The Stower's Parable Of The Sower

In the novel Parable of the Sower, the focal point is based on the main character fifteen year old Lauren Olamina who lives in gated community in Robledo, just outside of Los Angeles California. Lauren suffers with Hyper-empathy which she inherited from her mother, giving her the unique ability to feel the pain of others. Lauren is the daughter of a Baptist Minister, she has three siblings; Keith, Gregory and Marcus and her stepmother Cory. Living in the walls of Robledo, Lauren and her family have to figure how to cope with the turmoil and chaos that awaits them on the outside of Robledo. In July of thousand twenty-seven, Laurens’ community is bombarded with thieves and drug addicts, who burn the whole neighborhood leaving Lauren and the rest of the residents of Robledo with nothing. Through the tragedy that occurred in Robledo, Lauren is left with two people; Zahra Moss the wife of Richard moss who lived on the streets most of her life and Harry Balter

In the story Laurens’ hyper-empathy is tested when she encounters a man who might be of danger to her and her group. Lauren shoots the guy and watches him die slowly. Lauren soon realizes that if she doesn’t act fast she will began to feel the pain of the person she shot. To control her hyper empathy, Lauren slices the guy’s neck with a knife putting him out of his misery and was soon to be hers, “I went to my pack, struggling to navigate without throwing up. I pulled it away from the dead man, groped within it, and found my knife, sharp and strong. I flicked it open and cut the unconscious man’s throat open with it (Butler 180). Lauren had to place her focus solely on protecting her and the rest of the group. With hyper-empathy being her biggest setback, Lauren had to replace the emotions she felt with recklessness to defeat any perpetrators she may stumble