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Parable of the Sower
Octavia Butler (1993)
Parable of the Sower is the tale of an apocalyptic
world that gives birth to a spiritual leader, Lau-
ren Olamina. In the year 2024, the violence in the
United States has escalated to the point that people
cannot venture outside of their barricaded com-
munities without weapons and people constantly
live with the threats of robbery, rape, assault, and
murder. Fifteen-year-old Lauren lives with her fam-
ily and neighbors in a small, walled society, where
they struggle to gather what few natural resources
are available and guard against violent transients.
A victim of “hyperempathy” syndrome—a de-
lusional disorder that allows her to feel the plea-
sure and pain she witnesses—Lauren is especially
sensitized to the horrors of her environment. She
turns away from a Christian God toward a “God-
is-Change belief system” that she calls Earthseed,
a spiritual practice designed to teach people to
survive the daily horror she witnesses. When her
family is decimated and her world is destroyed,
Lauren teaches both spiritual and material survival
skills to a group of people she meets as she trav-
els north; she establishes a community based on
Earthseed’s principles. In the sequel, Parable of the
Talents (1998), OCTAVIA BUTLER continues Lauren’s
story through the voices of Lauren and her daugh-
ter. These texts artfully blend tragedy and hope, fo-
cusing on a flawed prophet whose life work rarely
manages to benefit those who are closest to her.

Now a classic among scholars of feminist uto-

pian and dystopian fiction, Parable of the Sower

ranks with Joanna Russ’s The Female Man, Marge

Piercy’s Woman on the Edge of Time, and Marga-

ret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. These novels

experiment with what feminist power structures

might look like and critique 20th-century conser-

vative movements, which thrive on regulating the

bodies of the poor, women, and people of color.

Butler, the most prominent African-American

woman science fiction writer, has always placed

poor and working-class black women at the center

of her fiction, challenging standards in science fic-

tion, which either ignore race or explore racial is-

sues only allegorically. Butler’s novel productively

explores what possibilities for agency exist under

oppressive conditions and gestures toward slave

history. Lauren’s journey north mimics the history

of slaves escaping to Canada, and Earthseed evokes

an African-American tradition of transforming

Western Christianity so that it speaks to black cul-

ture and politics. Parable’s place in feminist, sci-

ence fiction, and African-American literary canons

should ensure its study for years to come.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Baccolini, Raffaella. “Gender and Genre in the Femi-

nist Critical Dystopias of Katharine Burdekin,

Margaret Atwood, and Octavia Butler.” In Future

Females, The Next Generation: New Voices and Ve-

locities in Feminist Science Fiction Criticism, edited