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Octavia Butler's Aha! Moment
In her essay “Octavia Butler’s Aha! Moment”, Butler describes the moment in which she encountered her mother’s employer’s dog Baba. One day Baba and Butler stare at each other’s eyes and it became a life changing experience for her, she realize there was another being inside the dog. She respected that other being. When she went to a zoo with her second-grade class Butler had to witness the mistreatment towards one of the chimps. Kids screamed, laugh and threw peanuts to the poor animal that was forced to react on the same way. She mentions that she was to young to feel ashamed of her specie. Butler explains how at age 7 she began to hate physical cages and later in life metaphorical cages of race, gender or class. She ends her essay saying that it is important to get to know someone rather than to make assumptions about someone.

I am planning to use this essay to support Butler’s themes of alienation, race, gender and class in her short story Amnesty and how her encounter with Baba changed the way Butler would look at the human race from now on.

Biography
Octavia E. Butler was born in Pasadena, California on June 22, 1947. Her mother worked as a maid and her father as a shoeshine. She was an only child. After her father’s death, her mother raised her with the help of her grandmother. Her mother stressed the importance of education, often bringing books and magazines thrown away by her employers. Butler was a shy child becoming awkward and antisocial, which pushed her interest in writing. After her high school graduation, she attended Pasadena City College, were she won her first story contest and a $15 reward, earning her Associate in Arts degree. Butler had many temporary jobs before she could establish herself as a well-known science fiction writer. Butler found success while attending the Open Door Workshop of the Screenwrites’ Guild of America were she sold two of her stories “Child Finder” and “Crossover”. As she mentioned to Carolyn S. Davidson "I began writing about power because I had so little." Butler’s stories revolve around themes of power humanity hierarchy and the creation of a new race where humans hybrid with other specie. Often emphasizing her main characters that form part of a minority, black or female protagonists. Throughout her life time Butler received many awards such as the Hugo Award for Best Short Story for “Speech Sounds”, Nebula Award for Best Novelette for “Bloodchild”, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation “Genius Grant” to mention a few. Butler was able to work her way through a writing genre in which a black woman wasn’t expected to be part of.

Quotes:
Positive Obsession

"Honey ... Negroes can't be writers."

"Writing will be my job."

"I saw positive obsession as a way of aiming yourself, your life, at your chosen target. Decide what you want. Aim high. Go for it."

Furor Scribendi

"Write. Write every day. Write whether you feel like writing or not."

"Persistence is essential to any writer - the persistence to finish your work, to keep writing in spite of rejection, to keep reading, studying, submitting work for sale."

Elisa Edwards- Octavia Butler’s “Amnesty”
In Elisa Edwards- Octavia Butler’s “Amnesty” analyzes three main points in the story race, aliens and the US government. First, she analyzes the structure of the aliens, its otherness and the human reaction to this plant-like creature. She points out the weakness of human individualism and praises the work of the Communities as a free and supportive organism (162). Second, she discusses the US government and its tactics in order to maintain power over the aliens or the illusion of it. Third, she discusses the human race and the personal choice to act ethically towards humans and aliens.

Quotes:

 * “The aliens are characterized as hyper-social beings that organize themselves in groups. This characterization alludes to individuals’ needs of other individuals in order to survive.”
 * “The fact that Noah’s employer intervenes and tells her to report the subcontractor if it tries to hurt her again (154) demonstrates that the exposure to and the interaction with others leads to a more ethical behavior.”
 * "In order to maintain the illusion of human superiority over the Communities, the humans’ defeat in the war against the aliens has been left out from the history section in school books (183)."

Diversty, change, violence: Octavia Butler’s pedagogical philosophy by Sarah Outterson
In Diversty, change, violence: Octavia Butler’s pedagogical philosophy Sarah Outterson analyzes Butler’s use of violence in her works and the importance of this use to convey the problematic idea of change, adaptation and unity among humankind.

Quotes:

 * “Butler’s characters exist in worlds that require them constantly to learn and teach in order to adapt.”
 * “One of the most basic level, violence is bodily that inflicts suffering. Abstracted, the word has developed to include cultural harm, that is, restriction on rights and freedoms both systemically and deliberally.”
 * “Her stories of earnestly helpful aliens and resistant humans become allegories for human enslavement and human resistance and, so, allow critics to argue the balance of moral guilt between characters that become violent in order to survive.”

Theorizing Fear: Octavia Butler and the Realist Utopia by Claire P. Curtis
In Theorizing Fear; Octavia Butler and the Realist Utopia by Claire P. Curtis explores the idea of fear as the main reason for human hostility against the alien communities. The author deeply examines the reactions of the characters in order to contrast the idea of fear and loss of hierarchy. Also, there is a focus on Noah and the way she decides to deal with the alien Communities and how it shows a way to live in peace as long as human realize that power is not everything.

Quotes:

 * "Both concern female characters facing impossible circumstances; both recognize the fear of those circumstances produce; but both also see a way forward- not by denying fear, but by rejecting the presumption that the only way to solve fear is to give up rights to someone sanctioned to use violence to protect us."
 * "Fear surfaces from these unchanging conditions."
 * "Oddly, the fear displayed by Noah is not primarily a fear of the alien Commmunities. It is no the fear of what is unknown, but a fear of what is known: the capacity of humans purposefully to harm one another."

Summary
"Crossover" is the story of a woman who has to face her fear to be alone. One day after work she stops by a liquor store and encounters her ex-convit partner. They end up at her apartment where we learn of their addiction to prescribe medications and alcohol. As they argue about their relationship we learn that the woman has low self-respect and thinks of herself as someone unworthy of a healthy relationship.

Quote:
"What would a decent-looking guy want with me?"

Amnesty
Summary

Amnesty, is the story of Noah a translator between humans and alien communities. She is trying to make future employees understand that the Communities are safe to work with; both humans and alien communities have develop a need to enveloped and to be enveloped because it brings them comfort. Noah describes how both mistreated her; the alien communities and the human military but she does not have any hard feelings towards them. She just wants them to be able to understand each other.

Quotes:


 * “So what will we be then, whores or house pets?”
 * “ I mean they trust me to do my job, they trust me to help would-be employers learn to live with a human being without hurting the human and to help human employee learn to live with the Communities and fulfill their responsibilities. You trust me to do that. That’s why you’re here.”
 * “We are. And they have no history of drug taking, no resistance to it, and apparently no moral problems with it. All of the sudden they’re hooked. On us.”

The Book of Martha
Summary

In The Book of Martha the author, Octavia E. Butler, puts the main character Martha in a tight situation. She is in the presence of God whom asks her to do a very important job. She has been chosen by him to help humanity become better; he wants humanity to overcome its destructive ways and find a different way to live more peacefully and sustainably. Martha refuses at first, she thinks she is not capable to do such a job, but she comes up with the idea to make dreams so vivid that each person can have their own perfect utopia therefore each individual would reach happiness in their own terms

Quotes:


 * “It would be better for you if you had raised a child or two.”


 * “Whatever people love to do most, they should dream about doing it, and the dreams should change to keep up with their individual interests. Whatever grabs their attention, whatever they desire, they can have it in their sleep. In fact, they can’t avoid it. Nothing should be able to keep the dreams away- not drugs, not surgery, not anything. And the dreams should satisfy much more deeply, more thoroughly, than reality can. I mean, the satisfaction should be in the dreaming, not trying to make the dream real.”
 * “I’m afraid the time might come when I won’t be able to stand knowing that I’m the one who caused not only the harm, but the end of the only career I’ve ever care about. I want to forget.”

Summary
In Butler’s story Bloodchild we are introduce to an unfamiliar setting perhaps in another planet where Terran (humans) and Tlic (aliens) peacefully conexist or so it seems. The main characters of the story are Gan, a young Terran and T’Gatoi, an influential Tlic. The story takes place at Gan’s house, which is located inside the Terran preserve, T’Gatoi has come to visit the family and has brought with her sterile eggs that prolong life in Terrans. Suddently the family visit is interrupted, another Terran, Bram Lomas, has showed up at the house asking for help; he is in the mist of giving “birth” to Tlic. Gan has to witness the brutal process in which this Terran has to be cut open in order to extract the grubs (worm-like baby Tlic) otherwise they would eat him alive. T’Gatoi is forced to be brutally honest with Gan since she has chosen him to be the host of her grubs, as she tries to explain to him that Terran are used as hosts for their off springs not only because Tlic are born healthier but it also guarantees a strong chance of survival for the Tlic specie; but in doing so Terran and Tlic become family. At first, Gan opposes to the idea of becoming a host anymore and even considers killing himself but T’Gatoi tells him that if he is not willing to do it she will ask his sister Xuan Hoa to be the host instead, since she has to implant her eggs that same night, which puts Gan on a dilemma. He doesn’t want to become a host and go through a painful extraction or Tlic “birth” but he loves his sister so much that he wouldn’t let her take his place instead. At the end, Gan decides to become T’Gatoi host not only because he wants to save his sister but he has also become attach to T’Gatoi, he loves her and wants to do this for her.

Quotes

 * “You’re gaining weight finally. Thinness is dangerous.”


 * “Yes. How could I put my children into the care of one who hates them?”


 * “Terrans should be protected from seeing.” (T’Gatoi) “Not protected,” I said. “Shown. Shown when we’re young kids, and shown more than once. Gatoi, no Terran ever sees a birth that goes right. All we see is N’Tlic- pain and terror and maybe death.”

Citation Practice
Octavia Butler was shy as a child.