DIARY
FORMAT
The
book’s diary format works for most of you, because, as Laura contends, it is “as
if…Lauren herself writing.” Nathan says that such a diary format allows Butler’s
main character Lauren to describe “her emotions and the emotions of others strictly
from her perspective.” Chad eloquently furthers these ideas when he writes: “The…dairy
format…only serves to enhance the personal discourse between the reader and the
author. This is because as one is reading, the personal connection forged with
the protagonist is far more genuine then if the book had been written in a more
omniscient tone.” Gerard elaborates: “…the
narrative jumps around quite often, most of the time there are ten or so day
gaps between entries. It is filled with indented and bolded poems that Lauren
has written herself, most often the small stanzas are related to her own ideas
of god and religion. In addition, each chapter starts with a poem that is very
similar to the different things she comes up with in her personal journal. The
language used is believable of that of a younger girl and mostly simple
sentences lend to the feeling of desperation in the community.” Kaitlyn pays
attention to the amount of time that elapses between diary entries and writes: “The dates that Lauren is writing in her
journal seem significant to me. The fact that the deaths of people, the house
fires, and the thief break-ins are so close to one another in days has me
questioning even more. Do horrible things really happen every day?”
SETTING: DYSTOPIA; L.A. SUBURB,
2025
Some
of you think Butler’s imagined future is believable; others express how
opposite her viewpoint is to your own imagined futures. Laura believes the
world Butler creates is pretty real. “At moments while I’m reading, I almost
feel like I’m reading about a foreign third world country in our present time,”
Laura writes. Michael W. agrees. “Sadly,
this future looks all too possible as the economies of the world slowly decline,”
he writes. “This situation has happened before around the world and still
exists today...” Kaitlyn similarly muses: “I imagined the future to be
prosperous and successful not spiraling into an abyss.” Alexandra warns that this
is not a far-off future if we keep using fossil fuels at the rate we are using
them. Christian, too, sees Butler’s
dystopia as already a reality in South and Central America: “Page 82 is where
Lauren makes the suggestion to head north for a better life, to Oregon,
Washington or hopefully Canada. The father says that people are shot just for
trying to cross the border. All of a sudden, I was hit with a juxtaposition. If
I moved the border south, change ‘United States’ to ‘South and Central America’…the
story could be talking about today.” Colin also finds Butler’s prediction of a
water crisis particularly savvy. He writes: “Water supplies are
shrinking or being bought up by foreign countries, calling serious attention to
how precious our water is, and how we need to reexamine our water usage to
allow enough for future generations to prevent the future that Butler predicts.” But Chad feels that the “story is set in a walled community on the outskirts of Los Angles in
the year 2025 in a future utterly unrecognizable to the modern observer.”
Rebecca shares Chad’s view. She argues: “The way the author viewed 2025 is
nothing like the way I picture our country in twelve short years.” Michael G.
maintains that when “we” think of the future, “we think of more prosperity,
technological advances, and an all around better life,” not of Butler’s L.A.,
where man’s “best friend becomes a feared wild animal that will kill and eat
humans” and people “cannot go out into the street safely, because they might be
murdered or raped” and “have no police or fire department, unless they call and
pay a fee.” Michael W. makes an astute point when he says that Butler’s
imagined future reminds him of the past. “Some aspects of this new way of life
reflect the past,” he writes. “The richest people have all of the
resources and the poor have absolutely nothing.” John furthers: “The town in
which Laruen lives has nearly reverted back to a life common in the
country’s early years, in that women are getting pregnant at a young age,
energy is scarce, so electricity is limited, and the outside world is
violent.” Gerard reflects on exactly how Lauren’s community is
forced to live: “here is a need for walled communities, children show callousness to
decapitated bodies, people race to collect water from scarce rain, rabbits are
raised as livestock and acorns are a source of food…While murdering children,
stealing and raping is normal outside of the neighborhood, caring for one
another is the norm inside. On more than one occasion precious sources of food
are shared with those who were more in need and Lauren’s father still maintains
his own church.” Nathan writes about Butler’s imagined economy: “Butler’s world
is one in which the economy is failing and industries are controlled by a
minority of wealthy corporate owners and fueled by the sweat of a starving
majority.” Casey adds that “to
purchase food” outside this community, “you need hundreds of dollars” and she
picks up on the detail that adults “have to go armed everywhere…” Dana says
that the setting of the book has her thinking about what our current
predicament is and where it might lead us: “We want the newest and greatest yet
still believe in the ‘go green’ method.” Charity also has us thinking when she
says that it would have been different to read this book when it was first
published in 1993, as 2025 was harder to fathom than it is today in 2013.
CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT: LAUREN’S HYPEREMPATHY
Andrew
comments that Butler’s main character Lauren is mature and stubborn for her 15
years. Nicole describes Lauren’s intelligence and guts: “Earthseed,
Lauren’s own version of religion interested me very much. For someone so young
to decide that the religion they are expected to believe in is not something
she supports and to go on to create her own is amazing. I love how intelligent
she is and how in tune she is with herself and what she believes. I guess with
no freedom to roam outside of her neighborhood without facing danger, she has
much time to analyze the world she lives in and uncover her feelings.” Laura succinctly states that
in Lauren Butler “creates a normal teenager, giving her normal teenage
thoughts, and then adds in a handicap. She makes Lauren into somebody we can
all relate to.” Lauren’s handicap? Hyperempathy. Rebecca feels that Butler does
a great job making Lauren’s illness seem real. Michael G. reads the author’s
inclusion of this character trait as significant to the plot of the book: “I think that the narrator’s ability to
feel other peoples’ pain is a significant detail to the story. [Lauren]
developed this illness as a result of her mother’s drug addiction. It was
mentioned that much of the population has had problems with drug addictions
which contributed to the horrible state that the country is in currently.
Ironically, the illness that [Lauren] has, as a result of one the society’s
greatest problems, is the thing that keeps her from adapting into a savage (like
much of the population). While most of the country is selfish, and violent through
a survival of the fittest type of system, her illness forces her to be the
opposite; compassionate and caring.” Michael W. notes that Lauren’s
“hyperempathy also sets her up to become a prophet of sorts,” as the “pain that
she feels…helps her to understand the difficulty and desperation of everyone’s
situation…” Colin agrees and writes: “Lauren’s hyperempathy, the
term Butler uses to describe Lauren’s ability to feel and empathize to an
extreme degree, brought on by her mother’s drug use during pregnancy, would
appear to be Butler’s way of comparing Lauren to a God-like figure. Lauren
mentions that she takes on the feelings of the living, feeling pain when others
are hurting, sorrow when others are sad, calling to mind how Jesus Christ died
for the sins of all, but instead of dying, Lauren feels and empathizes.” Kaitlyn writes about how
impressed she is that Lauren shoots the dog, despite the pain she, too, suffers
as it died. Lauren, in other words, won Kaitlyn’s respect at this moment in the
novel. Michael W. finally observes: “as people are forced to kill other human
beings over rabbits…. people in societies like these will either be forced to
become survivors or die because they kept too much of their humanity.”
THEMES: OLD VS. NEW/CHANGE/ FAITH; IMPORTANCE OF COMMUNITY
Ryan identified “motifs of faith” running through the
novel. Chad picked up on the theme of change—the basis of Lauren’s invented
religion. “One of the underlying themes in novel is change,” he writes. “Moreover,”
he adds, “the novel emphasizes change as an unavoidable factor in life and
therefore it should be embraced passionately. Frequently Lauren references
change as equitable to God or even that the two notions are inextricable. Such
references to me seem to bolster the notion that, similar to God, change is an
irrevocable force unable to be abated or ignored by humanity. Lauren’s emphasis
upon change perhaps stems from her belief that everyone around her seems to long
for the glory and prosperity of the past rather than attempting to revive such
things in future endeavors.” Chad and several
others predict that Lauren’s obsession with change will force her to leave her
community and change herself. Christian and Casey see generational differences
within the novel’s characters when it comes to dealing with the circumstances
in which they find themselves. Christian writes, “The story represents
two generational viewpoints, the older one thinking of what was and working
hard on holding what they have. The younger generation sees what is and is
thinking about how to change it to the better.” Casey furthers: “The theme I got as I read
was: out with the old and in with the new. The people [in Butler’s novel] need
to stop relying on their old way of life and realize it won’t get any better
unless they do something about it.” Casey also researches background
information on Butler, and learns that Butler’s father was a Baptist preacher,
just like Lauren’s, and that Butler calls herself a “free spirit,” which may be
similar to Lauren’s free-thinking character. Britt finds a difference between
Lauren and her step-mother; Lauren likes the stars, and her step-mother misses
city lights. Britt calls Lauren’s step-mother “selfish” in her materialist
desires. Laura writes, lastly, about how Butler foresees strength in community:
“She addresses how in desperate times, people fall onto prejudices and don’t
work together in multiple groups, but rather stick to one intimate group.”
QUESTIONS
Gerard poses: “Is it possible to live a decent, moral life, in a world
where being evil seems to be necessary?” Alexandra
wonders: “How would we cope with a future like this?” John also wonders about “the necessary
means” survival might demand. Casey wonders about the role
of women in the novel and a few people point out that the narrator’s conflict
with her father is intriguing. Jacob asks: “Why
do so many seem to simply accept their peer’s and family’s beliefs as their
own; and why are the few that challenge those beliefs usually ridiculed and
outcasted? Why are those with different and unusual beliefs and ideas
frowned upon, and seen as a sort of evil, only hoping to take the rest of us down
with them?”
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