Parable Of The Sower By Octavia E. Butler

Oakes College is a place where diversity and individualism can thrive. The principles that Oakes College stands for are represented in its theme: Communicating Diversity in a Just Society. Throughout the Oakes Core Course the students have been taught how they can be effective members of society. Octavia E. Butler’s novel, Parable of the Sower, displays the themes of diversity and justice all throughout while tackling the many issues that stem from them. Butler depicts how difference is needed in a society for it to thrive. Diversity in a community is a necessity to Lauren, the main character in the story, and her idea of Acorn and Earthseed. What exactly does the Oakes Core Course mean when it says “in a just society”? To Butler, and to Oakes

In Lauren’s walled community, Robledo, she lives as a middle-class African-American girl. Her community itself is racially diverse, but it does not embrace its diversity. There is constant turmoil within her safe haven community. Being from a minority race, Lauren feels the discomfort within her utopian community. One of the reasons she wants to create a new religion, Earthseed, is so she can include everyone no matter their race, class, or gender. “Embrace diversity. Unite—Or be divided, Robbed, Ruled, Killed by those who see you as prey. Embrace diversity or be destroyed.”(Butler 196) Lauren believes that we, as a society, must embrace each other’s differences and when society learns to do this, it can overcome

Lauren, is from a middle class family and so is everyone in her walled community. Her walled community serves as the barrier to separate the lower class from their utopia of middle class individuals. While, both the middle and the lower class struggle they each struggle differently. Lauren, lives in an enclosed space, within her walled community. Anyone outside the wall is left alone and defenseless, needing to fight for themselves. Inside their wall, there is still the struggle of poverty and crime but not in the magnitude of the outsiders. In the novel, there is a growing division between the lower and upper classes and can be seen by this quote, “…the upper class are safe in their mansions, while we are suffering…”(Butler 79) There is a large gap between the rich, white, people and the rest of the population. Another example where class separation can be seen is, when the city Olivar is introduced. Olivar is made up of white upper-middle class people and does not allow other races of social classes. Lauren sees the inequality in her current society, and is compelled to change it in her new world. To do this, she makes sure to be aware of who she allows to enter her crusade to the north. She makes sure that many races are represented, not just a