalties can and should we hold? Or are borders, both physical and psychological, the real problem?

Governmental Reliance?

In 28 Days Later, Children of Men, and Parable of the Sower, there are very apparent parallels in the absence of any feasible government. Whether the government has dismantled due to an eliminating disease, hopelessness for the future, or just general corruption, in each of these plots, the official government in place can clearly not be relied upon. In one story after the next, hope and faith in the government vanishes again and again and again. What could these governments be doing so wrong that these to these worlds are plagued with viral epidemics, infertility, extraneous immigration, and community safety disintegration? Based on the dystopian predictions of these plots, it seems that there is no hope in regards to government protection if an apocalyptic change occurs in our world.

In 28 Days Later, the government does not even retain salvageable hope. The government did not put any emergency safe haven plan into play during the 28 days of infection for the possible survivors. These survivors are left with nothing. Jim, having just woken up for the first time since infection’s existence due to a coma, asks, “What about the government?” to which he is told, “There is no government, no police, no army, no TV, no radio, no electricity.” The survivors are left on their own to continue surviving and to eventually form their own system of rule.

Then, in Children of Men, the remains of the government once the effects of infertility are realized are not much better than the nonexistent ones in 28 Days Later. Due to the utter hopelessness for the continuation of the human race, the corruption in the government continues until it is one where, “all foreigners (Africans, Middle Easterners and Eastern Europeans) are subject to mass incarceration and huge internment camps spring up along the coast. Refugees locked in cages awaiting deportation are a common sight on London’s streets, as are legions of soldiers and armed paramilitaries” (Brown 6). The society of this futuristic England is in shambles due to the government’s extreme downfall, and with the continuation of infertility, there is no hope of improvement.

In Parable of the Sower, the government is so corrupt that they are left in a state in which the police cannot be relied upon for the elimination of criminals and the vengeance of their victims. The government is no longer looked to as a solution for danger to the immediate characters in the novel. When the Lauren’s group finally gets to Bankole’s property to find it barren and without his relatives, Bankole goes to the police station for any information the police might have on the family’s disappearance. After the “sheriff’s deputies” ignore Bankole’s story and doubt his identity, they steal his money for “police services.” Lauren narrates, “I wonder what you have to do to become a cop. I wonder what a badge is, other than a license to steal” (Butler 316). The group is left without explanation and out of some money for simply trying to seek governmental guidance.

After analyzing the projected government systems in the cases of these dystopian plots, can we even be left with hope about the future of our government if a downfall in society occurs? Will ridding the world of the virus or corruption be the only problem, or will we have to worry about rebuilding the government afterwards as well? Even more disturbing, could the government be the cause for these projected dystopian issues?

What do we live for?

Children of Men and the Parable of the Sower both explore dystopian futures where lawlessness, chaos and poverty reign, but for very different reasons.

In Parable of the Sower, climate change and the wastage of fossil fuels has led to tangible problems like scarcity of freshwater and collapse of transport infrastructure respectively. In this hellish world, poverty and unemployment reigns, with desperate people driven to steal or kill in order to stay alive.

In Children of Men, poverty and unemployment are also huge problems, but they have not been the result of such obvious, tangible problems. When I say tangible, I mean there is an obvious link between these problems and the dystopian future they have created. For example, if water has become so scarce and thus expensive that many people can’t afford to buy enough to live, naturally it would drive some to lives of crime.

However, the particular dystopia in Children of Men was caused by the lack of hope, the lack of a future that comes with infertility.

It was not an actual lack of resources, or lack of jobs, or a future that caused this dystopia. If you examine the age range of the population at that point in time, the youngest person was 18 years old. This meant that the entire world was made up of adults. Adults who could, should they be so inclined, marshall the resources that they had to enjoy their years left on the planet. In the short term, there would be enough resources and jobs for everyone.

In fact, as the population aged and dropped, there would actually be more resources for the people left behind. A counterpoint is that the working population would decrease, but it isn’t too much of a stretch to imagine that resources could be husbanded and saved to take care of the aging population once resources like food and water could not be replenished by a fully working population.

My point is, in Children of Men, people were losing hope even though technically, they were looking at a resource surplus.

It leads one to a conclusion that most of us could come to intuitively. We don’t simply live to consume and survive. We need to know that what we are doing matters to someone. Teachers need children to teach. Doctors need babies to deliver. Idealistic teenaged volunteers need causes to fight for.

The similar dystopian futures in these two stories make the point that taking away our ability to have children is just as damaging as taking away our water.

Community Walls

“Crazy to live without a wall to protect you.” (pg. 10, Parable of the Sower)

Community is an idea so central to the future, present, and past. What is a community? Why are we so driven to gather together? For protection, for safety, for survival? For vengeance, hatred, power? For support, love, companionship? One thing remains certain above all, alone, the individual will inevitably fail.

The connotation of the word community, is almost universally positive. Think of family and friends. In communities, pain is shared and thus mitigated. “In spite of your loss and pain, you aren’t alone. you still have people who care about you and want you to be all right. You still have family.” (pg. 303 PoS) We help those in our communities and care about each other. Although it can be correctly labeled as personally beneficial, aiding others in our communities is truly a heartwarming aspect of humanity. Furthermore, it has only been through our communal efforts that humans have achieved so much.

However, each time we form a community, we must eventually build walls. We do this to signify our difference, to enjoy our independence, to create a haven. There is nevertheless the other “side-effects” of walls. They keep others out, prevent exchange. They create a mentality of us and them, of privilege and poverty. In an unforgettable scene in the film The Children of Men, we see our protagonist cross over from the chaos and poverty of public London to the decadence and splendor of private London. Everything terrible and harmful about communities is symbolized in this cross over. While the world burns, the privileged hide behind walls of hate, indifference, and tanks.

What happens when these walls come down? Shouldn’t people rejoice in this breakdown of the status quo? The Fishers of The Children of Men believe so. The animal activists in 28 Days Later thought so as well. Without walls, can we not become a global community? Communities should be porous and without boundaries. Humans should be accepting of other humans. Refugees need shelter and homes too. Admirable ideas but we deny some of human nature in we hope to fully realize such goals. Reality is balance. “When apparent stability disintegrates, as it must... people tend to give in to fear and depression, to need and greed... They divide. They struggle, one against one, group against group, for survival, position, power. They remember old hates and generate new ones, they create chaos and nurture it. They kill and kill and kill....” (pg. 103 PoS).

Is there room for community without division? Can we overcome past hates, the “Rage” that the privileged have infected the impoverished with? It is crazy to live without walls but it is also terrible to live with them.

The Africanist Identity

“Africanism – the power of illicit sexuality, chaos, madness, impropriety, anarchy, strangeness, and helplessness, hapless desire – provides a formidle field for a novel that works out the terms and maps a complete, if never formalized, aesthetics.” (Morrison, pp. 80-81)

Though “Matrix Reloaded” is a far cry from the works of Hemingway that Morrison analyzes, the Africanist identity in each is alarmingly similar. The black individual is seen as an inherently sexual being, and sexual experience between two individuals (black or not) after interacting with a black figure is particularly intense. Morpheus’ speech, which inspires Neo and Trinity to go fornicate, and moves the rest of humanity into an orgy, plays on the illicit sexuality of the Africanist identity that Morrison describes. Would the scene have the same power or make as much sense when the crowd breaks into erotic dancing if the speech was given by a white individual, or even a Latino or Asian? Though they make their sexual desires obvious when returning to Zio, it takes encouragement from a black figure to get Neo and Trinity to finally break away from the crowd.

Similarly, in Lathe of Heaven, it is Heather’s implicit “otherness,” her inherited combination of black mixed with white that fascinates Orr and influences him to find her in multiple realities. Her personality at the end, sharper, harsher, more rough and chaotic, then the grey-colored version he was married to certainly plays into the Africanist identity. Just like Morpheus, I doubt Heather would be as fascinating were her skin tone the same as the protagonist’s.

I found two quotes especially moving in "The Lathe of Heaven" almost to the point of a physical jolt - the first pertained to the dream state existing as an aquarium for Night, and the other the idea of Orr's nightmare's not being associated with dreaming, let alone sleep, but instead his manifestation of his current reality.

the first reference seems to imply that instead of our preconceived notion that night includes within it, and engulfs to a point, the phenomenon of dreaming, dreams actually own Night and put it on display - unreachable, but still available for observance. In this sense, Orr's dream-states keep him from the night, and from true sleep because of his inability to come to terms with his ability to warp reality. For Orr, there are three separate categories - wakefulness, sleep, and dreaming. Which of these is the true "now" seems to be the real question at hand.

These three phases of consciousness also seem to appear in the Matrix, but one must wonder which states the locations coincide with. Is the Matrix the sleeping state or the dream state? Is the unplugged world truly experienced in the waking state, or, as Orr seems to think, is the dreaming state the creator of reality, and therefore the ultimate truth? Finally, what does sleep mean in the Matrix, as opposed to true sleep unplugged from it? In some senses Orr and Neo are only free to truly sleep once they are unplugged from their respective machines.

If dreams are indeed another dimension of reality yet discovered, and not simply a creation of our subconscious as a way to process all of the images and thoughts in our head while we sleep, then maybe dream-state is the place in which no biases of the outside world exist. Dream-state thematically may represent infinite possibilities, and therefore a broader view not only on world-relations on a gargantuan scale, but also race-relations and social schemas.

One of the most fascinating recurring themes for me as a reader in "Lathe of Heaven" was Orr's unfailing sense of right and wrong. His moral compass was so incredibly cemented that it seemed less of an outcome of his socialization, and more of an internalized ideology that withstood, and proved applicable, for all of his unique realities.

One must also wonder, if society had crafted different social constructs for how we categorize peoples, whether race would be such large aspect. If we had named things differently, or seen scientific evidence as proving something different - in short, in another dimension of reality - how would we as individuals act towards ourselves and others? Is war, indeed, a commonality the human race shares, and is morality arguably in the same boat? Must there be an alpha and beta relationship in society, and does conflict always serve to polish the creation and continuation of societies?

Reailties and Race

One theme which has caught my interest in the recent readings and movies is that of reality. Or more specifically the existence of many overlying or alternative realities. “Neuromancer,” “The Lathe of Heaven,” and “The Matrix” all address reality in complex but essentially different ways. In “Neuromancer,” Cyberspace, a world as real as our own, is superimposed on top of the natural world, and the interplay of these two realities is central to the plot of that novel. “The Lathe of Heaven” describes a tool (the ‘Lathe’ or Orr) through which new realities are created to replace the last. “The Matrix” much like “The Lathe of Heaven,” questions the degree to which one can really understand one’s own reality, but rather than showing the fragility of reality, rejects it as nothing more than ‘the Matrix’ – the creation of the machines to subdue us in the ‘true’ reality.

I am chiefly interested in the interpretation put forth in “The Lathe of Heaven” and “The Matrix,” that the world as we know it is nothing more than our memories and the evidence of our senses. This is perhaps not directly related to race, but the fragility of reality helps to show what the writer perceives as merely a byproduct of our current reality, and what is a fundamental truth. In “The Lathe of Heaven,” it is the idea of Us and Them. The world without race or war that Orr and Haber create cannot exist without a new enemy or outsider. Thus the aliens are created. “The Matrix” is more complex, our perhaps just more confused. We know from the words of agent Smith, and again from the Architect, that the ‘perfect matrix’ was a failure. Humans rejected the idea of a perfect world, and only settled into docility when the machines provided a flawed world, one with war and violence and racism. This is not to suggest that a ‘perfect world’ as created by Haber, is desirable. What then is the most desirable state visa vi race? Are the options only inequality or uniformity, as put forth in “The Lathe of Heaven?” What other options exist?

Race beyond Skin Color

Race in The Lathe of Heaven does not just pertain to human skin color; Orr’s dreams alter the world’s methods of classification across the board, from the seemingly inconsequential to more prevalent distinctions. Apart from the character of Heather Lelache, Le Guine does not focus much on race in terms of skin color. Rather, she breaks life on Earth down further into aliens or humans, races, nationalities, and even healthy or unhealthy. They play roles just as important as skin color does for society today in respect to racial classification because they show how human classification is inevitable.

Each incarnation of the world that Haber creates using Orr has another set of human divisions. Cultures, races, and nations unite only at the threat of alien invasion, though they are only promoting further division and war in attacking another race without discovering that alien’s original intentions. In another reality, the disappearance of skin color puts everyone on the same racial scale, but suddenly humans terminate and classify one another based off of health problems. With this endless cycle of division and classification, Le Guin has the reader question whether humans are capable of living without race. Despite our best attempts at reforming the world, can we stop ourselves from judging one another? The fact that each of Haber’s/Orr’s reincarnations of the world has humanity divided, or sorted into the strong versus the weak, tells the reader that we cannot.

Rather than chiding this human flaw, Le Guin suggests that racial distinction is crucial for human identity, and it is impossible to get rid of it. Orr always notes the beauty of Lelache’s uniquely-colored and multiracial skin – when she and all the rest of humanity has turned the shade of a battleship, he feels the world has gone blander: “But the food had no taste and the people were all gray” (134). To make up for lack of racial distinction, violence against the unhealthy and as a sport has been legalized, as if humans would be so deprived of conflict without race that murder would be justified.

Along this idea, Orr realizes that his dreams cannot continually improve the world, and may not have improved the world at all, just as he notices that trying to unify humanity only leads to more division. Haber’s dream reality where “this world will be like heaven, and men will be like gods” (150) is never achieved; the world changes but the quality of life is just different, not better. Haber’s determination to ignore the evidence – that humanity needs to have its differences (racial or otherwise) and the world cannot be made perfect – reminds me of Toni Morrison’s ideas on how we treat racism nowadays. In Playing in the Dark, she talks of a “popular and academic notion that racism is a “natural”, if irritating, phenomenon” (7). It entails that we have a recognized that humans have internalized and innate racist beliefs, but that we can cure them. Another blog on this post, by LCurlin, says that, “Toni Morrison criticizes those who try to write racism out of our past or try to confine its discussion to the distant past rather than confronting it”. Just like Haber, such thinking ignores the flaws of humanity, like a need for division, and tries to quick-fix the world.

Working Toward Zion

When the word “race” comes to mind, sometimes it can bring to mind negative connotations. Our minds immediately go to the bad words; racism, discrimination, segregation, bias, race wars. Some would immediately put up a wall to the topic: Why does it always have to be about race? You’re just playing the race card. Aren’t we all part of the human race? I don’t see race, everyone should be colorblind.

It’s easy to think that by just eliminating the very idea of race, all these problems would simply evaporate. Whether it be by changing people’s minds to not notice the racial and cultural differences of others, as Dr. Haber in Ursula K. Le Guin’s novel had intended, or to physically change the appearance of the human population to eliminate racial variation, as George Orr’s “effective dream” created, ignoring or eradicating race is seen as a very positive thing.

But is it really a good thing to destroy the racial variation so inherit to humans? Of course Dr. Haber believes so, as for him the “racial problem” was solved once everyone was gray. Unfortunately, George Orr did not believe so. This new world where everyone looks the same “was intolerable”. In this new gray world, Heather Lelache, the woman he loved did not exist. To George, “her color, her color of brown, was an essential part of her not an accident,”. Heather’s very being was tied into her experience as an African-American woman, just as George Orr and Dr. Haber’s being is tied to their experience as White Americans. Just as we are the sum of our past experiences, good or bad, so do our racial identities also shape our lives. In a gray world, none of us could exist as we are now, and that, as George Orr says, is “intolerable”.

So if eradicating race as a thought process has such consequences, what should we do? We can possibly look to the Matrix’s depiction of a multiracial society. Although there seems to be an over emphasis on white and black characters, with fewer asian and hispanic representations, there is an obvious intention of a society completely harmonized with it’s diversity. Despite Zion’s drab setting among steel machines and damp caves, somehow it has a very vibrant, colorful, warm atmosphere to it. This is most assuredly because of the racial diversity and harmony shown among it’s inhabitants. Would Zion feel the same if everyone in the city were full of nothing but gray-skinned people, or even all people of the same race? Probably not. Zion represents the few humans able to resist the Matrix, standing together against the gargantuan threat of the machines. It is fitting that Zion represents a diverse population, or at least the appearance of one.

From all of our diverse racial, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds, we can truly create a society of pure beauty. The answer to solving any racial difficulties should not be to ignore or eradicate the existence of race. We must embrace the variation, and work towards the harmonized unity of our differences. Diversity makes for a much more interesting, and satisfying world.

Michael Randolph

At first glance, it would seem that Ursula K. Leguin’s The Lathe of Heaven and Toni Morrison’s Playing in the Dark have nothing in common. However, upon reading both books, the idea of freedom and what it means to be truly free can be seen in both books. Throughout the second portion of Playing in the Dark, Morrison discusses the notion of how the white man, even in America, the land of the free, needs the black man to be enslaved to truly feel freedom. I found this idea to be interesting. We live in a society today where there aren’t slaves and where everyone is free and “equal,” and yet don’t we all feel freedom. Morrison says it best when she notes on page 56 that “the fatal ending (of Huck Finn) becomes the elaborate deferment of a necessary and necessarily unfree Africanist character’s escape, because freedom has no meaning to Huck or to the text without the specter of enslavement.” This makes me believe that humans are not capable of understanding freedom, or anything else for that matter, unless they are forced to live without it, or see someone who is. The fact that Jim is a slave on this adventure allows the reader to see it in a riskier light, because he is trying to become free, while Huck is on a simple adventure. However, Morrison does make a good point by saying that “nothing highlighted freedom … like slavery”(38). This drastic contrast shows the difference between the two. Without slavery, there cannot be freedom, or it cannot be truly appreciated. After all, if everyone is a slave, no one is free and nobody knows what it is like to be free.
This idea of not knowing can be translated to not knowing what freedom is can also be seen in Ursula K. Leguin’s The Lathe of Heaven. In The Lathe of Heaven, the argument is slightly different. In the beginning of the novel we find that George Orr is a broken man who is taking drugs to keep from dreaming. In the novel rather than the examples that Morrison uses, however, George is not enslaved, in terms of the modern idea of slavery, but he is controlled. His freedom is taken away. He simply wants one thing, to stop “effectively” dreaming, he just wants to be normal. However, Dr. Haber essentially enslaves him and makes him his slave so that he can shape the world the way he wants it to be. George’s “slavery” does not come from race, but from his gift. He is special and therefore Haber wants to be able to recreate the process. Leguin does bring in the idea of race creating tension and then leading to war over freedom when she has George change the world and everyone is at war. People in the Middle East are fighting and ironically she has reverse apartheid going on in South Africa. Haber has Orr change this world and make it into one that is void of race and color, where everyone is gray, so that there is “no question of race” (129). Since Leguin makes the change “biological and absolute,” (129) she is saying that prejudice is due to our physical appearance. People go to war over basic differences and people will all be free and equal if we are all the same because no one will enslave their own brother. I find this idea to be quite interesting since George is still enslaved and the aliens are still not treated equally. While there is no more racism and people are “equal,” George is still enslaved by Haber in every world he creates. This makes me think that you can’t eliminate racism and thus give everyone absolute freedom because people always want to be superior to other people and want power and control.
I believe that the idea of oppression based on differences is also evident in the Matrix. In the Matrix, it is obvious that people’s freedom has been violated. The creator of the Matrix tells Neo that the oracle created a system where 99% of humans subconsciously submit to the Matrix, and thus are not free. The A.I.’s like Agent Smith enslave the humans in the Matrix because they believe themselves to be better than the humans. They do not think that the humans can ever hope to come close to them, and thus are surprised that Neo can defeat them. Ultimately, maybe they enslave the humans to prove that they can and that they are indeed superior to us. Like George does in The Lathe of Heaven, humans do rebel, because we will not be enslaved. Ultimately the Wachowski brothers take the same opinion of Leguin in terms of race amongst humans not being an issue, but race, or a state of being is still an issue where people see each other as superior. After all, if everyone is free and equal it much harder to prove one’s own superiority as a race.

An Alternate Source of Today's Racism?

Although the majority of people in this world would prefer race to be a nonissue, race is still remarkably apparent in society. But one can question if the persons with skin of color do not impulsively set themselves apart from those of no color, as opposed to the other way around. Factually, yes, both of these theories are forms of racism, but this idea still raises the question of the origin of racism in today’s world. Do people of race instinctively create an “Africanist persona”(Morrison 17) to predominately identify themselves with? In Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Lathe of Heaven, I found it interesting that Heather Lelache, the only character in the novel who is dark-skinned or “black”, is the first character to make the physical characteristic of skin color at all relevant. Although Orr brings up the trait in his initial description of Lelache, the first time her skin color is discussed in terms of her personality is in her monologue concerning her parents.
“But I’ll tell you, what really gets me is, I can’t decide which color I am. I mean, my father was a black, a real black – oh, he has some white blood, but he was black – and my mother was a white, and I’m neither one. See, my father really hated my mother because she was white. But he also loved her. But I think she loved his being black much more than she loved him. Well, where does that leave me? I never have figured it out” (Le Guin 104).
She speaks of race in such objective terms that she boils the relationship between her parents down to the color of their skin. Granted, Lelache was most likely raised with this mentality, but even after her parents have been deceased for years, it is clear that Lelache still holds her skin color very much accountable for who she is and isn’t. If Lelache didn’t view the subject of her skin color as a major relevancy to who she is, she would not have gone into so much detail about her racial roots in front of a man she barely knew. Clearly, she believes that the explanation of her origin is a key for other people to understand her as a person. In Playing in the Dark, Toni Morrison further emphasizes this point by explaining her experience of reading in the mind set of a writer: “The fabrication of an Africanist persona is reflexive; an extraordinary meditation on the self; a powerful exploration of the fears and desires that reside in the writerly conscious” (Morrison 17). African Americans are rooted with the inclination toward reflecting on their Africanist selves. According to Toni Morrison, to have the notion that skin color has a relevancy to one’s personality is an impulse of the colored population, as a whole. No matter if the person in question was raised with this mentality, or if society imprinted it on him, the inclination to having “an Africanist persona” is manifest. Is this idea of African Americans inventing a persona specifically concerning their African roots relevant? Could this idea exhibited in both The Lathe of Heaven and Playing in the Dark be a significant factor of racism?

Jellyfish! 9/22/09

Let me begin with the jellyfish metaphor that comes at the start of The Lathe of Heaven. Who or what is being referenced in this metaphor?

Is Orr the jellyfish, being tugged along by Haber, a powerless creature enslaved by his dreams and Haber's control over them? But jellyfish have no influence, and thus this metaphor falls short: Orr's influence over the universe is undeniable; his mind changes reality, everyone's reality.

So, does this mean that the people of earth are the jellyfish, as their realities are subject to the will of Haber and Orr, together with the Augmentor?

Could it be Haber? Haber's seems to carry the most power of any character, as he is the one feeding Orr the dream-subjects through hypnotic suggestion. But it is not until Orr's dream about "The Plague" that Haber truly realizes what power he has, and what he has already done (become the founder and Director of the Oregon Oneirological Institute). Until this point, Haber is just as much a jellyfish as anyone, unaware - though perhaps willingly - of his influence, but subject to the changes he and Orr have made nonetheless.

This all seems a bit forced; Haber does not fit the metaphor.

"What will the creature made all of seadrift do on the dry sand of daylight; what will the mind do, each morning, waking?" (Le Guin 2). This sentence, which leads into the beginning of the actual story, helped me get a better grasp. The image of a jellyfish, with its moist and delicate exterior, on dry land draws an immediate parallel to Orr's physical experience in the following paragraph, where brain is seared by light that forcibly enters through unclosed eyes. This leads me to believe that Orr must be the jellyfish. Let me try to expand upon this metaphor to make it fit.

Orr has been a jellyfish all his life, adrift, a victim to circumstances that appear outside of his immediate control - his effective dreams, his guilt and fear over the dreams, his fall into drug abuse. He is thrust into daylight, onto the beach, and must take control of his life, of his dreams.

We briefly mentioned in class the theme of blackness in The Matrix trilogy, and how it was a symbol for humanity. The most striking evidence of this theme was in the orgy scene in The Matrix Reloaded - a tribal dance with African drum beat. I would like to discuss in more detail the connection between blackness/Africanness and humanity as a whole.

Humanity and Power

Is it more human to want to change the world (past, present, or future), or to shy away from such expansive power?
In The Lathe of Heaven, Haber and Orr have fundamentally different approaches to power. Haber thirsts for power, although he does not even accept his own ambition, instead convincing himself that he is working for the betterment of mankind, asking us to accept that his own rise to power was merely a side effect. At first, Haber appears to be more sane than Orr, but as the plot progresses he spends an increasing amount of time with the Augmentor and less time with other people. In the end, his efforts at change leave him completely mad, suggesting that perhaps man isn’t equipped to seek out power with such abandon. Haber even asks, “…isn’t that man’s very purpose on earth- to do things, change things, run things, make a better world?” (82) In contrast, Orr, initially considered crazy, becomes more human through his relationship with Heather Lelache. But, at the same time, Orr also begins to associate more with the aliens and becomes stronger for it. That implies that perhaps humans are incapable of handling that much power safely. In The Matrix Reloaded power over one’s environment is shown in a much more positive light. Within the Matrix, humans, and Neo in particular, excel at adapting the environment to their own needs, even though it is a medium designed for machines. In fact, exerting that power is the only way to survive. However, even when control is necessary it can cause a negative response, as evidenced by Cypher in the first movie. He preferred the ignorance of being one among many rather than being singled out and having great power. This same type of power can be found in the real world in writers’ ability to reshape the past. In Playing in the Dark, Toni Morrison criticizes those who try to write racism out of our past or try to confine its discussion to the distant past rather than confronting it.
Another idea I found interesting was that race is an inherent part of one’s identity. In Lathe, race is only mentioned in reference to Heather Lelache. As Orr realizes, “Her color, her color of brown, was an essential part of her, not an accident… She could not exist in the gray people’s world.” (130) Her identity is so tied to the color of her skin that Orr cannot imagine her being any other color, even though it is in his interest to. However, it is interesting that neither Orr nor Haber’s description rested so heavily on race or any other singular attribute. Just as Morrison says, any character that isn’t specifically described otherwise is assumed to be white. Morrison also discusses how blackness is used to define whiteness in American literature. Without unspoken blackness to contrast with, American whiteness would be meaningless. I think it is interesting how both works place such a large emphasis on race as a part of identity. It leads to the question, would you be able to exist in a world of gray people?

Prominence of Black Characters in the Matrix

The term Africanist is introduced in Toni Morrison’s book, and she describes it not as the study of African history, but rather “the denotative and connotative blackness that African peoples have come to signify, as well as the entire range of views, assumptions, readings and misreadings that accompany Eurocentric learning about these people.”

The Matrix Reloaded definitely has strong Africanist themes, with a generally positive illustrations of “the connotative blackness that African people...signify”. To make these illustrations possible, there is a noticably disproportionate number of black characters in the movie. If you dig a little deeper, you realize that it isn’t just the number of characters, but the fact that most of the protagonists are black, while the major antagonists in the movie are all white (the agents). To drive the point even further, among the protagonists, it is a definite trend that the stronger, more influential characters are black, whereas white characters play more cautious, less influential characters. These include the head of the defence forces, Captain Lock, the inspirational leader Morpheus, who delivers the rallying call in the Temple of Zion and Captain Niobe, whose unparalleled skills as a pilot eventually save countless lives in the final battle.

Oftentimes these strong black characters actually have a more cautious, less effective white counterpoint. For example, Captain Lock’s practicality in the face of the invasion is contrasted to the Head Councillor’s faith in Neo (although this turns out to be the wrong viewpoint, it still points towards Captain Lock’s masculinity.) Captain Niobe decision to support Neo and eventually the salvation of mankind also finds its counterpoint in one of the white captains who is seen as overly practical.

One might argue that these cases contradict each other. After all, in the first situation I am postulating that Captain Lock’s practicality is a positive, and in the second Niobe’s faith is a positive. However, this contradiction actually strengthens the point that the Matrix has very positive (if that is the right word) Africanist themes. To illustrate this, let us take the stance that faith is eventually the right option. The way the scenes were shot, even when Captain Lock chose the wrong option, he was shown to be more forceful and masculine, standing up and facing down the Councillor.

Toni Morrison takes the presence of such Africanist themes in all American literature and films to be something of a given. She states that “major...characteristics of our natural literature - individualism, masculinity...[might actually be] responses to a dark, abiding, signing Africanist presence”. The fact that Captain Lock, Naobi and Morpheus are all strong symbols of such characteristics could be an illustration of this point.

I feel that black characters having such prominence in the Matrix is not a show of bias or reverse racism but rather of an ideal that we can work towards, because so often in our racialized world, not all races have an equal prominence.