Yvette Malamud Ozer
"Rising From its Own Ashes":
Hopelessness and Redemption
in Parables of the Sower and Tropic of Orange
Dedicated to the Memory of Octavia E. Butler (19472006)
Introduction Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower and Karen Tei Yamashita’s Tropic of Orange are novels of survival and redemption. While Parable of the Sower plunges headlong into a chaotic near-future dystopia, Tropic of Orange gradually reveals the injustices of the world. Tropic of Orange starts out with interpersonal frictions and the complexities of life within the near-normal world of Los Angeles. The sense of danger builds gradually as the world (and the plots) becomes more interwoven and complex. The level of danger and sense of futility start off very high in Parable of the Sower. As Earthseed is constructed and revealed bit by bit, the reader is presented with the possibility of survival, and the story ends on a note of cautious optimism.
Each novel follows its own path, presenting worlds not that far removed from our own. Some readers may point out the bleak circumstances of the inhabitants of these worlds: people living in poverty, with discrimination and violence, among other obstacles. Does Parable of the Sower paint a picture of a world spiraling downwards into unavoidable annihilation? Does Tropic of Orange leave the reader with a sense of disquietude, of relationships destroyed by death, of the people of Los Angeles living on a stretched and distorted map in a city where time no longer has meaning? What about the outlook for our own world? Some readers may interpret these novels as a call to become survivalists—to protect themselves with guns, to live behind walls in isolated terror awaiting the coming of Armageddon. I have a different interpretation.
In my view, destruction of the world as we know it is not a foregone conclusion. In Parable of the Sower, Butler discusses the importance of being prepared and the value of community. Butler shows how community might serve as a antidote to worldwide chaos and destruction by bringing people together to work for mutual protection and towards common goals. In Tropic of Orange, Yamashita offers a vision of a world of interconnectedness and a multiplicity of possibilities. Both novels show how conditions in the future are very much determined by the actions and choices of people in the present.
Hopelessness
There are two levels to Tropic of Orange: The first level—the interwoven stories of seven people—takes place in ordinary reality (that is, ordinary time and space, following conventional laws of physics). The other level of the story is the surrealistic (or magical realistic) world that centers on the tropic of cancer. An orange growing at the tropic of cancer catches the “line” of the tropic and drags the tropic of cancer northwards with it. This causes distensions and warping of time and space as we understand it, with geographical and metaphysical implications.Tropic of Orange begins with a sense of disappointment. One of the couples, Rafaela Cortes and Bobby Ngu, have separated. Rafaela and Bobby have a two-year old son, Sol. Sol and Rafaela are in Mexico while Bobby lives in Los Angeles. When it turns out Rafaela’s values and priorities differ from those of Bobby (he’s a workaholic and she thinks he’s killing himself with his smoking), she leaves him: “Bobby got in an argument with his wife. So she split. She took the boy with her” (Yamashita 17). A sense of hopelessness fraught with maternal anxiety is felt later in the story, when Rafaela is separated from Sol: “But Rafaela had missed catching the boy in her frantic chase, skidding perilously south. The strong hand of the villain reached out and clutched her arm, covered her screams, pulled her away” (Yamashita 186).
In Tropic of Orange, a sense of hopelessness is imbued into various descriptions of the world. The story describes the politics and economics of geography: How people’s origins, ethnicities, and nationalities affect their status and opportunities in the U.S. How NAFTA and other political and economic factors affect people’s wealth or poverty, what social services are available to them, whether they are marginalized, and how many choices they have.
Tropic of Orange addresses the issue of immigration: Bobby remembers bringing his wife, Rafaela, over legally from Mexico, and thinks about the others who try to cross:
People who cross into the U.S. face economic as well as geographical and linguistic borders:“Places ‘long the border everybody knows, every woman don’t get raped, she don’t pass. The price she pays. Next up from the women, it’s the poor Indian types. They don’t know the language, don’t know the ropes. It’s gonna be the border rats robbing them. Cross the river. Make a run for it down Zapata Canyon. Lose their money. Their shoes. The clothing off their bodies. Maybe nobody gonna see these folks again. Bunch come floating up the river. It’s a fourteen mile zone…On the other side the migra arrests 1,000 per night…It’s high technology with a revolving door. If you lucky, Border Patrol chases you down. Puts you in a wagon and dumps you back. But maybe you gonna be one of them gets shot” (Yamashita 201-202).”” ‘Do you have a green card? Do you have a social security card? Do you have any money? When you get there, you will be unprotected. If you get sick, no one can give you care. If you have children, no one will teach them’…’Is it a crime to be poor? Can it be illegal to be a human being?’ (Yamashita 211).”Poverty and homelessness establish a mood of hopelessness in Tropic of Orange. Buzzworm, described as a “Big Black seven-foot dude, Vietnam vet, an Afro shirt with palm trees painted all over it, dreds, pager and Walkman belted to his waist, sound plugged into one ear and two or three watches at least on both his wrists” (Yamashita 27), describes what his part of town lacks: “ ‘… major supermarkets, department stores, pharmacies, medical and dental clinics, hospitals, banks, factories and industry. In this city, you have to risk your life, go farther, and pay more to be poor’ “(Yamashita 175).
Manzanar Murakami, a former surgeon, is presently a composer and conductor of freeway symphonies. Manzanar is homeless by choice; many others in the story do not choose to be homeless. Rafaela is concerned about the plight of the working poor; those who work cleaning and have no benefits: “She told Bobby, janitor like them got to make better money. Got to get benefits. Some don’t even get the minimum. Can we live on $4.25 and hour? No way” (Yamashita 17).
Tropic of Orange describes global, as well as personal, hopelessness. Bobby and Rafaela are finally reunited, only to be separated again by a chasm wider than mere physical boundaries: ”They straddled the line—a slender endless serpent of a line—one peering into a private world of dreams and metaphysics, the other into a public place of politics and power. One peering into a magical world, the other peering into a virtual one. ‘Will you wait for me on the other side?’ she whispered as the line in the dust became again as wide as an entire culture and as deep as the social and economic construct that nobody knew how to change” (Yamashita 254).
In Parable of the Sower, Lauren Olamina is the daughter of an African-American Baptist minister living in a walled community located in Robledo, 20 miles from Los Angeles. Because Lauren’s mother was a drug abuser, Lauren was born with hyper-empathy syndrome, a delusional disorder that causes Lauren to share other people’s pain and pleasure.
In Lauren’s near-future world, there are homeless people, crazy people, violent people, and cannibals (Butler 243). Lots of travelers are looking purposefully for a place to settle, where jobs, water, and food are more plentiful. Some people are wandering about looking for new victims—while others are running away, escaping from slavery and violence: people whose families have been decimated and whose communities have been destroyed.
Lauren lives in a near-future dystopia; the world has reaped the consequences of global warming and economic collapse. Violence and chaos rule the streets, societies are falling apart, and poverty and illiteracy are commonplace. There are food and water shortages, unemployment, and the general deterioration of society. Social structures that come to power during periods of economic crisis are exemplified by Olivar (a company town), descriptions of vigilantism and mobs, and debt slavery.
The circumstances surrounding Hurricane Katrina in 2005 are eerily similar to descriptions of insurmountable obstacles and hopeless situations in Parable of the Sower: “There are over 700 known dead so far. One hurricane. And how many people has it hurt? How many are going to starve later because of destroyed crops?” (Butler 13).
Redemption
Redemption is portrayed in both novels when a situation that appeared hopeless turns around. Redemption refers not only to physical or tangible salvation, but also to a spiritual turning point, an epiphany, a sense of psychological closure. There is considerable redemption in Tropic of Orange: Rafaela is willing to let go of her baby to ensure his survival, and Bobby is willing to let go of Rafaela and Sol, if necessary, for their well-being. Manzanar Murakami stops freeway conducting, and Buzzworm gets unplugged. The reader learns about Manzanar’s initial transformation, from internment camp resident, to surgeon, to homeless conductor: “At what point the baton replaced the knife, he could no longer remember…One day, he left a resident to sew up a patient, removed his mask, gloves, and gown, strode through the maze of corridors, down the elevator through patient waiting, to become a statistic under missing persons” (Yamashita 56). Manzanar reaches a turning point when: “Manzanar let his arms drop. There was no need to conduct the music any longer. The entire city had sprouted grassroots conductors of every sort” (Yamashita 254). Finally, we see Manzanar reconnect with his past: “Manzanar had followed an ancient tortoise out into a deep place in his brain and stayed there year after year. Now it seemed he had surfaced… Manzanar… climb[ed] onto the gurney with his granddaughter…He took her hand in his like old times” (Yamashita 255).Sol is separated from Rafaela; subsequently they are reunited. Bobby is redeemed; he shows he truly loves Rafaela and Sol by letting them go.
“ ‘Sol!’ she screamed in horror as the boy danced further and further away…Rafaela had missed catching the boy in her frantic chase, skidding perilously south…Rafaela’s eyes pleaded from afar. Arcangel took the boy by the hand and stepped lightly into the bus” (Yamashita 185-186). “Rafaela picks up Sol. Boy’s straddling her hip and hanging on her neck. She’s beat up bad, but she’s some kind of angel. Never looked so beautiful. Tears running down her face, kissing Sol” (Yamashita 267-268). “What’s he holding on to? What’s he holding on to? …He gropes forward, inching nearer….That’s when he lets go. Lets the lines slither around his wrists, past his palms, through his fingers. Lets go” (Yamashita 268).When Rafaela discovers that her neighbor’s son, Hernando, is an organ smuggler, Hernando turns on Rafaela, and they struggle to destroy each other. Rafaela has an epiphany after she realizes she has vanquished and consumed her enemy:“Suddenly the sky was a chorus of heavenly chanting, a terrible blessing, and a great fluttering of millions of wings withdrawing nightfall, away. Rafaela crouched on her hands and knees in the dirt and bore her nakedness under the malign scrutiny of the now blue sunlight” (Yamashita 222).Lauren first introduces Earthseed as a possible means of survival. Earthseed’s proponents learn to think for themselves, their behaviors directed by enlightened self-interest, rather than by fear of hell or the promise of heaven: “A unifying, purposeful life here on Earth, and the hope of heaven for themselves and their children. A real heaven, not mythology or philosophy. A heaven that will be theirs to shape” (Butler 234). Some of Lauren’s predictions are borne out by subsequent generations in Butler’s sequel, Parable of the Talents.
In Parable of the Sower, redemption is achieved by the practice of Earthseed’s principles. For some, membership in the Earthseed community is the first time they’ve experienced working toward a common goal, beyond that of mere survival. Earthseed elevates its adherents, offering redemption and hope, while furthering its own cause.
Lauren adapts to and overcomes the obstacle of her hyper-empathy syndrome; she exhibits resiliency, and contributes to society by developing Earthseed. Lauren offers hope to other people facing challenges similar to her own.
Earthseed is a pragmatic approach to life; it provides a vision for the future as well as giving guidance for day-to-day living: “The essentials…are to learn to shape God with forethought, care, and work; to educate and benefit their community, their families, and themselves; and to contribute to the fulfillment of the Destiny” (Butler 234). By placing emphasis on the well-being of the community before that of the individual, conservation of resources, and protection of the environment, Earthseed looks at the big picture.
By remembering its dead and planting trees (Butler 295), the new community performs an act that achieves some degree of closure for members of the group, they are empowered and look to the future.
Parable of the Sower is set in a mood of fatalism, moves through shock, desperation, and hopelessness, and ends on a note of cautious optimism and determination. The excerpt at the beginning of Chapter 14 is a harbinger of the chaos to come:
“In order to rise From its own ashes A phoenix First Must Burn” (Butler 137).The image suggested, of a phoenix burning and then rising from its own ashes, sets the scene for the ensuing action; suggests some imminent cataclysm, and intimates that a recovery or rebirth is possible.
Conclusion
The many subplots of Tropic of Orange conclude with a sense of hope, both for the future of the novel’s characters, and for the future of their world:
“Unplugged and timeless, thinking like this was scary. Buzzworm gritted his teeth. Took a breath. Manzanar’s symphony swelled against his diaphragm, reverberated through his veteran bones. Solar-powered, he could not run out of time” (Yamashita 265).Parable of the Sower is not an easy story; it paints a picture of a failing world filled with people sinking to their basest selves. But it is also a story of hope: that even surrounded by chaos and violence, there are some people who rise above it. That thinking, caring people of different backgrounds, with different life experiences and values, can come together. That people can have enough faith in a unified cause and in each other to build a community. And that this community can spawn others like it, and together they can pull civilization out of the pit.
Both novels show that people can rise above their circumstances and choose to salvage their futures.
Works Cited
Works Cited Butler, Octavia E. Parable of the Sower. New York: Warner Books, 1993. Yamashita, Karen Tei. Tropic of Orange. Minneapolis: Coffee House Press, 1997.