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"Octavia Butler's Aha! Moment"

"Octavia Butler’s Aha! Moment” is an article that perpetuates a closer understanding of the author herself and how she viewed our society. From a young age Butler took a liking to a dog named Baba, who belonged to the family that her mother was a maid for. Her mother had been a maid almost all her life, being taking out of school at age 10 to provide for her sisters and brothers. Although this was not the home of Butler’s mother, she explains how the environment, the only one she ever knew of, was her home. The connections that Butler made with Baba the dog, was a feeling she still held onto later in life. Recalling the time when she came eye to eye with Baba and analyzing his features then realizing he was indeed alive, aware and looking back. At this moment Butler grew a deeper understanding that Baba was someone else entirely. Butler illustrated an interest of eyes from that day which remind her that someone else was present. Additionally, in the article Butler discusses another memory she had as a child. This time at a zoo with her second grade class, when she came in contact with the chimpanzees’ eyes for the first time. Butler observed the eyes to be of an unhappy animal, all alone, locked up in an iron-barred cage. To make matters worse, Butler describes how the other children shouted at him, laughed and made the chimp the target of their jokes. The frustration of the chimp was visible to Butler observing his eyes and seeing his frantic, furious motions arising. The feeling of being ashamed of her own species was a concept too young for Butler to comprehend at that time however, she did understand the situation presented was wrong. At age 7, Butler discusses her hatred for cages such made the chimp’s world tiny. Furthermore, later learning to hate metaphorical cages that humans use to avoid deeper understandings of one another such as cages of race, gender or class. Lastly in the article, Butler brings the attention back to the Baba; from age three she understood that in order to know and discover who and what the individual truly is, it is important to look into their eyes with open curiosity and learn about them. The life lessons that Butler shines to light all show how important this concept truly is.

"Communication Problems and Language Barriers Between Foreign Inmates and Prison Officers"

In the Communication Problems and Language Barriers Between Foreign Inmates and Prison Officers by Valentina C. Iversen, the article discusses the importance of communication in prisons and particularly with the foreign inmates in Norway. The articles analyzes the intercultural communication challenges that the inmates struggle with, majority of the issues caused by the language barrier that is being presented. The consequences that follow are aggression and anger shown between the foreign inmates and the prison officers. The fast solution to tackling these underlining issues caused demonstration creating a gap between the communication of both parties which caused number of isolation cases. However, according to the article the fast solution of isolation ultimately drove the inmates to physical or psychological problems. This study that the article provides a better understanding of how important communication is and how it can reduce aggression shown by the foreign prisoners and the prison officers in Norway.

Quotes

• "Good Communication skills are necessary for forming good relationships between prison officers and inmates" (Iversen 66).
• "Culture shapes the way people communicate. Gestures and body language are a kind of symbolic communication that can be perceived as a strange or even aggressive behavior by those unfamiliar with the movements" (Armstrong et al., 1995)
• "Behavior may be misunderstood as aggressive gestures and verbal threats. The notion of a "culture crash" versus "language problems" seems to catch this" (Iversen 73).

"Loss of Words: Octavia Butler’s “Speech Sounds”"

In the article Loss of Words: Octavia Butler's "Speech Sounds" by Maria Holmgren Troy, the author discusses the renewed hope for human communication and a closer analyzation of the tribute to the power of words. Additionally, Troy also digs into how important it is of the value of verbal communication. The author analyzes the connections of ties that science fiction has along with real life situation not just in "Speech Sounds" but also in other novels of science fiction. It reconstructs the perspectives of today's society that individuals have already formulated and set as their core image of society. In Speech Sounds, Troy expresses that in the short story “Speech Sounds” the main theme that Butler is illustrating is the lack of verbal communications the relation that plays to violence and social breakdown. The author also brings forth the different characters in the short story and the roles that they play throughout.

Quotes

• "Another world ... is constructed in the text the reader, in the process of (re)constructing this figure, is positioned to see her/his own society from a different perspective" (Francis 1990:110).
• "Speech Sounds," a dystopian science-fiction story, centers on one important theme that can easily serve as a starting-point for discussion in the classroom: communication, or more specifically lack of verbal communication and its relation of violence and social disorder, social breakdown" (Troy 73).
• "...in the language classroom it also offers a starting-point for a vital discussion of the value of verbal communication" (Troy 80).

Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools

In Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools by Jonathan Kozol, the author visited schools in neighborhoods across the country ranging from different tax distributions. He interviewed teachers and children throughout various schools and what he found was not only unequal but also very devastating. The schools for the rich and poor overwhelmingly different and those gaps were increasingly high. Additionally, the educational gap was widening throughout the years .  The urban schools were often times overcrowded and understaffed and lacked  books and classrooms for the students. He questions the government about the established tax and distribution funding for those schools with less and takes the case to court. Kozol argues that it has not only got to do with the lack of money but also racial segregation to be the stemming cause of the educational division   In Savage Inequalities, Kozol opens readers eyes to the world of an unequal educational system when it comes down to the fundamental human right of education.

Quotes

• "New York City's public schools are subdivided into 32 school districts. District 10 encompasses a large part of the Bronx but is, effectively, two separate districts. One of these districts, Riverdale, is in the northwest section of the Bronx. “Home to many of the city's most sophisticated and well educated families, its elementary schools have relatively few low-income students. The other section, to the south and east, is poor and heavily nonwhite”
• "See, that's where the trouble starts. They get used to what they have. They think it's theirs by rights because they had it from the start. So it leaves those children with a legacy of greed."
• "The vested interests are just too powerful," a state legislator said. Those interests, according to Newsweek, are "unlikely" to rush to the aid of public schools that serve poor children."

"Crossover"

Summary

The short story “Crossover” by Octavia Butler is a story about a unnamed women who worked in a mind-numbing dead end job that drained the life out of the character. She lived in an unhealthy cycle fearing loneliness and death, therefore, leading the character to kill herself but unable to do so caused by fear. A number of insecurities eat the character away. The character never feels worthy of anything and is also unable to form a relationship, creating distance with the man who found likings towards her. With these self-destructive acts, the character spirals deeper into a darker hole that seems like there is no way out. This story is ultimately relating to Butler’s past on that fear kept her in the dark of demonstrating her true potential of writing working under the same conditions as the character described in “Crossover”. 

Quotes

• "What does a decent guy like you want to do with someone like me?" (113).

• "The liquor store was on a corner only two blocks from where she worked" (116).

• "She had lived around drunks most of her life. She knew that if she could get enough down, nothing would matter" (119).

"Amnesty"

Summary

In the short story “Amnesty” by Octavia Butler introduces a character named Noah Cannon who was kidnapped and experimented on as a child by the new age of superior aliens. Upon her release, the US government held her captive for several years, gathering information in tormenting ways. After being captive for twelve years of her life, Noah was willing to work for her former captors as a Translator. The alien invaders otherwise known as the Community were entities made up of millions of serrate creatures living together as one colony. For means of travel, they would form a ball shape with each of their own little hive of multiple minds working together as one. The alien invaders came down to Earth to co-exist with humans or rather enslave humans.  After living with the Community people and having a clear insight on how humanity works, Noah feels determined to have the two species live alongside one another and perhaps even peacefully.

Quotes

• "The humans on Earth have no way to fight the Communities, having lost the “short, quiet war” (184).
• "The subcontractor had had little contact with human beings. Its vocabulary in the painfully created common language that enabled humans and the Communities to speak to one another was, at best, rudimentary, as was its understanding of human abilities and limitations. Translation: by accident or by intent, the subcontractor would probably hurt her.
• "The Communities would have preferred her to be naked, and for the long years of her captivity, she had had no choice. She had been naked."

"The Book of Martha"

Summary

The short story “The Book of Martha” by Octavia Butler is about a character named Martha Bes who is a middle-aged writer given a choice by God. When Martha finds herself alone with God, He asks her to change one thing about the world that will improve humanity. However, there is a catch, once Martha makes her decision, she will be cast down to the lowest of society.  Martha’s process figuring out how to help humanity and ultimately sacrificing her professional life for the greater good. After some consideration, she decides to give every person total satisfaction, but only in dreams through sleep. In the beginning, God portrayed as a tall, long-bearded white man complete with white robe and huge throne but soon Martha’s image of Him changes as she talks out her ideas, though. God offers Martha a choice that if Martha accepts she will return to live as whatever she decides. After God's final decision, Butler's vision of a humbled being leaves humankind to examine our own motives and egos.

Quotes

• "You see what your life has prepared you to see," God said.
• "And then she was here, confused and scared. The comfort of her small, disorderly house wasgone, and she was standing before this amazing figure who had convinced her at once that hewas God—or someone so powerful that he might as well be God. He had work for her to do,he said—work that would mean a great deal to her and to the rest of humankind."
• "I have a great deal of work for you," he said at last. "As I tell you about it, I want you to keep three people in mind: Jonah, Job, and Noah. Remember them. Be guided by their stories."

Butler's Biography

Octavia Estelle Butler was born on June 22, 1947, in Pasadena California. After the death of Butler’s father at age seven, she was raised in an all-women environment by her single mother and maternal grandmother. Her mother worked as a maid to support the family. Butler was alienated throughout her earlier years in schools due to difficulties in socializing, shyness and awkwardness. Which left Butler isolated in the library, this ultimately lead Butler to discover her love for science fiction magazines. She was dyslexic but this did not interfere with developing a passion for books. Her persistence and curiosity factored in Butler writing her first manuscript which was submitted to a science fiction magazine in junior-high. Later breaking new ground as a woman and an African-American in the realm of science fiction which was a genre typically dominated by white males. Butler attended Pasadena City College, then shortly after enrolled in at California State University, Los Angeles, but eventually switched to UCLA for a writing course. Butler caught the attention of a science-fiction writer Harlan Ellison. Butler also sold two of her stories: “Child Finder” and “Crossover”. This created a pathway for Butler’s success, and for the next five years, she began working on series of novels such as Mind of My Mind (1977), Kindred (1979) and Wild Seed (1980). To further her research, Butler traced to the Amazon rainforest and the Andes which would later become the Xenogenesis trilogy. In 1999, Butler moved to Lake Forest Park, Washington after the death of her mother. Due to feeling overwhelmed by the writing of her series The Parable of the Trickster, Butler began her writing for a science-fiction vampire novel Fledgling, which intended to be more “fun”. During the last years of Butler’s life, she struggled with high blood pressure which caused her to suffer writer’s block and depression. Butler passed on February 24, 2006, at the age of 58.

Works Cited

Wikipedia contributors. "Octavia E. Butler." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 11 Mar. 2016. Web. 22 Mar. 2016.

"Speech Sounds"

Summary

In the short story Speech Sounds, author Octavia Butler introduces a story told through the perspective of a character named Valarie Rye. The story begins when Rye is riding on a bus filled with people with the destination to Pasadena. In the society where she lives, it is not normal for people to speak due to an illness which had spread worldwide. All of a sudden, a fight breaks out which ultimately leads to chaos. The bus makes a sudden stop and Rye proceeds to make her way out to separate herself from all the commotion. Then a vehicle arrives and with it appears a breaded man, wearing a Los Angeles Police Department uniform under his coat. He is later identified as Obsidian. Obsidian throws a gas canister into the bus to restore order and eventually the passengers flee. Obsidian offers Rye a ride in his car, Rye accepts his offer and continues her way to Pasadena. During their journey, Obsidian begins to trust Rye and they perform intercourse. After continuing on to Rye’s destination, they see a woman being chased by a man with a knife. Rye and Obsidian intervene, however not in time to save the women. The man manages to take Obsidian’s gun and kill him. Rye kills the man before he can target her. There were two children there, who Rye assumes they were related to the dead woman. However to Rye’s surprise, the children were able to speak which leaves her to intruding herself as Valarie Rye.

Quotes

• “Obsidian had been the protector, had chosen that role for who knew what reason. Perhaps putting on an obsolete uniform and patrolling the empty streets had been what he did instead of putting a gun into his mouth. And now that there was something worth protecting, he was gone” (Butler 524).

• “She had been a teacher. A good one. She had been a protector, to, though only of herself. She had kept herself alive when she had no reason to live. If the illness let these children alone, she could keep them alive” (Butler 524).

• “He could give her forgetfulness and pleasure. Until now, nothing had been able to do that. Until now, every day had brought her closer to the time when she would do what she had left home to avoid doing: putting a gun in her mouth and pulling the trigger” (Butler 520).

"The Evening and the Morning and the Night"

Summary

The short story, “The Evening and the Morning and the Night” is a science fiction work by Octavia Butler. A fictional disease called Duryea-Gode Disease (DGD) wreaks havoc on people's lives. The story focuses on a young women named Lynn Mortimer who suffers from from this disease, which is genetically passed down. Both of Lynn’s parents grew increasingly concerned about Lynn’s poor eating habits and decides to take her to a DGD ward. There Lynn witnesses disturbing sights which consequently, lead her to attempting suicide. However, her father manages to save her just in time. Although things seemed to have improved, one day Lynn’s father kills her mother then kills himself. Dealing with this tragedy, Lynn decides to attend the University of Southern California. Living within the house of DGD students, Lynn adopted the term “house mother” because she constantly reminded the other students to do their house chores and the other students always comply without any fuss. The connection that Lynn and Alan built during this time grew stronger which lead to Alan opening up about his mother. Alan also invites Lynn to join him on a visit to see his mother for the first time and Lynn agrees. When arriving at Dlig, they meet a women named Beatrice who is placed in charge of all the patients at Dilg. Beatrice takes  Lynn and Alan to see his mother, Naomi. Alan informs his mother that him and Lynn are soon to get married. Shortly after the visit, Beatrice expresses to Lynn that she holds a “special gift”. Beatrice asks Lynn to take over her position at Dilg after she graduates, which Lynn agrees to. 

Quotes

• “I didn’t like the way people edges away from me when they caught sight of my emblem" (Butler 38).

• “Two men and three women. All we had in common was our disease, plus a weird combination of stubborn intensity about whatever we happened to be doing and hopeless cynicism about everything else. Healthy people say no one can concentrate like a DGD. Healthy people have all the time in the world for stupid generalizations and short attention spans” (Butler 39).

• “‘Do you want someone else telling you what to do with your body?’ I asked. ‘No need,’ he said. ‘I had that taken care of as soon as I was old enough’” (Butler 42).

"Bloodchild"

Summary

The science fiction short story “Bloodchild,” by Octavia E. Butler is a story set on a foreign planet inhabited by insect-like host, taking place sometime in the distant future. One of the main characters is a young male named Gan, who is a Terran (a human). He realizes his role of being the carrier for the dominant insects eggs of the Tlic. Gan’s family share a close bond with one Tlic in particular named T’Gatoi, who shared a long relationship with Gan’s mother, Lien. Although the Tlic species were much more powerful than the Terrans, their population starting to die out, leads them to depended on Terrans for the key to their survival. The Terrans’ helps the Tlic in order to reproduce by using their bodies to lay their eggs. As Gan is coming to terms with this reality, he witnesses a horrific delivery which makes his question the intentions of the species who he shared a planet with. The T'Lic have been surgically removing a newly hatched T'Lic and implanting them into pig's carcass for nutrition after birth. Gan is extremely scared after witnessing the violent birth. He considers killing himself but decided against it realizing his sister Hoa, will have to take on the responsibility of carrying the eggs. Gan goes along with the procedure. Butler reminds readers that this story about love and coming of age. Also it is a story of male pregnancy raising questions about the sex roles that have been ingrained in individuals.

Quotes

• “But my mother seemed content to age before she had to" (Butler 3).
• “I felt as thought I were helping her torture him, helping her consume him” (Butler 15).
• “I knew what to do, what to expect. I had been told all my life. I felt the familiar sting, narcotic, middy pleasant. Then the blind probing of her ovipositor” (Bulter 27).

Workspaces

Class practice

Citation Practice

Octavia Butler was shy as a child.