Parable of the Talents (novel)
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''Parable of the Talents'' is a science fiction novel by the American writer
Octavia E. Butler Octavia Estelle Butler (June 22, 1947 – February 24, 2006) was an American science fiction author and a multiple recipient of the Hugo and Nebula awards. In 1995, Butler became the first science-fiction writer to receive a MacArthur Fellowshi ...
, published in 1998. It is the second in a series of two, a sequel to '' Parable of the Sower''. It won the
Nebula Award for Best Novel The Nebula Award for Best Novel is given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) for science fiction or fantasy novels. A work of fiction is considered a novel by the organization if it is 40,000 words or longer; a ...
.


Plot

''Parable of the Talents'' is told from the points of view of Lauren Oya Olamina, her daughter Larkin Olamina/Asha Vere, and Lauren’s husband Taylor Franklin Bankole. The novel consists of journal entries by Lauren and Bankole and passages by Asha Vere. Five years after the events of the previous novel '' Parable of the Sower'', Lauren has founded a new community called Acorn centered around her religion, Earthseed, which is predicated on the belief that humanity's destiny is to travel beyond Earth and live on other planets in order for humanity to reach adulthood. The novel is set against the backdrop of a
dystopia A dystopia (from Ancient Greek δυσ- "bad, hard" and τόπος "place"; alternatively cacotopiaCacotopia (from κακός ''kakos'' "bad") was the term used by Jeremy Bentham in his 1818 Plan of Parliamentary Reform (Works, vol. 3, p. 493). ...
n United States that has come under the grip of a
Christian fundamentalist Christian fundamentalism, also known as fundamental Christianity or fundamentalist Christianity, is a religious movement emphasizing biblical literalism. In its modern form, it began in the late 19th and early 20th centuries among British and ...
denomination called "Christian America" led by
President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) *President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...
Andrew Steele Jarret. Seeking to restore American power and prestige, and using the slogan "
Make America Great Again "Make America Great Again" or MAGA is an American political slogan popularized by Donald Trump in his successful 2016 presidential campaign. The slogan became a pop culture phenomenon, seeing widespread use and spawning numerous variants i ...
", Jarret embarks on a crusade to cleanse America of non-Christian faiths. Slavery has resurfaced with advanced "shock collars" being used to control slaves.
Virtual reality headset A virtual reality headset (or VR headset) is a head-mounted device that provides virtual reality for the wearer. VR headsets are widely used with VR video games but they are also used in other applications, including simulators and trainers. VR ...
s known as "Dreamasks" are also popular since they enable wearers to escape their harsh reality. During the course of the novel, Acorn is attacked and taken over by Christian American "Crusaders" and turned into a re-education camp. For the next year and a half, Lauren and the other adults are enslaved and forced to wear "shock collars". Their Christian American captors exploit them as forced labor under the pretext of "reforming" them. Lauren and several of the women are also regularly raped by their captors, who regard them as "heathen". In 2035, Lauren and her followers eventually rebel and kill their captors. To avoid retribution, they are forced to disperse into hiding. By 2036, President Jarret is defeated after a single term due to public dissatisfaction with the "
Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., ...
Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
War" and revelations of his role in
witch burning A witch-hunt, or a witch purge, is a search for people who have been labeled witches or a search for evidence of witchcraft. The Witch trials in the early modern period, classical period of witch-hunts in Early Modern Europe and European Colon ...
s. Lauren looks for Larkin for over a year, travelling throughout Northern California and Oregon in her search. At the same time, she decides to re-establish Earthseed by teaching individuals about the religion during her travels and training them to educate others. She gains a significant following among the affluent in
Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous co ...
, and one of her more ardent supporters helps her publish ''Earthseed: The First Book of the Living'', which contains the verses she wrote defining the religion. This launches both Earthseed and her influence nationwide and at the same time, as she is hopeful for the future of humanity amongst the stars, she gradually abandons hope that she will find Larkin and gives up her search. Meanwhile, Larkin is adopted by an
African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
Christian America family and renamed "Asha Vere Alexander" after a popular Dreamask hero. Unloved and abused by her adoptive parents, Asha grows up never knowing who her biological parents are. As an adult, Asha reunites with her uncle Marcos "Marc" Duran, who was believed to have perished in the events of the previous novel and has since become a Christian America minister. With Uncle Marc's help, Larkin becomes an academic historian but leaves the Christian faith. Unknown to Asha, Uncle Marc had previously re-established contact with his long-lost half-sister Lauren. Marc claimed that the "Crusaders" were rogue elements who do not represent Christian America. He tells Asha that her mother is dead, and never told Lauren he had found her daughter. With Jarret's legacy in disgrace, Lauren's Earthseed religion grows in popularity in a post-war United States and throughout the rest of the world, funding scholarships for needy university students and encouraging humanity to leave Earth and settle in other worlds. After Asha learns that Lauren is her biological mother, she manages to meet with her. Though Asha is unable to forgive her mother for choosing to dedicate her life to Earthseed instead of continuing to look for her, Lauren tells her daughter that her door is always open. After learning that her half-brother Uncle Marc hid the fact that Asha was related to Lauren, Lauren severs all ties with her estranged brother, which further strains her relationship with Asha. They talk occasionally over the next 23 years but never truly bond as Asha decided "She never really needed us, so we didn't let ourselves need her." Lauren dies at the age of 81 while watching the first shuttles leaving Earth for the starship ''
Christopher Columbus Christopher Columbus * lij, Cristoffa C(or)ombo * es, link=no, Cristóbal Colón * pt, Cristóvão Colombo * ca, Cristòfor (or ) * la, Christophorus Columbus. (; born between 25 August and 31 October 1451, died 20 May 1506) was a ...
'', which carries settlers in
suspended animation Suspended animation is the temporary (short- or long-term) slowing or stopping of biological function so that physiological capabilities are preserved. It may be either hypometabolic or ametabolic in nature. It may be induced by either endogen ...
to the first human colony on another world.


Reception

''Parable of the Talents'' won the 2000
Nebula Award for Best Novel The Nebula Award for Best Novel is given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) for science fiction or fantasy novels. A work of fiction is considered a novel by the organization if it is 40,000 words or longer; a ...
. The academic Jana Diemer Llewellyn regards it as a harsh indictment of religious fundamentalism and compares the novel to
Joanna Russ Joanna Russ (February 22, 1937 – April 29, 2011) was an American writer, academic and feminist. She is the author of a number of works of science fiction, fantasy and feminist literary criticism such as ''How to Suppress Women's Writing'', as w ...
' ''
The Female Man ''The Female Man'' is a feminist science fiction novel by American writer Joanna Russ. It was originally written in 1970 and first published in 1975 by Bantam Books. Russ was an ardent feminist and challenged sexist views during the 1970s with ...
'' and Margaret Atwood's ''
The Handmaid's Tale ''The Handmaid's Tale'' is a futuristic dystopian novel by Canadian author Margaret Atwood and published in 1985. It is set in a near-future New England in a patriarchal, totalitarian theonomic state known as the Republic of Gilead, which ...
''. The ''
Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...
'' op-ed editor Abby Aguirre has likened the religious fundamentalism and authoritarianism of President Jarret to the "
Make America Great Again "Make America Great Again" or MAGA is an American political slogan popularized by Donald Trump in his successful 2016 presidential campaign. The slogan became a pop culture phenomenon, seeing widespread use and spawning numerous variants i ...
" rhetoric of the
Trump Administration Donald Trump's tenure as the 45th president of the United States began with his inauguration on January 20, 2017, and ended on January 20, 2021. Trump, a Republican from New York City, took office following his Electoral College victory ...
.


Proposed third ''Parable'' novel

Butler had planned to write several more ''Parable'' novels, tentatively titled ''Parable of the Trickster'', ''Parable of the Teacher'', ''Parable of Chaos'', and ''Parable of Clay''. ''Parable of the Trickster'' was the most developed and would have focused on the community's struggle to survive on a new planet, Bow. She began this novel after finishing ''Parable of the Talents'' and mentioned her work on it in several interviews, but at some point encountered
writer's block Writer's block is a condition, primarily associated with writing, in which an author is either unable to produce new work or experiences a creative slowdown. Mike Rose found that this creative stall is not a result of commitment problems or th ...
that led to numerous false starts. She eventually shifted her creative attention, resulting in '' Fledgling'', her final novel. The various false starts in the novel can now be found among Butler's papers at the
Huntington Library The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, known as The Huntington, is a collections-based educational and research institution established by Henry E. Huntington (1850–1927) and Arabella Huntington (c.1851–1924) in San Ma ...
, as described in an article in the ''Los Angeles Review of Books''.


See also

*'' Parable of the Sower''


Further reading

* Allen, Marlene D.
Octavia Butler's ‘Parable’ Novels and the ‘Boomerang’ of African American History
” ''Callaloo'' 32. 4 2009 pp. 1353–1365. * Caputi, Jane. "Facing Change: African Mythic Origins in Octavia Butler’s Parable Novels." ''Goddesses and Monsters: Women, Myth, Power, and Popular Culture''. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 2004. 366-369. * Jos, Philip H.
Fear and the Spiritual Realism of Octavia Butler's Earthseed
” ''Utopian Studies'' 23. 2 2012 pp. 408–429. * Lacey, Lauren. J. "Octavia Butler on Coping with Power in ''Parable of the Sower'', ''Parable of the Talents'', and ''Fledgling''.” ''Critique'' 49.4 (Summer 2008): 379-394. * Melzer, Patricia. "'All That You Touch You Change': Utopian Desire and the Concept of Change in Octavia Butler's ''Parable of the Sower'' and ''Parable of the Talents''." ''Contemporary Literary Criticism Select''. Gale, 2008. Originally published in ''FEMSPEC'' 3.2 (2002): 31-52. * Nilges, Mathias. “
We Need the Stars’: Change, Community, and the Absent Father in Octavia Butler's ‘Parable of the Sower’ and ‘Parable of the Talents'
’” ''Callaloo'' 32.4 2009 pp. 1332–1352. * Stanford, Ann Folwell. "A Dream of Communitas: Octavia Butler’s ''Parable of the Sower'' and ''Parable of the Talents'' and Roads to the Possible." ''Bodies in a Broken World: Women Novelists of Color and the Politics of Medicine''. Chapel Hill: The U of North Carolina P, 2003. 196-218. * Stillman, Peter G.
Dystopian Critiques, Utopian Possibilities, and Human Purposes in Octavia Butler’s Parables
” ''Utopian Studies'' 14.1 (2003): 15-35.


References


External links


''Parable of the Talents: A Novel''
* {{Octavia Butler 1998 American novels Novels by Octavia Butler 1998 science fiction novels Dystopian novels African-American novels English-language novels Nebula Award for Best Novel-winning works Religion in science fiction Climate change novels