Octavia Butler’s 1993 publication is a science fiction novel, with the main character, a young black girl, Lauren Oya Olamina, predicting the dire environmental consequences which would befall the world due to climate change. Through her journal entries, Lauren envisions a world full of global warming effects, 13 years before this issue came to public consciousness. She endeavors to create change in a world “where things are so dangerous and crazy” (Butler 7). The novel draws the entire world’s attention to the looming climate change, but it was not easy to understand the significance of the book not until the effects of global warming started to be witnessed. Presently, people are protesting against fossil fuel plants, which emit greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, leading to climate change. The setting of the story is in Los Angeles, where Lauren lives during the mid-2020s. This young girl’s world has been wretched by climate change, and she needs to be shrewd and kind to survive. This book challenges readers to brace themselves for an entirely different world, which will be unbearable due to climate change if nothing is done to prevent this situation.
Butler implies that climate will only worsen the challenges the world is currently facing. The only way to survive the hardship is by treating others with respect, remaining civilized, and resolving conflicts peacefully. All these efforts require all society members to be resilient in their contribution towards an environment that is comfortable for all occupants. Being loving and developing supportive relationships are significant ways in which everyone can contribute to this resilience. Lauren lives in an environment that is contradictory about God’s nature because of the misunderstanding between the Christians and the traditionalists concerning who God is. For example, Lauren’s father is one of those who do not believe in God (Butler 16). However, the young girl decides not to follow her father’s perspective but instead develops her own, straying from the traditional perception. She escapes their walled community and endeavors to face the outside world, which is full of many adversities, to realize change. Throughout her journey, Lauren undergoes many transitions which shape her quest for freedom. Therefore, Lauren symbolizes those who dare to face a new world to find solutions to the challenges of society.
Lauren then joins a community full of love and compassion, for they share much in common, including losing their family members. In Acorn, the residents were further united and loved one another, and they always worked towards a common goal of overcoming the trauma which had befallen them. Climate change is an issue that requires unity of purpose to address. For example, human activities, such as farming and burning fossil fuels, which are the leading contributors to climate change, making the atmosphere extremely hot, can be avoided through proper regulation and mass action. Butler implies people can work together to overcome this problem by collaborating across sectors to propose and adopt policies aimed at reducing the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere to prevent global warming. Butler says that “societal prejudices have digressed” depicting the current state of affairs in the society (34). The biases based on class or race can be put aside for once, and all the efforts are directed to fighting for a common purpose, making the environment safer to live in for present and future generations.
Throughout Parable of the Sower, Butler describes water as an essential and expensive commodity that needs to be preserved. The book suggests desalinizing plants can help community members to obtain enough water for their daily use. The novel emphasizes the way the environment is in a hazardous state after being neglected. Butler states that “It only rains once every six or seven years” (61). These words symbolize that environmental neglect, coupled with climate change, is a factor for this lack of rain; thus, the amount of water needed by people is lower than the supply. This dystopian society is a result of environmental pollution and climate change. From an economic perspective, the cost of water has become high because the demand is more than the supply, which has made water more expensive than gasoline (61). Therefore, climate change has reduced the supply of water, signifying the way global warming can affect many other aspects of the world and lead to future crises.
The book delves deeper into the most critical environmental problem affecting the world in the current era – climate change. Over the past century, rapid industrialization has caused massive pollution of water, air, and soil, and the situation continues to worsen every day. Literature has always been a suitable medium through which social, economic, and environmental issues have been raised. For example, in the ancient civilizations in which men were dominant and women were expected to be inferior, feminist writers published stories, poems, and many literary works to create awareness about women’s rights. Similarly, Butler’s Parable of the Sower warns and calls the world to action concerning human activities, which will lead to a future unbearable world if not changed. In the book, Lauren made her first journal entry in 2024, which symbolizes that the impact of climate change would be witnessed over two decades after the book was published. As Butler states, “the civilization is to groups what intelligence is to individuals” (96). In this phrase, the author challenges readers to combine many people’s minds to achieve environmental change instead of turning against each other.
An eco-critical approach can be applied to analyze Butler’s Parable of the Sower. Literature plays a significant role in emphasizing such vital themes as climate change and how every human being can participate in realizing change. In Lauren’s world, cities’ ecology is worsening, and there is excessive degradation of the natural environment. Through these occurrences, Butler predicts what will happen if humans do not endeavor to protect the world from further harm. From the many social and environmental factors affecting the characters in Parable of the Sower, readers can understand what the author wants them to comprehend. In the novel’s dystopian world, the current fears of ecological degradation have been confirmed by the devastating state of the climate and society as a whole. Therefore, Butler calls the entire world to act to prevent the looming direct and indirect adverse effects of climate change.
In the current world, there are many campaigns continually encouraging people to take the initiative to conserve natural resources. However, despite these awareness efforts, humans are still incredibly wasteful and neglectful. The same state of affairs was evident in the Parable of the Sower since people are the ones who caused the issues in that dystopian world. The degradation continues to worsen every day since humans in Butler’s novel do not value their environment. For example, through his portrayal of the deeply saturated salty water and parts of the land crumbling into the ocean, Butler illustrates how environmental and socioeconomic degradation are related. In Parable of the Sower, the landscape is being decimated, and fires consume essential resources in California. For example, the loss of productive agricultural land makes people more selfish due to reduced food resources. This egocentric behavior creates an unpleasant social environment, full of fear and distrust, where some people take excess resources for themselves, leaving others without any. Therefore, people’s neglect to care for environmental conservation leads to a degraded society in which some people exploit others because of the limited resources available.
In conclusion, Parable of the Sower is a powerful call to action for all people to conserve their environment by avoiding engaging in activities that lead to adversity, for example, climate change. Butler demonstrates that the only way we can avoid the state of affairs similar to that in the novel’s dystopian world is by working together to make the environment safe for current and future generations. One way to do this is to stop burning fossil fuels, which release greenhouse gases, causing climate change. Achieving some goals requires collective social responsibility. Butler highlights one of the world’s current environmental issues, and how and why it is getting worse every day. In turn, global warming’s adverse effects lead to a degraded social environment full of fear and distrust, emphasizing the need to avoid the human activities that contribute to climate change.
Work Cited
Butler, Octavia E. Parable of the Sower. Grand Central Publishing, 1993.