Laura Bruce 86-125

In this next sequence of chapters, Octavia Butler seems to demonstrate how the former society collapsed through the collapse of Lauren’s family. We see distrust shown, the prejudices that show up, and then the cancer. Lauren’s father’s violent reactions are like a cancer. He is a man of much respect and great control, and for such a man to lose that control in that violent manner where he beat his son bloody would not be expected whatsoever. Cory, the mother, favors a child, who should be considered useless in their new living standards, and dislikes Lauren just because she isn’t her biological daughter. This breakdown of the family, if put into larger terms like a nation, can show how the world came to such a state as Lauren has been showing us. Resources became scarce in the nation, distrust is sown, prejudices taken, people take sides, and then somebody or something, the cancer, takes hold and creates a spectacle where everything around it begins to come crashing down.

                Octavia doesn’t give us such a direct view of the world this time. She mainly focuses upon the family and through that she shows us the world. She also takes an unexpected turn of events by bringing Lauren and her brother Keith closer together though before they previously hated each other. Unfortunately, which is what I think she wants us to focus on, Keith dies before any permanent affection can take hold. I feel like she is trying to teach us two things. 1, we can’t hold on to people we love the way Cory does when they are doing everything that goes against our own morals, and 2, we need to take the time to find the good in everyone, bring it out, and then cherish them, because they can always be ripped away from us any day and time.