Octavia E. Butler's Parable Of The Sower

In the novel Parable of the Sower, Octavia E. Butler demonstrates a world where the climate has drastically changed, everything is increased in price, and the people live separated into walled communities. The high class have secured walls that are under top surveillance, the middle class is barely surviving with their wall nearly shattered, and the lower class, where the wall is nonexistent, lives in complete poverty. The majority of the population is battling to survive, whereas the small portion of the rich are carefree. Lauren, the main character, lives in the middle class gated community. Because of the danger of the wall collapsing, people in this section prepare by learning how to use weapons such as, a gun. Lauren suffers from Hyper

Her father biked with co-workers five blocks from the entrance but then disappeared before reaching back home. Lauren and a search party went to find Reverend Olumina ’s body but failed to do so. He was pronounced dead. After the death of her father she considers moving away from the neighborhood realizing how much worse the lack of safety is in the community. Lauren finally preaches what she feel the community should do. Lauren states, “I preached from Luke, chapter eighteen, verses one through eight: the parable of the importunate window. It’s one I’ve always liked. A widow is so persistent in her demands for justice that she over comes the resistance of a judge who fears neither God nor man. She wears him down. Moral: The weak can overcome the strong if the weak persist. Persisting isn’t always safe , but it’s often necessary ” (Butler 134). Lauren is trying to explain that despite the tragedies that occurred, them as a community should stick together and stay strong. She explains to the community about the current cycle that her father and the adults created is not going to work out forever. While being under the current cycle, many outsiders snuck their way inside the community and stole money and food. Not only that, the watchers noticed that the thieves carry

She mentions to the crowd about her recurring nightmares where she is levitating and flies toward the door of her room. She ends up teaching herself how to levitate, just as, later on, she will teach herself new surviving skills. But before she can fly through the door, the wall begins to burn. Lauren is unable to get through having the fear that the dream will happen in reality, killing, injuring, and burning her and her community. Lauren sent a message to her people where some agreed and impressed that she is so much like her father. She is doing this for her father because her father built the bunch of houses that are within the community. In the novel Emergent strategy it states, ”Humans, especially humans who persist in trying to transform the conditions of life, are remarkably resilient. We experience so much loss, pain, hardship, attack—and we persist! Resilience is in our nature, and we recover from things that we would be justified in giving up over, again and again" (86-7). This helps explain Lauren’s speech to continue with life, stay strong, and to stick together despite the horrible events that occur. She takes her survival skills to use and tries to let the community be involved with