Short Response
4/30/18
Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower (1993)
- Critical Questions: Which is more indicative of creed, thought or deed? At what point of contradiction between these two does it become apparent that we are not who we think we are or say we are, but rather we are what we do? Why even bother with religious or philosophical thought at all when there are hardly any ways we can prove through action that we truly hold any particular higher belief, and, when there is, so rarely it seems people prove themselves to be of their word and thought?
- Select Excerpt: I began writing this about Mrs. Sims because she killed herself. That's what's upset me. She believed, like Dad, that if you kill yourself, you go to hell and burn forever. She believed in a literal acceptance of everything in the Bible. Yet, when things got to be too much for her, she decided to trade pain now for eternal pain in the hereafter. How could she do that? Did she really believe in anything at all? Was it all hypocrisy? Or maybe she just went crazy because her God was demanding too much of her. . (Butler 29)
- Close Reading and Contextual Analysis: In the Passage above, the narrator is disturbed by the contradiction between words and actions of a woman she knew. Mrs. Sims was an old, closed-minded individual who held the particular belief that those who commit suicide would burn in hell forever. It can be reasonably assumed that Mrs. Sims did not, under any circumstances, want to go to hell, so the narrator is puzzled and disturbed to find the contradiction between Mrs. Sims’ thoughts and her actions. It makes no sense at all that someone would so staunchly believe that suicide is a mortal sin, yet, when put in the tragic situation she was in, would also put a gun to her head and do the unthinkable. Was Sims a liar? Did she not really believe in hell or that she would be sent there should she kill herself, or was there a change of heart in her final days? Perhaps there was no change in mind at all, and, even while preparing to commit the unthinkable sin, Mrs. Sims never saw the contradiction between her thought and deeds. Perhaps this is what disturbs the narrator and many more like her: There is the possibility that no one is wholly who they say, or even think they are, because words and thoughts exist to serve as predictors or indicators of action. If those are not reliable indicators or predictors of action, such was the case for Mrs Sims, or if even your own thought cannot be 100% of the time trusted to tell others and yourself who you are, then can there be any security in deeper thought? Can even our own minds be untrustworthy when it comes down to what we believe right and wrong are? If Mrs. Sims could be so contradictory, couldn’t anyone else be? One struggles with the idea that no one is exactly who they think they are. It is not a new concept that a person’s actions would contradict their own beliefs in themselves, but when put on an eternal suffering, ending your own life scale like with Mrs. Sims, it makes the viewer aware of the fact that even our most closely held, most religious or ethical or philosophical thoughts might not be who we really are. And that’s not just upsetting, it’s terrifying.
- Reflection: You could ask yourself: “why all the philosophical thought, how can this apply to race relations?” and that’s not a bad question, but if we understand the Mrs. Sims scenario as the narrator of Parable of the Sower understands it, then no ethical thought is safe from this contradiction theory. How many people might say that they aren’t racist, and might truly believe that they aren’t racist, while at the same time supporting doctrines that are intrinsically racist or discriminatory. There aren’t many ways to prove through action that you do not discriminate between people of different ethnic backgrounds, so I take this lesson learned from Parable of the Sower and keep it in mind whenever someone only says who they are, never proving it through action, because there will always be a level of uncertainty in their persona.
