Parable Of The Sower By Octavia E. Butler

Contemporary novel, is realism, takes the real issues of society to be the themes to compose to give the readers the true picture, familiar society around them. The message that the writer wants to send the readers through realistic fiction is a vision, a way of listening, feeling, emotions, thoughts of social issues in reality. "Parable of the Sower" by Octavia E. Butler is about a fictional society where the issues of race, gender, politics, religion, and sexuality are as bad as they can be. In "Parable of the Sower, Octavia uses the events occur around Lauren Olamina to indirectly present the contemporary issues not only in the novel, but also in the reality; especially, these issues is not a private matter of the United States, but also

Octavia does not mention this issue directly, but the readers can see it in this novel. Through the beginning to the end of this novel, the appearance of the homeless is not being emphasized, but the readers can see that they are everywhere. From the beginning to the middle of the novel, they are being mentioned as the one who steal the stuff, kill the people, burn the house. And at the end, they are on the freeway. This issue reflects one of the fears of my country. In Vietnam, the homeless are everywhere on all the roads and especially are at the places where have clearly the division between rich and poor. The homeless wanders everywhere. They seem harmless, but because of the rich and poor differentiation can take them to the illegal path such as robbery, murder. The crime rate are increasing; that is not good and extremely dangerous. Octavia partly expresses it through her

Octavia points out an issue in another issue that what issue hidden under homelessness is illiteracy. Resolving this issue is extremely important, and why is it so important? At the beginning of this novel, Octavia mentions Keith, Lauren’s brother, is being taught by Cory, his mother. Thus, he knows how to read and write, although he feels bored of learning. But when he leaves his community, he reads the instructions to help his friends learn to use their stolen equipment, he reads for a living. By this minor detail, Octavia shows us how important illiteracy is and how it is an issue. The homeless don’t know how to read and write, and they are majority compared to Olamina’s family. This detail presents that the number of literate people are much less than the number of illiterate people. This reflects the fear of my culture. In fact, not only in the United States, but especially in the countries still suffer the consequences of war such as Vietnam, illiteracy still and increasing. The percentage of illiteracy in Vietnam concentrates mainly in the rural areas, where the media, state difficult to access. Illiteracy, low education level, affects the country, makes the country cannot grow. This issue is critical in