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The Relevance Of Community In Octavia Butler's Parable Of The Sower

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The purpose of communities is multifaceted in Octavia Butler's novel "Parable of the Sower," functioning as a source of survival, resilience, and hope in a world ravaged by the ravages of epidemic, climate change, and social breakdown. Characters in the story, such as Lauren Olamina and her friends, form and sustain bonds with one another to form communities that provide protection, support, and a sense of belonging in a harsh and unpredictable environment. The author shows the relevance of human needs for connection, cooperation, and shared values in the face of adversity via personal experiences. In the story, one of the fundamental functions of communities is survival. The characters form communities to shield themselves from the outer …show more content…

On their voyage, Lauren and her companions confront several challenges, including encounters with unfriendly persons and groups. Their community, however, provides emotional support, shared resources, and collective problem-solving abilities. When Lauren, for example, becomes unwell, her community rallies around her, providing care and support to aid in her recovery. This exemplifies how communities can develop resilience by pooling individual skills and resources to overcome hardship. Communities provide a sense of optimism in the novel's grim post-apocalyptic future. Lauren develops the Earthseed belief system, which serves as a unifying factor in her community. Earthseed believes that change and adaptability are inherent in God and the universe. Lauren's community finds consolation and significance in her belief system, which provides them with meaning and direction in a world that appears chaotic and meaningless. Lauren, for example, says, "Earthseed is a real faith for me, for us. And because it's a real faith, it can give us the strength to change our lives" (Butler 247). This demonstrates how communities may offer hope and motivation to continue in the face of

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The first example of a strong communal bond shown throughout the novel is how they deal with being faced with the ever-growing issue of a wide-scale power outage. This outage affects services such as hydro, cell service, and cable television which are utilities that the community has grown accustomed to over the years. When these utilities are cut off and they are no longer able to contact anyone outside of the community, panic begins to ensue. However, the Chief and Council immediately begin devising plans, one of such plans being brought up by Chief Terry Meegis at a community meeting, “We all know there wasn’t enough food at the trading post to last us for the rest of the winter. And all that food is gone now anyway.

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The importance of community is highlighted first when the group of three stop at a water station, stating, “Three is the smallest comfortable number at a water station. Two to watch and one to fill up. And it’s good to have three ready for trouble on the way to and from the station. Three would not stop determined thugs, but it would stop opportunists- and most predators are opportunist” (Butler, 202). This is the first acknowledgment of strength in numbers in this environment.

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A community, a complex term that often times elicits various feelings and definitions, generally implies that there are relationships between a group of people that share some common goals, values, the same geographical location, or, perhaps a way of life that reinforces one another. In a community, members choose to associate with, or connect to each other. However, it is only when we take a step back from the activities in our life’s, do we recognize reality and witness the social interactions that occur around us every day. The overarching purpose of this assignment was to go out into the community on two separate occasions to observe the social interactions- paying close attention to evidence of social networks, excluded or exclusive communities,

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