Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler Philosophy and Buddhism Term Paper

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Philosophy: Buddhism- Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler“Parable of the Sower” is an interesting science fiction novel by Octavia Butler in 1993. The novel’s setting is in 2024 in the United States, which is highly relevant today[footnoteRef:1]. Global warming is deteriorating the Earth’s resources along with human actions. Poverty has struck the region hard, where even the safest protectors of the society are only looting people as much as possible, including police, firefighters, and other public service personnel. Water shortage, diseases, looting, drugs, etc., have become norms of society[footnoteRef:2]. The protagonist, Lauren, an African American teenage girl, decides to travel North aiming for a well-paid job. On her journey, she meets new people and learns about a self-shaped religion called ‘Earthseed.’ The first community she formulates with people with the same mission as hers is settled in northern Carolina, the Acorn community. [1: Goodreads, 2022, Parable of the Sower (Eathseed #1) by Octavia Butler, Accessed December 7, 2020, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52397.Parable_of_the_Sower.] [2: Ibid]The relevance of the book in recent times makes it a learning for modern people as well. The greatest learning one can get from this novel is change. Change itself could be attributed to growth which could be inferred as ‘evolution’ or ‘transformation.’ The reason for saying so is that the evident change in the novel begins from the climatic change, and people’s less faith in their religion turns them evil. Although this is not the actual transformation the author suggests, it led Lauren to become closer to the new people she met on her journey and build a new community based on the values of ‘hope.’ It could be deduced that evolution was observed in terms of having a purpose in life that created ongoing adaptability and a new religion formation.Lauren had an idea of the future based on her created notion of change. The ideal future she imagined was inherited partially from religion and partially from change. When taking a lesson from her past, she wanted her future to be altered, absent from the vices that were undesirable for her. As the book states, “God is change.” The religion Earthseed is rooted in change, the change from their evil past and alteration into a new world free of poverty, diseases, loot, wars, etc.Also, Lauren believed in outing power into that change since making Earthseed a reality; her philosophy was to transform. As the author narrated, the circumstances and Lauren’s beliefs emphasized that the desire to change things was embedded in spiritual power.

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The narration could be best understood with these lines, “Earthseed is all that spreads Earthlife to new earths…and the destiny of Earthseed is to take root among the stars”[footnoteRef:3]. This reveals that Lauren’s ideology of the future resided in ‘stars’ that symbolize a change in terms of Earth beings and a destiny envisioned in stars. [3: Ibid, 53.]The destruction on Earth and a path to change for rebuilding a new community could also be attributed to the same idea. For example, the Earth’s destruction due…

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…said that she could teach and attract people to Earthseed. The book cites, “Teaching is what I would choose to do…If I do it well, it will draw people to me- to Earthseed”[footnoteRef:6]. It stands true with the perception whenever you want to change someone’s behavior towards something; the change is taught through learning. A baby learns the same behaviors from his parents as he sees them doping in his childhood; in the same way, developing and teaching clear rules to carry out a certain procedure is what Lauren thinks she can do for Earthseed’s new believers. The expectations and ground rules she might set for them to foresee the religion a true change for them, which would assure them not only a hope for a better future but also a successful adaptation for a new transformation towards peace; it is this where the teaching starts for learning appropriate behaviors. Certainly, it seems a necessary part of the process for making a smooth acceptance for new believers coming to Earthseed and the behavioral change a convenient shift. [6: Ibid, 85. ]What our modern society can learn from the Parable of the Sower is that change is essential for transformation. It can go through a process that Lauren, the novel’s protagonist, underwent through a willingness to accept, adapt, and teach new believers of Earthseed. It is repeatedly argued that spirituality brings power to this process as God of Change facilitates the course to escape from the oppression that the old world of destruction….....

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