User:Yadyfirst/sandbox

= Bloodchild =

Summary
In the story Bloodchild Octavia Butler describes the life of Terrans in the Tlic planet that is fulfill of powerful insects. The Tlic planet needs human bodies to incubate their eggs in order to protect and reproduce their species. The contract between the Tlic and Terrans is that Terrans must provide one of their children for their reproduction. So, Gan’s mother (Lien) has been friend of T’Gatoi (a Tlic powerful member) since her childhood. Lien chose Xuan Hua to play this role for the Tlic planet but T’Gatoi wanted Gan instead of Xuan. T’Gatoi started bringing sterile eggs to Gan’s family but his mother refuses to eat it. The eggs give power and prolong life in Terrans. T’Gatoi brings eggs to gain the attention of Gan. But, one day T’Gatoi knew that something wrong was happening outside and Gan followed her, there was a man named Bram Lomas about to give birth. This people are called N’tlic (meaning that he is pregnant with a Tlic egg) Lomas was suffering in a great pain because his Tlic partner was sick and she couldn’t help with the delivery. So, T’Gatoi cut and opened Lomas body to find the grubs (aliens) while she was helping Lomas, Gan shot an animal (knowing that humans can’t use a gun) to feed the grubs because if he didn’t do this action the grubs could eat Lomas’ body. This scene was traumatic for Gan that he would prefer to kill himself instead of letting use his body for that kind of suffering. Gan’s brother (Qui) told Gan that terrans are treated as animals. So Gan asked Qui if he was implanted with an egg but he wasn’t. In a desperation Gan returned to home and he loaded the rifle while he was waiting for T’Gatoi. When T’Gatoi entered to the room Gan asked to her what he means to her moving the gun to his throat. So, she responses to his question is up to you. In that moment, T’Gatoi told Gan that she must to implant one egg at night and if he doesn’t want his sister Xuan must to be implanted. Gan was so afraid but he doesn’t want that suffer for his sister. He accepted to be implanted and T’Gatoi promised him that he will be ok and she will take care of him.

Quotes

 * " I knew birth was painful and bloody, no matter what. But this was something else, something worse. And I wasn't ready to see it. Maybe I never would be."
 * "He began running away- until he realized there was no away not in the preserve."
 * "We saw them as a people and gave them the Preserve when they still tried to kill us as worms."

Summary
The story the evening and the morning and the night tells the life of DGD's people (Duryea-Gode disease) Lynn is the product of two DGD's parents. This disease creates an anxiety of self-mutilation. One day Lynn's father attacked his wife and he killed her and himself. After long time, Lynn started college using Dilg scholarship and she majored in Biology. At her third year in College, she met Alan Chi and he became her refuge because he was the only guy that she trusted but at the same time they had some questions about their families. SoQiotes, Lynn told Alan about how her parents died and Alan told that his father is death but he doesn't know if his mother still alive. He wanted to know about it because his grandparents separated them when he was three years old. So, he called to the Dilg ward where his mother was sent to ask about Naomi Chi (alan's mother) and luckily she was alive. Lynn was shocked because people with that disease don't live long. Then, Alan made an appointment to see her the next Saturday. They arrived to the Dilg ward at one pm and what they instantly realized it was that all the people who work there have DGD. Alan and Lynn met Beatriz a DGD doctor and she prepared them to enter stage by stage to see how Dilg Ward works. Inside was like a museum of art and all the art was made by DGD people because in this ward they create and don't destroy. They kept moving to the ward and there were people using computers, those people were controlled DGDs. But passing by some other doors the degree of injured people were impossible not to see, some people had half of their face, hand or legs and they were sent to the ward after their attempts to kill themselves. Finally, Alan was ready to know his mother but Beatriz told him that she is blind. When they entered to the room Alan realized all the damage that his mother had caused in her face. Literally, her face was a ruin, part of her noise and ear were gone. Beatriz touched Naomi to stop with the clay and she said your son is here. Naomi was so confused and she touched Alan’s hand, shoulder and face to examinee him. Alan cried and she recognized his tears. So he took that opportunity to introduce his girlfriend to his mother and she touched Lynn’s face. Then, Naomi tell to them to be safe. Beatriz let Naomi keep working with the clay because she has so much for one day. In the moment that Lynn and Alan were ready to leave Beatriz asked them if they want to have children but they said no. So, Beatriz offered a job for them at the ward but they didn’t accept.

Quotes

 * "Scars didn't bother me much. Disability didn't bother me. It was the act of self-mutilation that scared me."
 * " I don't want kids, but I don't want someone else telling me I can't have any."
 * "No ordinary person can concentrate on work the way our people can."

Summary
The story “Speech Sounds” by Octavia Butler explains Rye’s trip. Rye might have some relatives (her brother and his children) left alive in Pasadena. So, she took the Washington Boulevard Bus to go and visit them but a tremendous fight break out in the bus which leads a chaos. (People had impaired cognitive functions. So it was difficult for some to read, write and speak then people must be able to understand by signals.) Rye jumped out of the bus when it stopped because she wanted to be far away from the dispute. So, she will return to the bus when the fight is over. A vehicle arrived at the scene (knowing that a time vehicles were unusual to see) a bearded man walked around the bus and he was wearing a Los Angeles Police Department Uniform. This man threw a gas into the bus to stop the fight and all the passengers got out the bus. Rye was invited for the bearded man to go with him in his car. Rye called him Obsidian. After a long day with him by her side, they had sex. Rye wanted a life together with him but in their way, a man was stabbing a woman. So, obsidian got out of the car and shot the man but the man took Obsidian’s gun and killed Obsidian. (Both die) Also, the woman who was stabbed before die too. Rye couldn’t believe, she took obsidian’ body with her but two children appeared in the scene screaming that her mother is die. The children started talking with Rye in her language and she introduce her as Valarie Rye. At the end, she took the children with her to start a new life.

Quotes

 * "If she had let herself think of the possible deadly consequences of getting into a stranger's car, she would have changed her mind."
 * "That was her most serious impairment and her most painful... She had done freelance writing. Now she could not even read her own manuscripts."
 * "She had kept herself alive when she had no reason to live. If the illness let these children alone, she could keep them alive."

Summary
In the article “Loss of Words: Octavia Butler’s Speech Sound” by Maria Holmgren Troy says the story is a science fiction where language and communication are essential for survival. The lack of communication creates a disturbance in the bus. Nowadays, it has a relation with violence, social and racial disorder. So in the story people lost their ability to write, read and speak. Knowing that it is impossible to understand when somebody is explaining something by signals because it could be misunderstood. Also, Butler shows aphasia as a severe illness where people are not able to remember their past and they don’t have sense of time, places and persons. Finally, the two guys at the beginning of the story used gestures to demonstrate their discomfort for not being understood.

Quotes

 * "The consequences of the language impairment are loss of intellectual abilities, constant misunderstanding, murderous jealousy, violence, and the dissolution of society."
 * "The use of objects as name symbols, pictures are another attempt to communicate without words in the story. The bus driver has pasted old magazine pictures of items he would accept as fare."
 * '"verbal and nonverbal expressions are means of establishing and maintaining contact or interaction between people and the environment, as well as rejecting and breaking relationships."

Summary
In the article “Disparate Spirits Yet Kindred Souls: Octavia E. Butler “Speech Sounds,” and me by Sandra Y. Govan reflects the life that Octavia and her passed through their childhood. Principally, the most meaningful and powerful story for Sandra is “Speech Sounds” because they were target for abuse, cruel jokes and bullying at school. So, books were a way to escape of those painful moments at school. It was so difficult for their families to deal with the desire of Octavia and Sandra to become writers because blacks were not accepted at that time. Even though their childhood were difficult a lot of people encouraged them to keep reading books no matter what. Octavia wrote her first story when she was ten and her science teacher helped to type. In college, Octavia studied in a two years program at Pasadena City College then she learned the skills of how to be a great writer and one professor named Harlan Ellison gave her the best instructions for great writings.

Quotes

 * "Sweetie, let teaching be your vocation and writing be your avocation."
 * "Octavia and I spent much of our childhood surrounded by compassionate adults, adults who taught us important life lessons and made sure that book continued to be part of our lives."
 * "Our mothers also kept bringing books into our lives, continuing to feed our drems and imaginations."

Summary
In the article Digging Deep by Isiah Lavender III examines the society and how it degrade diseased people in the same way as race and racism. So, for his point of view Butler’s story the evening and the morning and the night racial identity is showed as illness. In the story Alan doesn’t want to have DGD because he is not treated as normal people. Compared this with racism most people don’t want to have a specific color of skin, disease or disability for fear of being judged or bullied. Also, Butler’s show a type of segregation, people with that disease is located in wards where is uncertain if they are treated well or not. Practically, they are deprived of their rights as citizens. In this story Beatriz, plays a big role as empower women who is against violence and discrimination. In the ward that Beatriz works, all the people are comfortable because they demonstrate what DGD people can do instead of self-mutilation.

Quotes

 * "Fear of illness exists between seeing and knowing something about the illness's effect on the body. "
 * " The idea of racism operates in part according to a fear of contact with the other."
 * "Fear for personal safety causes prejudice... which in turn generates a powerful sense of cultural racism."

Summary
The story “The Book of Martha” by Octavia Butler refers to a utopia story. So, the story starts with Martha, she was tired from work and she went to the kitchen to eat something and then a divine figure was in front of her. At her first glance, it was God and she asked what he is doing there because she is just forty three too young to die at that age. So, God wanted to use her as he did with Jonah, Job and Noah but she considered herself as useful person to be chosen for his purpose. God told her, so many people will be thankful and grateful for that opportunity. Then she thought about it and she asked again what he wants. God wants her to help people to be more kind and to live more peacefully with others. So, she must start working with poor people, people who come to the bottom. She was touched by those words because she was homeless when she was child. Literally, she grew up from the bottom. Instantly, she refused to do it because she was black and nobody will pay attention to her but God specified to her that he will borrow some of his power to her. She thought that the cause of problems in the society depends on the overpopulation. For this reason, she wanted to allow two babies for each couple but God said that she could kill the humanity for that decision. After so many realizations, she wanted people to be touch by dreams because dreams don’t harm and people will choose better decisions for their lives. At the end God asked her if she wants to remember that time with him but she nodded her face saying like no because she was afraid of what dreams can do for people now.

Quotes

 * "I choose you for all you are and all that you are not."
 * "Free will is, among other things, the freedom to make mistakes."
 * " What you do is what people will live with. Or in this case, die with."

Summary
The story Amnesty is about aliens coming to live on Earth with the purpose of live with people or slave them. So, aliens came twice to the Earth. At their first wave aliens abrupt and experiments in humans. After so many experiments they find out that they can't communicate with humans. In the second wave, Noah was adopted for Aliens but the government kidnapped her trying to find information about Aliens. It was unbelievable that her own people torture and kidnapped her for information. Also, aliens established colonies on Earth in descent (bubbles) So, they forced humans to work for them but just thirty human volunteers can translate for aliens.The bringing of colonies crashed the economy. A time were everybody is poor but aliens'jobs were great at that time. After so many studies, Noah understand the nature of human and aliens. So, she was one of thirty people who can communicate with aliens. Then she tried so hard to create a peaceful environment where aliens and humans could live together.

Quotes

 * "They wanted to understand us and communicate with us."
 * "The communities don't reproduce in the way we do."
 * 'Trying to help the two species understand and accept one another before one of them does something fatal."

Summary
Curtis focuses on fear saying that our point of fear comes from the philosopher Hobbes. We fear because we don't trust in each other. So, we always choose a lieder who will give us things to do like a law/king is what make us civilized. In our natural state we are motivated by fear, self-interest and pride. We need someone to rule us. Curtis uses Hobbes to compare Octavia but Octavia uses feminist examples in her stories to empower women. So, Curtis says that we must acknowledge our own deep. Knowing that we can't change the way we are. The first thing that we need to give up is to wait to someone come and take care of us because we will learn how we can take care of ourselves with the time. The problem of having someone doing our work is because we think that whatever is happening is not our problem. Therefore, in Amnesty the power of community gives value to the whole story for example: like taking responsibility for the state of insecurity and doing something about it. The fear of insecurity force us to think about a new solution and sometimes we don't try for fear of failing.

Quotes

 * "They are the traditionally oppressed: female,minority,poor who see the worlds in which they live and aim to make those worlds visible to others."
 * "The only way really to be able to move forward is through honest and open communication about the conditions under which we live."
 * "Butler uses feminist characters to recognize that fears produce sacrifice."

Summary
Heinlein's criticizes Butler because when she uses religion in her stories make that people who don't like science fiction want to read it. Butler creates feminist and religious stories that in some way it "de-grades" God. So, it means that Martha is improving eugenics like getting rid of bad actions. The article is more like a survey of race, aliens and US Government. Octavia writes about aliens who can't be killed and humans must to live with them. She explains when people is segregated in our society they look like aliens and people will connect their lives to her stories. Usually, when we fear something we do harm to others. Also, Butler's fictions influence on society how we define love,hates and new changes.

Quotes

 * "Religion is a tool intended to critique the real world."
 * "Octavia targets religion and spirituality as a way to raise questions about how the body is valued in the real world."
 * "African American has historically used religion and places of worship as a devise of guidance and survival."

Octavia Butler's Biography
Octavia Estelle Butler was born in Pasadena, California, U.S. in June 22, 1947 and she died in Lake Forest Park, Washington, U.S on February 24, 2006 at the age of 58. She was an African American Science Fiction writer. She was the only child of Octavia Margaret Guy and Laurice James Butler. But her father died when she was seven. So, Octavia was raised in a strict Baptist environment by her mother and grandmother. Also, she grew up in a racial integrated community where she experienced cultural and ethnic diversity. Something that was odd because it was the era of the midst of racial segregation. At the age of ten she was so interested on writing and she never gives up writing. One day, she won a college-wide short story contest where she earned her first $15 dollars as a writer. Then, her Book “Kindred” became the best-selling novel. In 1983, she published “Speech Sounds” and received the Hugo and Nebula Award for Best Short Story and in 1995. In her career she was awarded with thirteen awards and three nominations. However, she became the first science fiction writer to receive the MacArthur Fellowship. Butler’s stories are based on racism, sexism, ethnocentrism and classism. Also, her stories give power to women who face diversity, the presence of God and Aliens coming to the earth. Finally, during her last years she struggled with writer’s block and depression which effects were caused by her high blood pressure medications. She died outside of her home by a mortal stroke.