Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler
I read Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler recently. A dystopian fantasy, set in the 2020s and 30s, that seems worryingly prescient now.
What’s the story?
The Parable of the Sower is a dystopian fantasy novel set in Southern California in the 2020s. It is a place ravaged by drought, fires, earthquakes and storms. But its chief problem is the lack of any proper functioning public services, you have to pay the police, for example. Nothing is free and prices are out of control. A few thousand dollars will only feed you for a couple of weeks.
We learn about this world through the journal entries of a black teenage girl who lives in a walled community called Robledo. The community of well educated middle class folk have jobs that would in our world be well paying; a professor, tech worker, business owner, etc. But they are barely making enough to feed and clothe themselves. Many of neighbourhood children wander around without shoes.
The girl, Lauren Oya Olamina, is 15 years old. Her father is a professor and a Baptist minister. He is strict, to the point of being physically abusive at times. The whole community of Robledo is socially conservative. Lauren admires her father greatly and she is his favourite, but she does not share his religious beliefs. She has her own religion that she is developing/discovering that she calls Earthseed.
Earthseed
The key concept of Earthseed is that God is change. Everything that you come into contact with changes you and you change it. And so you shape God by your behaviour. You are born with potential not purpose. And you discover your purpose through developing your potential.
It’s very much a call to positive action philosophy. It isn’t attempting to comfort with its words because Lauren’s world is very chaotic and dangerous. You must be vigilant, and lucky, to survive it. Soothing words will not help in such an environment. Only verses that propel you forwards, compel you to rise after every change that has floored you, are what Lauren finds to believe in.
Crumbling Community
Robledo residents struggle to get by in dilapidated houses that once made up a nice upper middle class neighbourhood. They grow a lot of their own food. They have to deal with thieves breaching the walls of their community, robbing, vandalising and attacking the community’s homes and residents.
Outside their community we have the sense that the world is completely lawless. There is some drug called Pyro which makes its users delight in watching flames. They like to shave off all their hair, paint themselves in bright colours and set fire to things, houses, people, whatever. There is a lot of crime, a lot of theft, a lot of murder, rape, a lot of violent crime of all sorts. Dogs roam wild in the hills and eat vulnerable people, old and young.
Nowhere to run to
Beyond the walls of Robledo it’s a frightening chaotic world and the perceptive Lauren is keenly aware that their walls will only protect them for so long. She tries to sound the alarm. Her father ends up hearing a garbled version of her fears, and tries to talk some sense into her. Lauren begins to see that he, and probably all the adults, share her fears. The problem is how can you make a good escape plan when there’s nowhere safe to run to?
We follow Lauren as she loses close to everything, and must build a life for herself time and again from the ashes of disaster. In The Parable of the Sower we only see this world from her perspective. We get a couple of different viewpoints in The Parable of the Talents.
Change Shapes Her, She Shapes Change
In the Parable of the Talents we follow Olamina through her adulthood. First as young woman building a community from the ground up, then battling against terrible injustice and constraints, but all the while being a leader, knowing she has a message to share. She’s not a simple character. She might be described as abrasively strong. But she cares for others and there is no denying her ability to move herself and others forward.
A Good Read but Uncomfortable & Disturbing
If you enjoy dystopian fantasy or things like The Walking Dead, there are no zombies or supernatural elements in these books, but if you enjoy that kind of thing you will definitely enjoy these books. Be aware that they are very violent and filled with all sorts of abuse, but they tell a great tale of survival.
If dystopian fantasy doesn’t interest you but you’re interested in America and the divisive rhetoric that has gained popularity there, and here in Europe, then I’d still recommend checking them out.
How is it so familiar?
There is a lot to these books, interesting layered characters, interesting societal dynamics, just lots of stuff happening that causes you to think about things. But the reason why I just had to share my thoughts was because some of the things happening in their nightmarish dystopia are jaw-droppingly familiar today.
But let me be clear, these books are dystopian fantasies. There are wars, attacks and all manner of abuses going on in the books that are part of a dystopian fantasy and, thankfully, not happening today. That’s obvious, I know. But I wanted to state that plainly in case any Trump/MAGA fans want to dismiss what I’m saying as the deluded analysis of someone who can’t tell fantasy from reality. The America of Butler’s Parables books is not America today. But elements of that scary world are a little too familiar to ignore.
Christian America
In the first book a conservative evangelical Christian political movement, Christian America, are on the rise. They gain popularity with promises to bring order to the chaos, to restore America to its number 1 position in the world by making it a godly Christian country once again.
Christian America is both a church and political movement headed by a man called Jarret. He becomes for a time President Jarret.
Is Trump President Jarret?
It is disturbing how reminiscent some of his rhetoric is of Trump. Jarret runs on a campaign of Make America Great Again. I think that Trump has relied on Christian Nationalists to gain power, both in 2016 and 2024. And his rhetoric and policies are often about pandering to the extreme wing of this movement.
But I don’t think Donald Trump is really a Christian Nationalist. I don’t think Trump has any particular ideology other than Do Right By Donald Trump – and keep on the right side of lethally powerful autocrats. Which makes it even more important that America wakes up to the threat that the far-right religious movement poses to civil liberties and the very workings of the country. Because that threat does not end with President Trump.
Was Trump the inspiration for President Jarret? No. The Parable of the Sower was published in 1993 and the Parable of the Talents in 1998. The religious right has been on the rise in American politics for decades. And I suspect the more extreme side of the conservative evangelical political movement is definitely the inspiration for Christian America.
JD Vance deserves a mention here
Things that JD Vance says actually remind me more of their rhetoric. For example, Vance’s speech at the Security conference in Munich back in February, where he talked about the real threat to Europe being internal, its retreat from its own values. He couched his remarks, his scolding, as being about protecting democracy and free speech. But the examples he gave made it clear that he was promoting a Christian Nationalist agenda, decrying measures to stop far-right anti-migrant politicians taking power, and criticising laws that proscribe hate-speech or similar actions against minorities.
I do not consider exclusionary policies and supremacist beliefs to be European values. They are certainly part of our history. But I would like us to completely leave all those “values” as far behind us as possible. It’s sickening to see these old attitudes gaining traction in Europe once again. We need to do everything we can to halt their advance.
To be clear, Trump’s own talking points are just as appalling. But he appears to play up to right-wing evangelicals and white supremacists mainly because he knows it will give him power and, provided he doesn’t institute any policies they strongly disagree with, their support is of an unquestioning sort.
Who benefits?
Trump’s actions seem mostly to be about causing chaos and playing the tough but loveable rogue-ruler for his base. It would be funny if there weren’t real consequences to his act.
He also seems worryingly determined to do things that please Vladimir Putin. Why? I don’t know. Maybe because Russian business people have played an essential role in helping him secure finance and they have invested in a number of his properties, and all the big players in Russia operate with Putin’s blessing – or not at all. Perhaps Trump has a keen interest in not souring that relationship? Who knows?
But he appears to be determined to dismantle or dangerously reduce key government agencies in America and to destroy relations with her long standing allies. Why on earth would he float the idea of annexing Canada? Who benefits from Trump’s shock statements and actions? It’s certainly not the American people.
It would be great to get Octavia Butler’s thoughts on what is happening today. Sadly she passed away in 2006.
Excerpts
You probably think I’m exagerating when I say things in the book seem jaw-droppingly familiar. And because I know most people who read this haven’t and probably won’t read these books I wanted to copy and paste in some pieces from Parable of the Talents about Jarret, Christian America and its supporters that felt uncomfortably familiar or possible in our world today.
In the books, besides the danger posed by Pyro addicts, is the threat posed by unofficial Christian America klan-style groups who burn “heathens” out of house and home, and worse.
Jarret condemns the burnings, but does so in such mild language, that his people are free hear what they want to hear.
Chapter 1
Jarret’s supporters are more than a little seduced by Jarret’s talk of making America great again. He seems to be unhappy with certain other countries. We could wind up in a war. Nothing like a war to rally people around flag, country, and great leader.
Chapter 2
Jarret’s supporters are more than a little seduced by Jarret’s talk of making America great again. He seems to be unhappy with certain other countries. We could wind up in a war. Nothing like a war to rally people around flag, country, and great leader.
Chapter 2
In fairness, this applies to a lot of people…
Once [Jarret]’s made everyone who isn’t like him sound evil, then he can blame them for problems he knows they didn’t cause. That’s easier than trying to fix the problems.
Chapter 4
He’s had to distance himself from the worst of his followers. But he still knows how to rouse his rabble, how to reach out to poor people, and sic them on other poor people. How much of this nonsense does he believe, I wonder, and how much does he say just because he knows the value of dividing in order to conquer and to rule?
Chapter 5
This may be more reminiscent of Christian Nationalists than Trump. But he relies on their support and very deliberately courts it.
President Jarret and his followers in Christian America believed that one of the things that had gone wrong with the country was the intrusion of women into “men’s business.” I’ve seen recordings of him saying this and large audiences of both men and women cheering and applauding wildly.
Chapter 13
This one sounds way too familiar for comfort…
If he doesn’t like what they’re doing, he should make some effort to stop them. He shouldn’t want them to make their insanity part of his political image.
On the other hand, one way to make people afraid of you is to have a crazy side – a side of yourself or your organisation that’s dangerous and unpredictable – willing to do any damned thing
Chapter 18
In the America of this dystopian fantasy, the public education system has not been properly funded or supported, and it breaks down in the 2020s. Education is left largely up to parents.
[I’m sorry if the language of the excerpt below sounds judgemental and offensive, I’d advise reading the book for better context.]
“So,” Nia said, “poor, semi-literate, and illiterate people became financially responsible for their children’s elementary education. If they were alcoholics or addicts or prostitutes or if they had all they could do just to feed their kids and maybe keep some sort of roof over their heads, that was just too bad!
“And no one thought about what kind of society we were building with such stupid decisions. People who could afford to educate their children in private schools were glad to see the government finally stop wasting their tax money, educating other people’s children.
“They seemed to think they lived on Mars. They imagined that a country filled with poor, uneducated, unemployable people somehow wouldn’t hurt them!
Chapter 20
I added emphasis to that last line because dismantling the Department of Education is literally one of Trump’s stated desires. It’s also part of the Christian Nationalist agenda. Trump may say he wants to leave it up to each state to administer education, but that could create a very uneven level of education throughout the country, no? I don’t know enough about America but I know that failing to adequately fund and support essential public services, like education, is such an obvious act of self-harm.
I started putting this into a post today. It’s not finished. But I just saw Trump is planning to sign an executive order today that aims to hobble the Department of Education. Trump is planning to sign an executive order today that aims to hobble the Department of Education. Time to get marching?
Know Your History, Protect Your Future
Liberty is a fragile, grasped at thing for many people during the difficult years in America in these books. People, of all ethnicities, are illegally abducted into slavery, or they are legally enslaved as they are deemed to be criminals or debtors. It’s all too easy to see how the situation develops – or rather devolves.
Octavia Butler is great at describing, simply and quickly, systemically unjust situations, how they can arise, and how people, ordinary people, can fall into being a victim or even an oppressor. She’s not that soft on oppressors but she makes it understandable how people who see themselves as basically decent people can do the indefensible.
In her dystopia, corporate towns are being built once again. Lauren, who knows the sometimes dubious history of company towns in America (and elsewhere), knows to avoid them. Actually, that is one thing I would love to have got more of a picture of in the book. I don’t know that much about company towns, other than the song Sixteen Tons.
With the way the story is told it makes more sense that we don’t get an inside look a corporate town. But if this is ever adapted for TV it would be great to follow the family who went to the town bought by a corporation, Olivar, for just a bit. I think these books would make a great series.
The importance of freedom, the freedom to shape your destiny is a key part of the story here. And we see all the ways your freedom can be denied, either through the lack of basic public services like education or housing, or through actual slavery, in all its different forms. Octavia Butler’s deep understanding of the dynamics of slavery and all the different ways you can be robbed of your liberty turns a tale of surviving the apocalypse beyond one of surviving extreme conditions to one about what freedom really means. And how it isn’t guaranteed. And how history teaches us so many lessons on this – when are we going to listen and learn?
Lack of Public Services, Lack of Care
It’s never fully explained just how America descends into such chaos, poverty and inequality. Extreme weather events and natural disasters have clearly played a role. But how was the public education system dismantled? Why did so many people end up homeless? How did the public housing system break down so badly? How did healthcare become so expensive? Why do you have to pay the police to get them to do their job? How did they become so corrupt? Why does the country not care enough for her people to guarantee access to the things they need to live everyday?
Well, I guess those are questions not for just a future dystopia but for today. And not just for America. Why have we accepted homelessness in this country? Like as if it’s a natural thing? When it is a direct result of poor housing policies by successive governments. And it’s not that politicians here are uncaring or heartless people. They just don’t see ending homelessness and fixing the housing crisis as a real priority. They act as if it’s not within their power to fix the crisis. When it’s been caused by their policies. We all need to learn from history. How, when you consider our history, have we allowed housing to become such a precarious situation for thousands of people?
This book is focused on America though, and specific issues at the heart of some political movements there.
Education matters. Big League.
I find it shocking that the Trump administration (and Project 2025) wants to get rid of the Department of Education. I confess I don’t know how things work there. But it doesn’t seem like there is a clear plan of how everything will work without it. It’s seems more a case of let’s stop spending so much on this thing, you guys work out the details amongst yourselves. And as this could be a hard sell to Congress they’re going to hobble the agency first so that killing it will eventually be seen as necessary. Have I got that right?
I assume most people know that denying (or failing to provide) a good basic education to people is something that happens when the ruling class are determined to oppress and control the people. That’s well known, isn’t it?
In America, most slaves were illiterate and prevented from accessing education. It’s easier to control people when they lack knowledge of the system or even the tools to learn about it. In Ireland, in the 17th and 18th centuries, the Penal Laws stopped Catholics from attending schools and Catholics couldn’t become teachers. They were afraid that Catholics would rebel against British Protestant rule. There are countless examples throughout history of people with power trying to prevent those lacking power, or those they deem a threat, from becoming educated. Who is powerful and who they feel threatened by obviously changes based on time and location. What remains constant is this; A good education is empowering. It gives you the tools to improve your life, and, maybe more importantly, helps you explain the injustice of your situation and persuade others how things need to change so that your life and the lives of everyone in your situation will be better. Denying people an education is all about keeping them in a weakened and submissive state.
If a country restricts access to education for some people because of their religion, gender, sexuality or whatever might set a person apart – like a lack of money – then clearly something very wrong is going on. It’s terrible what’s happening to women and girls in Afghanistan. That’s very obvious. It should be just as obvious how dismantling the Department of Education in America would also be terrible. It is basically the country abandoning its duty to provide a quality public education to all her citizens and instead saying let each state work it out, not our problem. Isn’t that also potentially creating a more divided and less equal union?
In the books, we get the sense that how public services are diminished in Butler’s dystopian America was not because those in power felt threatened. They simply didn’t care enough. They stopped spending on education, and everything else the people needed, because they wanted the money for other things, I guess? It’s not explained just how that came about. The story starts with an America that is much poorer, more divided and much less safe. We don’t know how this was allowed to happen. Only that it did happen. Those with power ran their country into the ground. Presumably because they were trying to protect their position and power in an increasingly volatile world? It’s not explained. Maybe it doesn’t have to be.
Too Much to Say
I had more things I wanted to say about these books. I wanted to look at how religion and purpose is portrayed. And I also wanted to talk about how violence seems to be accepted as a natural part of life. You have to arm yourself to defend yourself. But I’m going to leave it there for now. Maybe the fact that in the 1990s Octavia Butler wrote a dystopian future fantasy where America is a chaotic and unsafe place to live, unless you’re very well off, in large part because of a lack of easily accessible and affordable public services, and the lack of public education is actually a theme of book, not just a point briefly stated, should give everyone pause about what’s being dismantled and who, if anyone, that benefits.
I know America is not a dystopia. It’s still a great place to live. Maybe keep it that way?
I’m currently listening to The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr, edited by Claybourne Carson, read by LeVar Burton. I’d highly recommend it. It’s about protesting and non-violent resistance, and the protests he led had real and lasting impacts. Also his speeches are great and contain so many valuable lessons and truths. And it is great as a reminder that things really have progressed since the 1960s, even if it doesn’t feel like it right now.
I know people have been protesting for years and everyone’s exhausted and maybe it feels like nothing works anyway. But protests can work and really change things. It matters. And we do all have to rise up, in whatever way we can, against any movement or political power that seeks to deny us, or anyone, our basic human rights.