<<

School of Education, Culture and Communication

Character Narrators, the Implied Author, and the Authorial : A Rhetorical and Ethical Reading of Octavia E. Butler’s of the Talents

Linda Melkner Moser Supervisor: Karin Molander Danielsson Advanced Essay in English Studies HEN401 Spring Term 2020

Abstract This essay considers the interplay between narrators, the implied author, and the authorial audience in Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Talents. The aim of the study was to investigate how narrators, the implied author, and readers position themselves in relation to each other and in relation to the ’s ethical dimensions. The theoretical framework is based on James Phelan’s theories on the rhetorical and ethical aspects of . The essay argues that the implied author’s communication to the authorial audience is one of the reasons that the novel, like its prequel Parable of the Sower, often succeeds to function as warnings to the audience of dangers ahead. This is especially true regarding one of the implied author’s most consistent messages to the audience throughout the Parable : every choice has consequences, and those consequences need to be considered when we decide how to and react in different circumstances, both as individuals and as a society.

Keywords: Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower, Parable of the Talents, James Phelan, the implied author, character narrators, narrators, authorial audience, rhetorical theory, /ethics, ethics, rhetoric, rhetoric of character , Lauren Olamina, Olamina, Earthseed, epistolary novels, narrative theory.

Table of Contents 1. Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………1 2. Literature Review………………………………………………………………………….. 3 3. Theoretical Framework……………………………………………………………………..5 4. Analysis…………………………………………………………………………………….7 4.1. Synopsis Relevant to the Analysis………………………………………………..7 4.2. The Narrating Situation of Parable of the Sower…………………………………8 4.3. The Narrating Situation in Parable of the Talents……………………………….. 8 4.4. Ethical Positions and Narrative Judgments Regarding Olamina’s Choice Not to Leave Acorn………………………………………………………………………….. 9 4.5. Asha’s Choice Not to Forgive Olamina………………….. ……………………..17 4.5.1. The Narrative Situation and Asha’s Narration in the Epilogue………..17 4.5.2. Ethical Positions, Judgments, and Reliability the Epilogue………….. 18 5. Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………26 Works Cited…………………………………………………………………………………..28

Melkner Moser 1

1. Introduction At the end of the Cold War in the late 20th century, the United States emerged as the world’s sole superpower. It was a time when many people in the West imagined a prosperous, peaceful, and bright future. However, in 1993 Octavia E. Butler published Parable of the Sower, a novel where she postulates a future that is anything but bright. On the contrary, in Butler’s imagined United States of 2024 climate change has made water a scarcity, fires ravage the dry landscape, and socioeconomic gaps have widened into gulfs. Drug use is rampant, families and communities are disintegrating, and every day is a fight for survival. In Parable of the Talents, the sequel published in 1998, Butler continues her bleak and violent narrative on the same note. The novels can be—and often are—read as a critique of political priorities and choices made in the United States in the late 20th century, and as a warning of what the consequences may be if the country remains on its current path (Stillman 15). Both novels center on Lauren Olamina, an African American teenager from Los Angeles, who grows up to champion an alternative to contemporary ways of life as the founder and leader of a new belief system: Earthseed. According to Lauren Olamina, God is not a deity in the traditional sense; God is change. Earthseed teaches that to survive in a chaotic and unpredictable world, humans need to adapt to the changes they encounter. In Parable of the Talents, several characters go by multiple names. To limit confusion for my own reader, I consistently refer to characters by only one name. Lauren Olamina is called Olamina, Olamina’s brother is called Marc, Olamina’s husband is called Bankole, and Olamina’s daughter is called Asha. The Parable novels are epistolary novels. Parable of the Sower is narrated through journal entries, and through Earthseed: The Books of the Living, a collection of verses similar in style to Bible verses. Both are authored by character narrator Olamina. However, in Parable of the Talents, Butler introduces multiple narrators, the most important of whom is Olamina’s adult daughter, Asha. Butler has positioned Asha’s narration as a frame narrative; Asha is the narrator of both the prologue and most of the epilogue. Asha’s narration also introduces and comments on journal entries from Olamina, Marc, and Bankole. Asha’s narration repeatedly undermines Olamina’s, something that I will investigate further in my analysis. Melkner Moser 2

In this thesis, I focus solely on Parable of the Talents as I explore the ethics that underpin the novel. The theoretical framework is based on James Phelan’s rhetorical theory of narrative and ethics. The approach takes an interest in the mechanics behind our response to fiction. Ethical readings consider questions such as why do we not always hope that a fictional murderer is captured, but instead get a thrill when he escapes justice? How does the author accomplish this response in the reader? How do readers respond to different ethical dilemmas in a work? A central theoretical construct in the essay is the implied author, defined by James Phelan as: “a streamlined version of the real author, an actual or purported subset of the real author’s capacities, traits, attitudes, beliefs, values, and other properties that an active role in the construction of the particular text” (Living to Tell about It, 45). I also use Phelan’s term for an author’s ideal reader: the authorial audience. The questions guiding the research are: how does the introduction of character narrator Asha affect the ethical distance between narrators, implied author, and authorial audience in Parable of the Talents? Can a difference in the implied author’s ethical distance to the character narrator Olamina be identified in different parts of the novel? How does the introduction of multiple narrators in Talents affect the authorial audience’s judgment of characters, narrators, and implied author? Does the ethical distance between the audience and the implied author change throughout the novel? What ethical dimensions to the novel are revealed through the identified ethical positions and judgments? The essay begins with a brief literature review that reveals that while critics have taken an interest in the novels since their publication, ethical readings of the Parable novels are not common. The next section introduces the theoretical framework, followed by the analysis where I do two close readings from Parable of the Talents to investigate the ethical positions and narrative judgments of the narrators, the implied author, and the authorial audience. In the conclusion, I argue that in Parable of the Talents, the distance between the implied author’s ethical positions and those of character narrator Asha is shorter at the beginning of the novel and larger at the end, while the opposite is true for the implied author and Olamina. The effect of the implied author’s communication to the authorial audience, and her guidance of the same, is that the audience remains largely aligned with Butler throughout the novel; from an ethical perspective it positions itself closer to Asha at the beginning of the novel and closer to Olamina toward the end. The most significant implication of these ethical

Melkner Moser 3 alignments is that the audience is likely to remain receptive to the implied author’s communication regarding the novels’ overarching ethical dimensions. This in turn indicates that the implied author’s communication to the authorial audience is one of the reasons that the novels often succeed to function as warnings to the audience of dangers ahead. This is especially true regarding one of the implied author’s most consistent messages to the audience throughout the Parable novels: every choice has consequences, and those consequences need to be considered when we decide how to act and react in different circumstances, both as individuals and as a society.

2. Literature Review Octavia Butler and her works have interested scholars for decades and there is no sign of that interest waning. Previous research often centers on three common themes: race, gender, and/or religion, which is not surprising considering that these are also recurrent themes in Butler’s works in general (see for instance Dawn and Kindred). Although the ethical dimensions of the Parable novels have interested scholars, readings that apply a rhetorical approach to exploring the novels’ ethics are rare. While that is an indication of the relevance of my own project, it means that such research is missing from this review. Instead, the overview presents articles that exemplify the thematic focus that is most common in research on Butler’s work, along with research that has proven particularly useful for my understanding of ethical components of Butler’s works in general. In the oft-cited article “Dystopian Critiques, Utopian Possibilities, and Human Purposes in Octavia Butler’s ,” Peter G. Stillman explores the nature of Butler’s dystopian world creation. He argues that Butler’s functions as a warning of what may happen if late 20th century society remains on its current path (16). In addition, he provides a thorough overview of the mechanics of the world that Butler has created, highlighting connections between Butler’s opinions about Reagan-era politics and her novels’ setting. Like Stillman, Justin Louis Mann also argues that there are strong connections between Butler’s own present and her futuristic settings. In his article “Pessimistic Futurism: Survival and Reproduction in Octavia Butler’s Dawn,” he exemplifies this by tracing how Reagan-era United States and the setting of Butler’s novel Dawn are connected. Mann coins the term pessimistic futurism to describe the particular tension between past, present, and

Melkner Moser 4 future that exists in some of Butler’s works. Mann’s article has increased my understanding of Butler’s criticisms of the present and visions for the future. While my own approach concentrates more on rhetoric and ethics, Mann’s argument about Butler’s pessimistic futurism is of interest because Butler performs similar extrapolations and critiques of the trajectory of late 20th century United States in the Parable novels. Also considering time in Butler’s works is Marlene Allen, who states in “Octavia Butler’s Parable Novels and the ‘Boomerang’ of African American History” that Butler conceptualizes time as a cycle. Allen argues that Butler specifically connects the idea of time as a ‘boomerang’ to the violent history of African Americans and other minorities (1354). Furthermore, Allen posits that character narrator Olamina and Earthseed can be understood as Butler’s solution to how the cyclical nature of history may be avoided (ibid). In other words, Allen is aligned with Stillman and Mann in their view of Butler’s concerns for the present and her visions for the future. However, Allen ties her argument closer to the African American experience, particularly to the history of slavery, than Stillman and Mann do (1357). Concentrating more specifically on the novels’ dystopian setting, Connor Matthew Pitetti presents a comprehensive overview of the Parable novels’ setting in his dissertation “The City at the End of the World: Eschatology and Ecology in Twentieth Century and Architecture”. Pitetti argues that while apocalyptic fiction often is of great interest to environmentalists thanks to its functions as warnings of what the future may hold, postapocalyptic hold more promise for environmentalist discourse than apocalyptic ones. He contends that the open-ended nature of postapocalyptic narratives allows for more complex and sensitive stories about the interaction between, and dependence on, humans and nonhuman beings (iii). While Pitetti’s approach and purpose are different from Stillman’s, he is closely aligned with Stillman’s arguments regarding the nature of the Parable novels’ setting and Butler’s disapproval of late 20th century environmental policies. Another common focus area for scholars is the connection between the Parable novels and religion. While a majority of researchers appear to agree with Marlene Allen’s claim that Earthseed is a mix of different scientific theories and religious ideas from diverse religions (Allen 1353), Donna Spalding Andréolle argues instead in “ of Old, Solutions for the New Millennium: A Comparative Study of Christian Fundamentalism in

Melkner Moser 5

M.K. Wren’s A Gift Upon the Shore and Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower” that the Parable novels suggest that Butler considered Judeo-Christian values an ideological foundation for “social order in the American imagination” (Andréolle 116). Andréolle’s argument adds nuance to the Parable novels’ critique of American society and can further increase scholars’ understanding of the complexity of Butler’s works. Taking an entirely different approach, Sarah Outterson performs an ethical reading of Butler’s works in “Diversity, Change, Violence: Octavia Butler’s Pedagogical Philosophy,” where she discusses Butler’s ethics and argues that there is hidden violence in Butler’s treatment of the concepts of learning and change (434). Outterson explicitly considers the novels’ ethical dimensions and illustrates the connection between violence and change in Butler’s works in a clear and illuminating way. She asserts that Butler’s works suggest that humans learn best through “violent encounter with inevitable change” (ibid).

3. Theoretical Framework Rhetorical analysis concerns the communicative nature of literature, and it considers such communication to be a purposive act (Phelan, “Rhetoric/ethics” 203). James Phelan credits Wayne C. Booth’s seminal work The Rhetoric of Fiction, published in 1961, as a foundation for his own and other scholars’ more recent work on rhetorical theory of narrative. Booth argues that the techniques used by an author affect the audience; therefore, techniques are inherently rhetorical (Booth 169 ff). Booth’s theories on the relationship between authors, narrators, and have greatly influenced both rhetorical approaches of narrative, as well as narrative theory in general (Phelan, “Rhetoric/ethics” 208). Also of importance to current critics and theorists within the field of rhetorical theory of narrative and its connection to ethics are the works published by scholars like Martha Nussbaum and J. Hillis Miller in the late 1980s and early 1990s on the relationship between ethics and fiction. Phelan, who was a student of Booth’s, is now himself a leading scholar within the field of narrative theory with his models for rhetorical and ethical criticism. Rhetorical theory provides a way for the critic to explore what is being communicated in a text, how it is communicated, and to whom, which is why it is especially suitable for the type of analysis that I perform in this essay. Drawing particularly on Phelan’s construct of ethical positions (Phelan, Living to Tell about It 23) and his theses of narrative judgments

Melkner Moser 6

(Phelan, “Narrative Judgments and the Rhetorical Theory of Narrative” 323), my aim is to identify and analyze the implied author’s communication to the authorial audience, as well as the interplay between the narrators, implied author, and the authorial audience. According to Phelan, communication in a work happens on multiple levels (LTTAI 18). The narrator communicates along two tracks: she addresses the narratee, but she also unwittingly discloses information to the authorial audience. Similarly, the implied author communicates directly or indirectly to the authorial audience. The authorial audience in turn positions themselves in relation to what is being communicated from both the narrator and the implied author (ibid), adding further dimensions to the ethical analysis. In other words, Phelan’s theories allow the critic to consider how the implied author communicates with their audience, how the audience engages with what is being told, and what the effects of this interplay are. Phelan defines ethical positions as “a concept that combines being placed in and acting from an ethical location” (LTTAI 23). Ethical positions in fiction result from the interaction of the characters within the story world; the narrator in relation to the telling, the told, and the audience; the implied author in relation to the telling, the told, and the authorial audience; and the reader in relation to the set of values, beliefs, and locations operating in the above mentioned situations (ibid). For instance, referring to one of Phelan’s example’s, when encountering an , the audience needs to position themselves ethically in relation to both the narrator as well as the implied author. Do we as readers condemn Kazuo Ishiguro’s narrator Stevens from The Remains of the Day for prioritizing his work and his morally deficient employer over his love for Miss Kenton, or not? Most readers do. If the reader judges Stevens harshly, will they believe that having missed his chance to find love and happiness is an appropriate outcome, or even a suitable punishment, for his ethically problematic choices? Phelan argues that if the reader does not, the ethical distance between the implied author and the reader may increase, as the reader possibly judges Ishiguro for his treatment of Stevens instead.1 Phelan’s theories allow the critic to consider how Stevens, the implied Ishiguro, and the audience position themselves ethically in relation to each other and what the effect of such positioning is.

1 For further reading, see chapter 1, “The Implied Author, Unreliability, and Ethical Positioning: The Remains of the Day,” in Living to Tell about It by James Phelan.

Melkner Moser 7

In other words, a rhetorical analysis does not seek to apply an existing ethical model or system to a work (Phelan, “Narrative Judgments...” 324). Instead, the idea is to attempt to “reconstruct the ethical principles upon which the narrative is built” (ibid). Consideration of narrative judgments are an important part of such reconstructions. Phelan argues that the authorial audience passes interpretive and ethical judgments on characters, their situations, and their choices (323). Furthermore, ethical judgments in narratives are not only related to the judgments made about characters. It also concerns the , especially regarding the ethics of the implied author’s relation to the narrator, the characters, and the audience (ibid). Thus, by considering the narrative judgments in a text, how they are communicated by the implied author, and what responses they elicit in the reader, it is possible to draw conclusions regarding the ethical principles of a narrative. In this essay, I analyze the implied author’s relation to narrators Olamina and Asha, as well as the audience’s engagement with the implied author and the character narrators. I trace to what extent Butler’s and her narrators’ ethical positions are aligned based on the implied author’s communication to the authorial audience. I focus specifically on two ethically charged situations in Talents where each character narrator makes a choice with ethical dimensions, and then I draw conclusions regarding Butler’s ethical positions by exploring the narrative judgments made and communicated in relation to the two narrators’ choices.

4. Analysis 4.1. Synopsis Relevant to the Analysis When Parable of the Talents begins, it has been five years since the end of Parable of the Sower when Olamina established the first Earthseed community, Acorn. The political situation in the United States is unstable, and when a nearby ranch is raided, Olamina and the others at Acorn are worried that they will attract attention from religious extremists. Olamina’s husband Bankole is concerned about the threat to Acorn and its residents and advocates a move to a nearby town. Olamina refuses, a decision that changes her life forever. When Acorn is attacked, Bankole is killed, Olamina and Bankole’s baby is kidnapped, and Olamina is imprisoned. After breaking free, she is unable to find her daughter, who has been placed for adoption and renamed Asha.

Melkner Moser 8

4.2. The Narrating Situation of Parable of the Sower Because Parable of the Talents is the sequel of Parable of the Sower, I occasionally compare the narrating situation in the two novels. Parable of the Sower is an epistolary novel narrated by character narrator Olamina. Each chapter of Parable of the Sower begins with a quote from Earthseed: Book of the Living in bold, followed by Olamina’s journal entries. The first entry dates from 2024 and the last from 2027. The narrating situation is straightforward. There are few, if any, signs of willful unreliability in the narration. Olamina is young, which affects how she perceives and describes events at times, but the implied author does not communicate warnings about Olamina’s narration to the authorial audience. Moreover, the implied author appears largely aligned with most of Olamina’s ethical positions in the novel. The novel ends with the biblical parable of the sower from the book of Luke (King James Version), printed in bold.

4.3. The Narrating Situation in Parable of the Talents In Parable of the Talents, Butler introduces additional narrators who unsettle Olamina’s narration, which signals a shift in the implied author’s ethical distance to Olamina. The most significant of these narrators is Asha, Olamina’s adult daughter. Asha narrates both the prologue and the epilogue of Talents. In the print version of the novel, Asha’s narration is always printed in bold. The other narrators’ narration, including Olamina’s, is printed in normal font. Similar to Sower, the novel ends with the biblical parable of the talents from the book of Matthew (KJV), but in Talents it is printed in cursive. As mentioned above, in Sower each chapter is introduced with a verse from Olamina’s book Earthseed: Book of the Living printed in bold. The same is true for Talents, but instead of being immediately followed by Olamina’s narration, most chapters in Talents have an inserted comment from Asha between the Earthseed verse and a journal entry. At times, Asha’s narration is also inserted between other narrator’s journal entries, commenting on others’ report. Asha’s narration relates directly or indirectly to the journal entries that precede or follow her own. Talents is comprised of entries and narratives assembled and arranged by Asha. She has chosen the Earthseed verses that introduce each chapter, and arranged all the narration, including the journal entries by other character narrators. The novel’s events are

Melkner Moser 9 predominantly narrated through Olamina’s journal entries, but entries by Bankole and Marc are also included. The events taking place in the journal entries are dated from 2032 to 2035, with the exception of Lauren’s final entry which is dated in 2090. All of Asha’s narration takes place after the year 2090, after Lauren’s death. The events on which she comments have taken place between 2032 and 2057.

4.4. Ethical Positions and Narrative Judgments Regarding Olamina’s Choice Not to Leave Acorn This close reading explores the narrating situation and the narrative judgments regarding Olamina’s decision not to leave Acorn. The analysis is inspired by Phelan’s reading of narrative judgments in Ian McEwan’s Atonement. The narrative situation in Atonement is more complex than the one in Talents, but his reading exemplifies the interplay between readers, characters, narrators, and the implied author, as well as the effects it can have on our interpretation of a narrative. Phelan demonstrates how the reader’s judgments of both characters and the implied author’s ethics relate to each other. Moreover, he shows how the implied author can guide an authorial audience toward ethical judgments in a narrative, which is something that Butler also does in Talents. By positioning the narration so that Asha and Olamina contradict each other, the implied author creates tension between two reports. The authorial audience needs to determine whom to trust, Asha or Olamina. The first example of this happens already in the prologue. Because Talents is the sequel, most readers will already have formed an opinion about Olamina based on the events in Sower. In spite of her youth and inexperience, it is likely that most readers have perceived her as a reliable character narrator, because the implied author has signaled her reliability to the audience: there is little instability present in the text, Olamina’s narration is not undermined by inconsistencies or contradiction, and the implied author appears largely aligned with Olamina’s ethical positions in Sower. However, the presumption of Olamina as a reliable narrator is immediately challenged in Talents. The prologue begins with a verse about God from Earthseed: The Books of the Living in bold, directly followed by Asha’s narration, also in bold:

Melkner Moser 10

They’ll make a God of her. I think that would please her, if she could know about it. In spite of all her protests and denials, she’s always needed devoted, obedient followers—disciples —who would listen to her and believe everything she told them. And she needed large events to manipulate. All gods seem to need these things. Her legal name was Lauren Oya Olamina Bankole. To those who loved her or hated her, she was simply “Olamina.” She was my biological mother. She is dead. (Butler 1-2) This passage illustrates that Butler introduces instability and tension between Asha’s narration and Olamina from the beginning of Talents. Asha claims that Olamina “needed” devotion and obedience from her followers, referred to as “disciples” by Asha, a word with strong religious connotations. This signals that whoever Olamina was at the end of Sower is perhaps not who she later became; therefore, the audience may need to reconsider their evaluation of Olamina. In the next sentence, the word “manipulate” appears as further communication about the shift in distance between the implied author and Olamina. At this point, the reader may wonder who the narrator is and when she is narrating. The tension and instability increases with Asha’s revelation that while there are people who loved Olamina, there are also those who hated her. The audience must now ask themselves what has happened between the end of Sower and the narrating instance that would make someone hate Olamina. Finally, Asha reveals that she is not just anyone; she is Olamina’s daughter. In other words, the newly introduced narrator is someone likely to have information about Olamina that the reader does not have. The tension between Asha and Olamina is present throughout Talents as the implied author continues to undermine Olamina’s report, indicating that Butler’s ethical distance from Olamina has changed in comparison with Sower where they appear largely aligned. Another early example of this relates more directly to Olamina’s choice not to leave Acorn. In chapter 1, inserted between diary entries by Bankole and Olamina, Asha comments: I think, reading between the lines of some of my father’s [Bankole’s] writing, that he wanted to take care of this strange young girl that he had found. He wanted to keep her safe from the chaos of the time, safe from the gangs, drugs,

Melkner Moser 11

slavery, and disease … He couldn’t keep my mother safe of course. No one could have done that. She had chosen her path long before they met. His mistake was in seeing her as a young girl. She was already a missile, armed and targeted. (Butler 9) The implied author positions Asha closer to the character Bankole than to Olamina in the above quote by having Asha present Bankole as the rational protector, who wants to “take care of this strange young girl” and “keep her safe from the chaos of the time” (ibid). The statements are immediately followed by Asha’s assertion that Bankole’s attempts to protect Olamina were always futile. Asha’s statement does not only undermine Olamina’s narration, but also affects how the authorial audience perceives Bankole. At this stage in the novel, the implied author is positioning Asha as the stronger and more reliable one among the narrators, with the result that her narration affects how the audience positions themselves ethically in relation to the characters. Furthermore, in the above quote, Asha does not develop her thoughts or explain why she likens Olamina to an “armed and targeted” missile. Instead, her narration is immediately followed by another entry from Olamina’s journals with the effect that the inserted statement functions as an indirect challenge to what will be told. This is a signal from Butler to the audience to be wary of Olamina’s report. In the following journal entry, Olamina recalls a nightmare about her family of origin, how her community’s walls were breached, and her family killed. Olamina states: So I awoke alone, soaked with sweat, and unable to get back to sleep. It’s been years since I’ve had such a strong reaction to a dream. As I recall, the last time was five years ago right after we settled here, and it was this same damned dream. I suppose it came back to me because of the attack on Dovetree. (Butler, Talents, 17) Through Olamina’s dream, Butler is reminding the reader of two things: i) Olamina has personal experience regarding threatened communities and the destruction of a family, ii) Olamina is aware of—and has an emotional reaction to—the increased threat level to her community. This reminder communicates that Olamina’s later choice not to leave Acorn cannot be blamed on her youthful inexperience, nor on a lack of insight of the danger to her community. The function of the reminder is arguably that Olamina’s narration is further destabilized with the result that the authorial audience’s wariness of her narration increases.

Melkner Moser 12

Aside from destabilizing Olamina’s narration through Asha, the implied author also confronts Olamina within her own narration. Butler accomplishes this by contrasting Olamina’s ethical position to that of characters that the reader knows and trusts, and whose advice and opinions Olamina ordinarily respects. One of those characters is Bankole, Olamina’s husband. As mentioned above, earlier in the novel the implied author has used Asha’s narration to guide the reader toward Bankole’s ethical position, resulting in further destabilization of Olamina’s narration. As the audience attempts to ethically position themselves in relation to both the character narrators and the implied author, it may affect how they interpret Olamina’s report about her and Bankole’s disagreement regarding a move away from Acorn. Olamina writes in her journal: He wants to [move]. For my sake and the baby’s as well as his own. It’s a chance that may not come his way again, he says. He’s an old man, he says. He’s got to think of the future, and I’ve got to think of the baby, he says. I’ve got to be realistic, for god’s sake, and stop dreaming, he says. I’m not conveying the full flavor of this. It’s the same old stuff. He’s said most of it before, and I’m damned tired of it. But it’s worse now. It’s scarier. Bankole means it more than he ever has before because he has an offer now—a real offer. And he means it because there’s this small new life between us, growing inside me … But sometimes all of the ease and the joy and the love that I feel because of our child growing and developing within me seems lost on Bankole. All he seems to see is what he calls my immaturity, my irrational, unrealistic faith in Earthseed, my selfishness, my shortsightedness. (Butler 132-33). The implied author guides her reader more carefully here than she does when Asha is challenging Olamina’s narration. Instead of open contradiction, Olamina’s emotional report to her narratee simultaneously discloses to the authorial audience that the motivation for Bankole’s wish to move is to protect their family. Many readers will sympathize with Bankole’s sentiment and find it morally sound; protecting your child is a fundamental responsibility of a parent. Olamina, on the other hand, is frustrated with her husband and she is hurt that Bankole has questioned her faith in Earthseed and called her selfish and shortsighted. Even though the passage is narrated by Olamina, Butler has destabilized Olamina enough as a narrator that the audience will not automatically align with the narrator’s ethical position. Furthermore, in the journal entry, Olamina also discloses to the

Melkner Moser 13 authorial audience that she is indeed prioritizing Earthseed and her own desires over her husband and child, which may have an effect on the audience’s ethical judgment of Olamina’s choice, especially if they find Bankole’s ethical position morally sound. In addition, while the passage above is not enough to state with certainty whether Butler condemns Olamina’s choice or not, it can be read as a signal from the implied author that the ethical situation in question is complex and nuanced. The ethical dimensions of Olamina’s choice do not relate only to Olamina herself, but to all of us. What are our priorities? Who do we prioritize? What is the cost of our choices? And who pays the price? As shown by multiple critics, for instance Peter Stillman and Justin Louis Mann, such questions do not only infuse the passages presented in my close reading, but also the Parable novels as a whole and Butler’s works in general, suggesting connections between the ethics of Olamina’s choice to the overall ethics of the Parable novels. In both novels, one of the most consistent communications from the implied author regarding her ethical positions is the argument that it is necessary for humanity to consider the consequences of our choices, for instance our choice to deplete Earth’s resources for immediate benefit rather than conserving the environment for future generations. Taking the implied author’s overarching ethical positions in the novel into account makes it possible to argue that the implied author’s communication does not only concern whether Olamina is right or wrong by not leaving Acorn, but that the most important ethical aspect regarding any choice is that we must always consider the possible consequences of it and position ourselves in relation to said choice. Returning to the text now, yet another character prompts Olamina to consider the possible ramifications of her choice. Olamina is challenged by her friend Zahra, a confrontation that suggests that consequences are indeed central to the implied author’s communication to the authorial audience in this section of the novel. Zahra and Olamina are close friends, they are both from the same community in Los Angeles, and the audience knows Zahra as an intelligent and rational character. Olamina tells Zahra that she does not want to leave Acorn, and that she and Bankole have turned down the offer of a house by the ocean: [Zahra:] “But a real house, I mean. A house like back in Robledo.” [Olamina:] “Yes.” [Zahra:] “And you turned them down?”

Melkner Moser 14

[Olamina:] “Yes.” [Zahra:] “You’re crazy as hell.” [Olamina:] That did startle me. “You mean you want me to go, Zee?” [Zahra:] “Don’t be stupid. You’re the closest thing I got to a sister. You know damned well I don’t want you to go. But...you should go.” [Olamina:] “I’m not” [Zahra:] “I would.” [Olamina:] I stared at her. [Zahra:] “I’d go to a better place if I could. I got two kids. Where do they go from here? Where’s your little baby going from here?” (Butler 145) Through this exchange, and Zahra’s arguments against Olamina’s decision, Butler again exposes Olamina’s priorities. The audience needs to decide whether they agree with Olamina’s choice, or if they judge her for it. Coming into play in such a decision will be the audience’s feelings about parenthood and whether it is ever ethical for a parent to prioritize anything over their child, a complicated question indeed. On the next page, Zahra and Olamina have the following exchange, where Zahra may now be articulating many readers’ ethical position on the matter: [Zahra:] “For your baby’s sake, you ought to go.” [Olamina:] “For my baby’s sake, I’m staying.” And she met my eyes again. [Zahra:] “You sure? Think about the future.” [Olamina:] “I’m sure. And you know damned well I am thinking about the future”. (146) Zahra and Olamina are speaking of different futures. Zahra is referring to Olamina, Bankole, and the baby’s future, while Olamina is referring to the future of Earthseed, humanity, and the Destiny2. Butler shows that before the attack on Acorn, Olamina is warned by people whom she trusts (and whom the audience trusts), and she still does not listen. Olamina has the opportunity to change her mind, but she does not. The question that readers now need to consider is to what extent they believe that Olamina had a chance to prevent her family from

2 Olamina teaches that to survive and evolve, humanity needs to leave Earth and start new civilizations in space. This doctrine is referred to as the Destiny in the novels.

Melkner Moser 15 being destroyed. Is she indirectly responsible for Bankole’s death and the kidnapping of her daughter? The implied author has turned the characters closest to Olamina against her. The audience may have followed suit. In addition, it is also possible to take into account my previous suggestion that there may be a connection between Olamina’s choice and the implied author’s communication regarding the ethical dimensions of choices in general. Olamina’s exchange with Zahra does not contradict such a reading; it supports it, because Zahra emphasizes the importance of taking the future of Olamina’s baby into consideration when Olamina makes her choices. Thus, it can be argued that the implied author may be judging Olamina’s priorities in this instance specifically, but it can also be argued that Butler simultaneously signals judgment of anyone who fails to consider—or fails to heed—the possible consequences and repercussions of choices made. Furthermore, Butler reveals that Olamina is not only prioritizing Earthseed over her loved ones, she is also contradicting her own beliefs and teachings, which is another ethically problematic dimension of Olamina’s choice. Olamina preaches that God is Change and that to survive, humans must adapt to circumstance, but at the same time she appears unable to acknowledge that the increased threat level against Acorn may warrant change and adaptation. Butler exposes the contradictions in Olamina’s thinking to the authorial audience by having Asha state them directly: “If there are sins in Earthseed, shortsightedness, lack of forethought, is the worst of them. And yet shortsighted is exactly what she [Olamina] was. She sacrificed us for an idea” (Butler 138). The inconsistencies between Olamina’s doctrine and her actions indicate that Olamina’s decision may be less influenced by logical thinking and more by self-deception and possibly also ambition. This gives the authorial audience information about Olamina’s motivation regarding her choice that they can and will use as they judge her. The implied author’s exposure of Olamina’s contradictory behavior functions to guide the audience’s judgments of Olamina, and likely guides them further away from Olamina’s ethical position in this situation. Additionally, if considering Olamina’s choice in relation to that of her father, who in Sower also failed to adapt to circumstance despite the increased threat level, it can be argued that the implied author sides with Asha, Bankole, and Zahra in their judgment of Olamina’s choice. Olamina has repeatedly criticized others, both through Earthseed and directly, who do not adapt to change to ensure survival. The consequences for not adapting are the same for

Melkner Moser 16

Olamina as it was for her father and the other residents of Robledo: devastation. Had she left Acorn when Bankole asked, Bankole would have survived, and Asha would have grown up with her parents. It is possible to interpret this as the implied author’s condemnation, or even punishment, of Olamina for the choice she makes. On the other hand, it is also possible to assert that the violent consequences of Olamina’s choice are not enough to indicate that Butler is condemning or punishing Olamina for her decision. Brutal violence is a common in Butler’s works in general, not only as punishment for characters who behave outside of the ethical boundaries, but for other reasons, too. For instance, Sarah Outersson asserts in “Diversity, Change, Violence: Octavia Butler’s Pedagogical Philosophy” that violence is closely connected to the concepts of learning and change in Butler’s works. She states: “Butler’s characters do not so much confront the dominant culture as find themselves learning and teaching because of its violence. The more they resist the lesson, the more they learn; the best teacher of all is the violent encounter with inevitable change” (433-4). Considering Outersson’s argument, it is possible to interpret the violent consequences of Olamina’s choice not to leave Acorn as a learning opportunity for Olamina, indicating that the implied author is communicating a lesson to her audience through her treatment of Olamina, rather than passing judgment on her. However, Outterson’s argument does not contradict the possibility that the implied author is also judging Olamina at this instant; I would argue that Butler is simultaneously judging Olamina and attempting to communicate a lesson to her audience. The implied author judges Olamina for not taking the threat to her family seriously enough; she is not considering all the possible consequences of her actions and choices, something that Butler consistently communicates to her audience is vital to both individuals and societies. However, whether she is punishing Olamina for her failure to consider the consequences of her choice or not, the implied author’s lesson for the audience remains the same: do not make the same mistake as Olamina. Instead, realistically consider the possible outcomes of your actions and if you want to avoid a potential consequence, change course. In other words, it can be argued that the implied author’s message in this specific instance is once again consistent with the overarching ethical dimensions and themes of the Parable novels. Yet another possibility is that the violent consequences of Olamina’s choice communicates the implied author’s judgment on American society rather than on Olamina.

Melkner Moser 17

Marlene Allen states that, “Butler also science-fictionalizes the notions of sociologists like E. Franklin Frazier, who concluded that one of the most damaging aspects of slavery was its destruction of the black family” (1362). Taking Allen’s insights into account, it is possible to claim that the violent destruction of Olamina’s family and community mirrors the destruction suffered by African American families throughout American history and that the implied author is not communicating lessons or judgment to the audience through the consequences of Olamina’s choice, but is rather placing Olamina and Acorn within the violent context of African American history. In other words, Butler’s judgment may be reserved for American society, which has allowed—and is still allowing—such violence to occur. Nevertheless, even if each signal from the implied author considered on their own may not be enough to indicate that Butler is increasing the distance between herself and Olamina, when viewed in relation to each other, the signals have enough in common to indicate ethical divergence. It also appears likely that the authorial audience is questioning Olamina’s decision and positions themselves closer to those challenging Olamina at this stage in the novel. Therefore, taking the judgments communicated through Asha’s and Olamina’s narration into account, I argue that the ethical distance between Butler, the authorial audience, and Olamina diverges regarding Olamina’s choice not to leave Acorn, especially if compared to the ethical distance between them in Sower. Butler’s potential judgments of society do not contradict the possibility that Butler simultaneously judges Olamina as well. The effect of the implied author increasing the ethical distance between herself and Olamina is arguably that many readers also pass judgment on Olamina for her failure to protect her family. Furthermore, the implied author’s consistent communication about the importance of taking the consequences into account when we make choices suggests that Olamina’s choice is closely connected to the Parable novels overarching ethical dimensions and themes.

4.5. Asha’s Choice Not to Forgive Olamina 4.5.1. The Narrative Situation and Asha’s Narration in the Epilogue Throughout Talents, Butler continues to position Asha as Olamina’s counterpoint. She gives Asha’s narration a privileged position in relation to Olamina by allowing her narration to frame and comment the other narrators’ narration, and by having Asha challenge Olamina’s report. However, while it can be argued—as I did in the previous chapter—that Asha’s

Melkner Moser 18 narration is a sign of Butler’s judgment of Olamina’s choices, Asha’s own intentions and experiences simultaneously come into play. Olamina’s decision not to leave Acorn did not just affect Olamina; it also had devastating consequences for Asha personally. While the first section of my analysis focused on Olamina’s choice not to leave Acorn, this section considers the relations between character narrators, the implied author, and authorial audience at the end of the novel. Three characters are at the center of the epilogue: Olamina, Asha, and Olamina’s brother Marc. The main event narrated by Asha in the epilogue is the story of her first meeting with her mother and the choice between Marc and Olamina that followed.

4.5.2. Ethical Positions, Judgments, and Reliability the Epilogue In the epilogue, the implied author distances herself from Asha. The first clear signal from Butler to the audience regarding her ethical positions in relation to Marc and Asha happens on the third page when Butler begins to realign Asha’s ethical position compared to earlier in the novel. Asha is providing background to her narratee, which functions to fill in temporal gaps in the narration between the end of the journal entries and the narrated time in the epilogue. However, her narration also contains important communication from Butler to the authorial audience regarding Marc as a character and Asha as a narrator. Discussing U.S. President Jarret’s defeat in the 2036 election, as well as Olamina’s lawsuit against the Church of Christian America3 for their part in the destruction of Acorn, Asha states: They [Jarret’s opponents] won by exposing some of the earliest Christian American witch-burnings. It seems that between 2015 and 2019, Jarret himself took part in singling people out and burning them alive. The Pox3, then a growing malignancy, had been both the excuse and the cover for this. Jarret and his friends had burned accused prostitutes, drug dealers, and junkies. Also, in their enthusiasm, they burned some innocent people—people who had nothing to do with the sex trade or drugs. When that happened, Jarret’s people covered their “mistakes” with denials, threats, more terror, and occasional payoffs to the bereaved families. Uncle Marc researched this himself several years ago, and he says it’s true—true and sad and wrong, and in the end, irrelevant. He says

3 In the Parable novels, the Church of Christian America functions as a representation of the conservative and intolerant forces that are the opposite of Olamina and of Earthseed.

Melkner Moser 19

Jarret’s teaching were right even if the man himself did wrong. Anyway, the Church of Christian American sued Olamina for her “false” accusations. (Butler 396) This is the first time that the audience learns that the events in the late 2010s and 2020s described in Sower were—at least to a certain extent—orchestrated, not simply the inevitable result of political instability and societal disintegration. Even more important, Asha’s narration contains instances of underreporting; Asha is not explicit about her motivation or ethical stance in the passage, but her ethical position can be inferred through her narration. She reveals that Jarret and his friends “in their enthusiasm” had burned innocent people, which in Asha’s view are people with “nothing to do with the sex trade or drugs”. Asha’s statement implies that it was not the burning people alive that was a problem, it was only problematic when the ones burnt were not involved in sex trade or drugs. This is a charged statement where Asha’s ethics are revealed to the authorial audience. Next, Asha tells her narratee that Marc, who is a Christian American preacher, has researched the events and says they are true but irrelevant because Jarret’s teachings were accurate. Marc’s statement reveals that he finds it irrelevant that the former President of the United States used to burn people alive while simultaneously instigating the violence that contributed to his election. While the audience is not likely to expect more from Marc, who has a personal interest in defending his church’s position, the audience may also notice that Asha does not disagree with, or otherwise comment on, Marc’s statement. Instead, she continues her narration without acknowledging the possibility that her narratee may find Marc’s position ethically problematic. This is an indication of Asha’s closeness to Marc, but what is new is that it is possibly also a sign of a potential alignment with his ethical position. What judgments will the authorial audience make as a result? And what is Butler’s position? The authorial audience is likely to see that Marc’s ethical position has not changed since he first became a Christian America preacher decades earlier and will judge him accordingly. Whether Asha’s on the matter will catch the reader’s attention or not is more difficult to gauge. A few pages later, Butler communicates that the ethical distance between Marc, Asha, and Olamina is diverging further during Asha’s and Olamina’s first meeting. At this moment, Olamina finally learns that her brother has known all along where her daughter is without telling her. Asha writes:

Melkner Moser 20

She stood up, staring down at me, staring with such a closed look frozen on her face. It shut me out, that look, and I wondered whether this was what she was really like—cold, distant, unfeeling. Did she only pretend to be warm and open to deceive her public? “When?” she demanded, and her was as cold as her expression. “When did you find Marc? When did you learn that he was your uncle? How did you find out? Tell me!” I stared at her. She stared back for a moment, then began to . She walked to a window, faced it for several seconds, staring out at the mountains. Then she came back to look down at me with what I could only think of as quieter eyes. (Butler 400-1) Two things are especially noteworthy in this passage when considering what Butler is communicating. First, the narration is immediate, as if Asha is narrating while it happens. She questions Olamina’s sincerity: “did she only pretend to be warm[?]”. However, this narration is not contemporaneous; the temporal gap is over 30 years. Asha already knows whether Olamina is a cold or warm person, whether she is deceiving or not. Even so, Asha adds nothing about her current view of Olamina; the reader is only privy to what Asha thought in the narrated instance. The effect of this on the audience will depend on the audience’s perception of Asha at this point in the epilogue. The second notable thing is that Asha never expresses any sympathy with the fact that Olamina in this moment learns that Marc has known her daughter’s whereabouts and kept it from her. Instead, Asha’s concern is whether the perceived coldness is an indication of her mother’s true personality or not. Why does she not comment on the shock and sense of betrayal Olamina must be feeling? Especially considering that Asha has had decades to reflect on this moment in hers and Olamina’s lives. Is Asha withholding the information from the narratee? Or is she still, years later, unable to empathize with her mother’s loss? Either way, the passage signals warnings from the implied author to the audience about Asha’s reliability, something that we will soon consider further. However, the way that Butler is increasing the tension between Olamina, Marc, and Asha will be analyzed first, because the conflicting loyalties between them are at the heart of the narrative judgment in the epilogue.

Melkner Moser 21

Butler presents no mitigating circumstances that would explain Marc’s choice to withhold information from Olamina and Asha, and readers will judge him harshly. When Marc defends his actions to Asha, it becomes clear that his decisions are based on pure selfishness: “I was so happy when I found you after you left your parents. I was so glad to be able to help you with your education. I guess...I had been alone so long that I just couldn’t stand to share you with anyone” (404). This is a weak defense of Marc’s actions. Marc has disregarded both his sister’s right to raise her child and his niece’s right to grow up with her mother. He has denied Olamina the peace of mind of knowing that her one and only child is alive. He has taken the right to decide that Asha should be raised by her abusive adoptive family instead of Olamina. The ethical distance between him and the audience has likely never been larger. Even so, Asha forgives him. The question is what to make of Butler’s decision to have Asha forgive Marc and what the consequences are for our perception of Butler’s ethical position in relation to Asha and Olamina. Asha says: My mother would not see him. He came to me almost in tears because he had tried to see her and she had refused. He tried several more times, and over and over again, she sent people out to tell him to go away. I went back home with him. I was angry with him, but even angrier with her, Somehow. I loved him more than I’d ever loved anyone no matter what he had done, and she was hurting him. (Butler 404) Asha chooses her uncle over her mother, and the reason is love. Marc is a father figure, her only family, and if she does not forgive him, she will suffer yet another loss. Olamina, on the other hand, is the mother who chose Earthseed over her family, at least according to Asha. While the authorial audience will have little sympathy for Marc’s position, it is possible that Asha’s will elicit sympathy considering the suffering that both Olamina’s and Marc’s choices have caused her. Learning that love is the reason Asha chooses Marc over Olamina may further soften the audience’s judgment of Asha. It is also conceivable that the authorial audience harbors a desire for a reunification between Olamina and Asha. It would give both their story and the novel closure. Nevertheless, Butler denies the audience this. Instead, she carefully guides the authorial audience’s responses by positioning Marc as the one to be blamed for the lack of closure. He

Melkner Moser 22 is the one who has manipulated events in his favor; Olamina and Asha have had little choice in the matter. In other words, regarding Marc, the implied author’s communication seems clear. She presents no acceptable justifications for Marc’s actions, which in turn can be interpreted as the implied author’s condemnation of Marc’s ethical position in the epilogue. However, Butler’s communication on Asha and how her own ethical position relates to Asha’s is less clear and warrants further investigation. Does Butler want the audience to judge Asha for choosing Marc over Olamina? And how do Butler’s signals regarding her ethical position in relation to her narrators affect the audience’s response and judgment of the events in the epilogue? To interpret Butler’s communication regarding her own ethical position, we need to consider two things: Asha’s reliability, and what Butler is signaling about Olamina in the final pages. We will begin by looking at Asha, because her unwillingness to see—or failure to acknowledge—the damage that Marc has caused both her and Olamina is not only a sign that Asha may not be a reliable narrator, even if she may not be willfully unreliable; it is also a sign of the implied author distancing herself from Asha. The most obvious signals from the implied author to the audience regarding Asha’s reliability do not appear until the epilogue. Until then, Asha’s narration has mainly functioned to nuance, expand, or contradict Olamina’s. However, one sign of possible unreliability is that there are temporal gaps in the narration toward the end of Talents. Asha is the curator of Talents. Is she withholding diary entries, and thus more information, from the reader to support her own view of Olamina? This is certainly a possibility. The most notable temporal gaps are in Olamina’s diary entries between 2035 and 2090. The reader never learns what happened in Asha’s and Olamina’s lives during this time. There are also indications that Asha has access to information that she is not sharing with the reader, specifically regarding Bankole’s and Marc’s journals. Bankole and Marc only narrate short sections of the novel through diary entries, but Bankole’s journal has a name, Memories of Other Worlds, introducing the possibility that in Asha’s narrating instance, Bankole’s journal has been published. Hence, Asha potentially has more information from Bankole than the reader does. What did she learn about Olamina and Bankole in his journals? In addition, it is also fair to assume that Asha has heard and read Marc’s version of events and that his version is not aligned with Olamina’s, which in turn may affect both Asha’s narration and the way she has

Melkner Moser 23 assembled the journal entries in Talents. As mentioned earlier in this chapter, there is also a large temporal gap between Asha’s narrating instance and the narrated instance, which may have affected Asha’s memory and cause her to misreport events. It is also possible that because Asha chose to remain close to Marc rather than reconnect with her mother, her narration is motivated by a need to defend her choice, which in turn would affect her report to the narratee. Furthermore, there are instances where Asha’s statements do not match the reader’s knowledge of events, which can be interpreted as signals from the implied author regarding Asha’s reliability. The discrepancy between Asha’s report and the authorial audience’s knowledge of events creates a tension that communicates an increased divergence between the implied author and Asha compared to earlier in the novel. One such instance occurs during the previously mentioned first meeting between Asha and her mother, which happened when Asha was 34 years old and Olamina in her 50s. The temporal gap between the narrated instance and Asha’s narrating instance here is at least 30 years. After Olamina tells Asha how hard she tried to find her, Asha reflects: “I didn’t know what to say to that. I shrugged uncomfortably. She hadn’t found me. And Uncle Marc had. I wondered just how hard she’d really looked” (Butler 402). This is an instance of misreporting. The reader knows that Asha’s conclusions do not match reality. We also know that in Asha’s narrating instance, she has read Olamina’s . Olamina was devastated when her daughter was stolen from her, and she and the other parents from Acorn searched for their children for years. Asha knows that her mother tried to find her. Hence, the reader is likely to recognize that Asha’s conclusion is not objective but possibly influenced by her contradictory feelings for her mother. This is especially true if the reader remembers that Asha’s narration is not contemporaneous. In other words, while I am unable to thoroughly evaluate Asha’s reliability here as it is outside the scope of this essay, there are indications that her reliability can be questioned, suggesting that further research is needed to determine her reliability. However, for our purposes, it is enough to conclude that the possibility of unreliability exists, and that the possibility is apparent enough to constitute a warning from the implied author to the reader to not accept everything Asha says as objective truth, even though these signals do not appear until the final pages. The effect of these warnings from the implied author is that the audience

Melkner Moser 24 not only needs to be wary of Asha’s narration in the epilogue, but also retroactively question Asha’s narration throughout Talents. In addition, yet another sign that the implied author is distancing herself from Asha in the novel’s final section is that Butler allows Olamina the final word. While Talents ends with the biblical parable of the talents from the book of Matthew, the final character narration is Olamina’s last diary entry before her death. It directly follows Asha’s narrative about Olamina’s and her first meeting. In this entry, Olamina looks back at her life’s accomplishments and her choices. It begins: I know what I have done. Earthseed was always true. I’ve made it real, given it substance. Not that I ever had a choice in the matter. If you want a thing—truly want it, want it so badly that you need it as you need air to breathe, then unless you die, you will have it. Why not? It has you. There is no escape. What a cruel and terrible thing escape would be if escape were possible. (Butler 405) Olamina is being uncharacteristically deterministic in this quote from her journal. She normally teaches through Earthseed that humans have agency and can shape their fate by accepting that God is change. However, in the above quote, Olamina is suggesting that she never had a choice regarding Earthseed. It could be argued that this is an indication that Butler is giving Olamina absolution for choosing Earthseed over her family’s safety at the beginning of the novel. However, Olamina is contradicting the principal ethical position of human agency in Earthseed. There are no signs of Butler distancing herself from that position in the Parable novels, on the contrary. In other words, it is doubtful that Butler would align herself entirely with Olamina’s sudden lean towards a belief in predestination. Even so, the placement of Olamina’s final diary entry as the last section of character narration can be interpreted as a reminder from the implied author to the authorial audience that while Olamina is certainly imperfect and the implied author’s position has diverged from Olamina’s in Talents, Olamina is still the of the Parable novels; she is the heart of the story. Even if Olamina has made mistakes, especially when she ignored both her own fear and the warnings of others and stayed at Acorn, Earthseed and its message that survival depends on adaptation to change is an ethical position that the implied author never challenges in either of the Parable novels. Thus, the implied author’s choice to let Olamina

Melkner Moser 25 get the final word may be a last signal that while she is not ethically aligned with Olamina in Talents to the same degree that she was in Sower, she is closer aligned to Olamina than Asha in the epilogue. The strongest indication that Butler sides with Olamina is her decision to have Asha forgive Marc instead of Olamina, while simultaneously making it close to impossible for the authorial audience to forgive Marc. This suggests that while the implied author has employed Asha’s narration to undermine and challenge Olamina throughout the novel, in its final pages, she changes course. She increases the distance between her own position and that of Asha’s. The result of that increase is an automatic narrowing of the gap between Olamina’s and the implied author’s ethical positions. The authorial audience will arguably follow Butler’s example as they position themselves in relation to Asha, Marc, and Olamina. It is not unlikely that the audience will judge Asha, because Butler aligns Asha with Marc, and Marc is a representative of an organization that has committed atrocious acts throughout the novel, and who has made selfish decisions for which the audience judges him. Hence, I argue that in the novel’s final pages the ethical distance between the implied author and Asha diverges more than earlier. I also find that the distance between the implied author’s and Olamina’s ethical positions diverge greatly at the beginning of Talents, but that the gap narrows in the novel’s final pages. Moreover, if comparing Butler’s ethical positions to those of Olamina’s and Asha’s, I claim that in the novel’s epilogue, the distance between the implied author’s and Asha’s ethical positions is wider than the distance between the implied author and Olamina. In addition, I assert that many readers will align themselves with Butler’s ethical positions throughout Talents. I base my argumentation largely on the narrative judgments surrounding Asha’s forgiveness of Marc and the fact that the epilogue allows for the reader to question Asha’s reliability, which unsettles and undermines the reader’s interpretation of Asha’s earlier report. Finally, I argue that the implied author’s alignment with Olamina in the epilogue also indicates that the ethical principles that underpin the Parable novels share more similarities with Olamina’s ethics and worldview as expressed through Earthseed, than with the ethics expressed by more conservative forces in the novel. In the Talents, Marc personifies such forces, and by aligning Asha with Marc, Butler signals the decreased ethical distance between her and Olamina. While Butler appears to pass judgment on Olamina for failing to live according to her own doctrine and adapt to changed

Melkner Moser 26 circumstances, the epilogue indicates that the implied author’s ethics are closer aligned with Olamina’s worldview than Asha’s and Marc’s.

5. Conclusion In conclusion, I have analyzed Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Talents using a rhetorical and ethical approach with a theoretical framework based on James Phelan’s theories. The analysis consisted of two close readings. In the first one I considered the narrative judgments surrounding Olamina’s choice not to leave Acorn when the threat to the community increased. The analysis focused on the introduction of Asha, a character narrator who contradicts and challenges Olamina’s narration. I concluded that the implied author repeatedly communicates that Olamina’s choice is ethically problematic and that she does so by unsettling Olamina’s narration through Asha. She also undermines Olamina within her own narration by positioning Bankole and Zahra as voices of reason arguing the need for Olamina to leave Acorn to protect herself and her child. I considered the possibility that the devastating consequences of Olamina’s choice to stay can be interpreted as the implied author’s further condemnation of Olamina, but also found that the consequences are not enough in themselves to conclude that Butler is distancing herself from Olamina. However, considered together with the rest of Butler’s communication, it appears more likely that the implied author’s ethical position does indeed diverge from Olamina’s. The implied author is closer aligned to Asha than Olamina in the sections of the novel that are the focal point of the first close reading. I have also suggested that the implied author’s most evident ethical position in relation to Olamina is the importance of considering the consequences of our actions and choices. I have also mentioned that the implied author appears to argue that such considerations need to be made not only on an individual level, but also as a society. A society that does not heed warnings of danger ahead is destined to suffer the consequences. Such a reading ties Olamina’s choice not to leave Acorn to the overarching ethics of the Parable novels, which both can be understood as warnings to the audience of danger ahead. In the last section of the analysis, consisting of a close reading of the novel’s epilogue, I found that the ethical distance between the implied author and Asha diverges more at the end of the novel than earlier. The conclusion is based both on the communications from Butler that Asha’s reliability can be questioned, and the fact that Asha’s ethical position is

Melkner Moser 27 closer aligned with Marc’s than Olamina’s in the epilogue, whereas the implied author’s position is closer aligned with Olamina. The effect of the implied author’s communication to the authorial audience is that the audience likely remains aligned with Butler’s ethical positions throughout the novel, siding with Asha regarding Olamina’s choice, but in the end positioning themselves closer to Olamina. While the audience may empathize with Asha’s choice of her uncle over her mother, based on Asha’s life experiences, Marc’s ethical positions are different enough from the overarching ethical principles communicated from the implied author throughout the Parable novels that readers will find it difficult to side with a version of Asha that is aligned with Marc. Possible areas for future research are a more thorough analysis of Asha’s and Olamina’s reliability. My project did not require a deeper investigation to answer my research question, but the analysis indicates that more findings can be made and that the result could add to our understanding of the ethical principles that underpin the Parable novels. Finally, in this thesis I have argued that in Parable of the Talents, the distance between the implied author’s ethical positions and those of character narrator Asha is shorter at the beginning of the novel and larger at the end, while the opposite is true for the implied author and Olamina. The effect of the implied author’s communication to the authorial audience, and her guidance of the same, is that the audience remains largely aligned with Butler throughout the novel; the audience positions itself closer to Asha at the beginning of the novel and closer to Olamina toward the end from an ethical perspective. The most significant implication of these ethical alignments is that the audience is likely to remain receptive to the implied author’s communication regarding the novels’ overarching ethical dimensions, allowing the novels to function as warnings of dangers ahead to the audience. This is especially true regarding one of the implied author’s most consistent messages to the audience throughout the Parable novels: every choice has consequences, and those consequences need to be considered when we decide how to act and react in different circumstances, both as individuals and as a society.

Melkner Moser 28

Works Cited Allen, Marlene D. “Octavia Butler’s Parable Novels and the ‘Boomerang’ of African American History”. Callaloo, vol. 32, no. 4, Fall 2009, pp. 1353-1365. Muse, doi:10.1353/cal.0.0541. Accessed 21 Jan 2020. Andréolle, Donna S. “Utopias of Old, Solutions for the New Millennium: A Comparative Study of Christian Fundamentalism in M.K. Wren’s A Gift Upon the Shore and Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower”. Utopian Studies, vol. 12, no. 2 (2001), pp. 114-123. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/20718319. Accessed 20 Jan 2020. Booth, Wayne C. 1961. The Rhetoric of Fiction. 2nd ed. The University of Chicago Press, 1983. Butler, Octavia E. Parable of the Sower. 1993. Grand Central Publishing, 2007. ---, Parable of the Talents. 1998. Grand Central Publishing, 2007. Ishiguro, Kazuo. The Remains of the Day. 1988. Vintage International, 1993. Mann, Justin Louis. “Survival and Reproduction in Octavia Butler’s Dawn.” Feminist Theory, vol. 19, no. 1, 2018, pp. 61-76. SAGE, doi: 10.1177/1464700117742874. Accessed 28 Jan 2020. Millis, J. Hillis. The Ethics of Reading: Kant, de Man, Eliot, Trollope, James, and Benjamin. Columbia University Press, 1987. Nussbaum, Martha. Love’s Knowledge. Oxford University Press, 1990. Outterson, Sarah. “Diversity, Change, Violence: Octavia Butler’s Pedagogical Philosophy.” Utopian Studies, vol. 19, no. 3, 2008, pp. 433-456. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/20719920. Accessed 30 Jan 2020. Phelan, James. “Narrative Judgments and the Rhetorical Theory of Narrative: Ian Mc Ewan’s Atonement.” A Companion to Narrative Theory, edited by James Phelan, and Peter J. Rabinowitz, 2005, John Wiley & Sons, pp. 322-336. ---, Living to Tell about It. Cornell University Press, 2005. ---, “Rhetoric/ethics.” The Cambridge Companion to Narrative, edited by David Herman, Cambridge University Press, 2007, pp. 203-216. Pitetti, Connor Matthew. The City at the End of the World: Eschatology and Ecology in Twentieth Century Science Fiction and Architecture. 2016. Stony Brook University, PhD dissertation.

Melkner Moser 29

Stillman, Peter G. “Dystopian Critiques, Utopian Possibilities, and Human Purposes in Octavia Butler's Parables”. Utopian Studies, Vol.14, No. 1 (2003), pp. 15-35. Accessed 20 Jan 2020.