Haj Esmaeili 1

Atrin Haj Esmaeili

Professor Smith

English M01B

December 2 2015

Dystopian World in Parable of the Sower

Parable of the Sower, by Octavia E. Butler, brings back many familiar themes from

human history, such as slavery, lack of equal rights, and decline of civilization, which makes it

hard to put her book in only one major genre classification. Despite that, Butler’s book can fit in

the dystopian literature section. Many different criteria and characteristics of a dystopian

literature, such as a collapsed civilization, lack of justice, and restriction of freedom and

information, are seen throughout the book. In addition to that, Butler is making her opinion clear

to the reader that the world created in the book Parable of the Sower could very likely be the

future of the our real world.

A utopia is known as a perfect world. Problems such as war, disease, poverty, oppression,

discrimination, and inequality are evident in a utopian place/world. Sir Thomas More made up

the word ‘utopia’ from Greek roots. In 1516, he wrote a book called Utopia. Depending on the

Greek roots used, utopia can either mean 'no place' or 'good place.’ On the other hand, a dystopia

is a world in which nothing is perfect. A dystopia is a novel, created usually in the near future in

which negative trends in present time society have been exaggerated to produce a disturbing,

unwanted, sometimes-nightmarish society (Pryor).

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Dystopias are the opposite of utopias, which we see in Butler’s reading. In Parable of the

Sower, Butler takes a variety of social issues and trends in the United States, from the 1980s and

1990s, and projects them forward by thirty or forty years. No solutions have been found and the

problems have become even worse then what is expected today, to the point that civilized life

has virtually broken down.

As we see in Parable of the Sower, Lauran’s family is living in locked up in a gated

community named Robledo. The middle classes of Robledo, shelter in their small community

that they have build a wall around it to protect themselves from the rampant crime and violence

that occurs in the open areas. People living there think they are safe from the dangers of the real

world, but this is hardly true, as it is seen the community being attacked several times through

the book until it is finally burned down at the beginning of chapter 14 (Butler 153). An issue in

the late twentieth century was the increasing popularity of gated communities. These were a

response by the middle classes to fear of rising crime rates in urban areas. Gated residential

communities were particularly common in California. Access to these communities was

controlled by the presence of gates and fences and armed security guards (Blakely). The same

situation we see in the book. People living in these communities are restricted from the outside

world, possibly from freedom, and can only understand what is happening in their community.

Most the people living there did not know seemingly simple creatures such as dogs and other

animals. For example mid-way through Chapter four, the people of Robledo take the kids out for

some shooting practice when dogs attack them, some of the children do not know what they are.

Lauren asks Aura, “You’ve never seen one before have you?’ She shook her head” (Butler 42).
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Lauren has some experience and knows that they are dogs, but Aura did not. Lauren also

comments later, "I've read books about them [dogs] being intelligent, loyal pets, but that's all in

the past, dogs now are wild animals who will eat a baby if they can." (Butler 206). She says this

after Travis, Gloria, and the baby are attacked by dogs. Maybe if most of these people were more

aware of the outside world they would know more about dogs. This change in normal traits of

animals, such as dogs, in the future can relate that Parable of the Sower fits in the dystopian

literature section.

Homeless drug addicts are a big danger to the other people in Parable of the Sower.

Drugs such as Paracetco, which makes the user retain knowledge more easily but causes hyper

empathy in offsprings, and especially an addiction to the drug pyro, which makes people want to

start fires, is commonly seen throughout the book. Homelessness was a important issue that was

in the forefront of public concern in the 1980s. There were an estimated two million homeless

people in America in 1989. The popularity of designer drugs that can have serious side effects

was another pressing social issue (Torrey). Butler puts these two issues together and presents the

open areas as festering sores of homelessness and drug addiction. Lauren writs about Pyro that,

“the reporters say that it makes watching a fire better than sex” (Butler 54). People that are using

Pyro are very dangerous. We see in the book that these people attacked Robledo and burned it

down. Fires and attacks are killing many people every day in the book. These all represent a

collapsed civilization, where living wildly like animals is more common than everyday life. Such

a world is unwanted by any human.

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Most of the time the fires created by the people using Pyro would not be put out; the

police and the fire departments would not come and help if they were not going to be paid. The

world Butler has created in Parable of the Sower worsens the problem of a lack of justice and

makes it even bigger, as it is understood in the book, “so many people here on earth can’t afford

water, food, or shelter” (Butler 16). Since water is more expensive than gas, most people do not

have the money to pay police for problems, fires, and safety, which is a big problem in their

world. On average, Americans spends about $90 billion a year on private security, which is a lot

more than they do on the public police, where is about $40 billion. Even the government itself

spends more money hiring private guards than it does paying for police forces. America has a

larger private-security business than most western countries, but nearly everywhere in the world

there are more private policemen than public ones (Jacks). In Parable of the Sower, The

government is not helping its citizens and is more involved in activities centered upon their own

benefit and sending people to space. There do not seem to be any laws in California at the time

the novel takes place, Nor is there anyone obeying the laws, which it is all again related to the

police. Most police and securities are private ones and are employed by the wealthy, which it all

comes back to an uncivilized place, where justice is not present. Such a place is hard for any

human to accept.

One major problem seen in Parable of the Sower is lack of humanity. We see people

attacking other humans and killing them. Lauren quotes, "It looked so peaceful, and yet people

out there were trying to kill each other, and no doubt succeeding. Strange how normal it's

become for us to lie on the ground and listen while nearby, people try to kill each other” (259).
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This was Lauren reflects as she listens to a gun battle and looks out at the trees moving in the

evening breeze. This is not only unacceptable in today’s society, it is strictly punished and it is

seen as an inhuman act. But in addition to killing people, we see that humans eat humans as well.

This might not be happening in the real world, yet if the future of our world follows Parable of

the Sower’s world this could happen as well. This is the period when the environmental dystopia

can be seen. It is the time where the population explodes uncontrollably, and there is not enough

food for everyone, and so the cities are filled with countless starving people. This is the time of

total collapse of government services. The lack of humanity is one more reason why Parable of

the Sower could be considered a dystopian literature.

Another contemporary issue that Butler used to create her dystopia was illiteracy, which

was on the rise in 1980s America. Fifteen percent of Rowan County’s estimated population of

about one hundred thousand people 16 years and older lacked basic prose literacy skills in 2003

(Byrnes). Lacking in any of those areas means a person could have trouble describing their

health problems, reading prescription bottles and warning labels, which all lead to lack of

information from the surroundings of that person. In the novel Zahra, Allie and Jill cannot write.

Many of the characters cannot read or write because they did not have the opportunity or the

reason to learn. Knowing how to read and write seems useless in a world where every day people

are fighting for his or her life and just trying to survive. A nation in which most of its citizens do

not know how to read or write makes it an uncivilized nation where lack of information can be

seen throughout its citizens.

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Butler brings negative trends in present time society, such as problems of walled

communities, growing rates of homelessness, usage of different drugs, private security, illiteracy

problems, and most importantly lack of humanity, and exaggerated them to produce a possible

near future for us. She creates this disturbing, unwanted, sometimes-nightmarish society, which

puts Parable of the Sower in the dystopian literature section.

Throughout Butler’s book, she tries to make the point clear to her readers that the real

world could have a dystopian future similar to Parable of the Sower’s world. As soon as people

realize that the future is going to be different from the past, the idea of dystopias taking place in

the future comes almost automatically because they start to realize that small problems that are

slowly growing will be big problems in the future. Dystopian and utopian visions from the 19th

century focused on injustice, strife, peace, and war, but especially on socioeconomic justice,

alleviating the gap between the rich and the poor (Crowley). A great example is Edward

Bellamy's novel Looking Backward, which was a great success and actually started a movement

in the late 19th century for change. Dystopian works create this path to understand what people

are worrying about. They reflect a society's insecurities. There are basically two types of

dystopia. The first one is war of all against all and people scrabbling for the remains of a

collapsed civilization and the other is the total collapse of society, which we see in Parable of

the Sower. Butler makes the reader realize that our society can collapse as well. She is writing

"hard" science fiction, which means that all the science is supposed to be right, as opposed to

"soft," that they don't care as much (Bova). She makes such writing by creating a world that is

similar and possible to the real world, yet makes todays problems bigger in the near future. Just
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by gathering this information, we can concluded that she is trying to make her point clear to the

reader, which is that Parable of the Sower’s world could be the future of our world.

Even though Parable of the Sower can fit perfectly in the dystopian literature, it has many

other themes involved in it that makes it hard to classify it as one genre. Throughout the book,

we can see many examples of African American Literature and racism. Three are white, Harry,

Jill and Allie, three are black, Lauren, Travis, and Bankole, and two are Hispanic, Zahra, and

Natividad. This acts as a corrective to the racism that is apparent elsewhere in the society

depicted in the novel because we see people from many different races living next to each other

with peace and having good connections. For example, Lauren thinks that African-Americans

and Hispanics would not be welcome in Olivar (Butler 207) and she also says on more than one

occasion that on the road, racially mixed couples are likely to be singled out for attack. Also

examples of religious writing are seen throughout the book, such as Lauren trying to create a

new place/religion. For example, "God is Change, and in the end, God does prevail. But we have

something to say about the whens and the whys of that end" (295), this is Lauren’s thoughts after

she has led a discussion of Earthseed philosophy. With that said, Butler brings many different

themes together in her book, which makes this reading resist a specific genre classification.

Overall, even though Butler brings together many different themes such as slavery, lack

of equal rights, and decline of civilization in Parable of the Sower, her book can perfectly be

placed in the dystopian literature. She brings many different factors of such a writing, like

problems of walled communities that brings restrictions, homelessness and usage of different
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drugs that creates social problems, private security that creates inequality between people, and

most importantly lack of humanity, which all makes a disturbing, unwanted society that puts

Parable of the Sower in the dystopian literature section. In addition to that, she is creating such a

book to make her over all point clear to the reader, which is that our world could have the same

fate such as that in the Parable of the Sower’s world.