Isabela's Insights on Utopias & Dystopias

 I personally really enjoyed the ending of this book- but I can understand someone's frustration with the ambiguity. At the end of chapter 25, Lauren's 'tribe' discuss staying in Bankole's land and creating an Earthseed community. They decide they will. Then Bankole and Lauren talk about Earthseed after having a funeral for his dead family. They planted oak trees as gravestones for the dead. The novel ends with the fact that they will call their new community Acorn; as in the first 'seed' or set commune to spread and cultivate the religion of Earthseed.  I was really fond of the conversation that Lauren and Bankole had before the end of the book. I understand Bankole's frustration and irritation with Lauren's assertion that 'God is Change'. But I actually like my own interpretation of it: it just means that the only thing that is true is change. You can either fight against it or go with it. As someone who really hates change, but has had cha...

 Currently, in the story, everything is going really well. Lauren and her "tribe" picked up four more people, and Lauren and Bankole began a romance. They are also now all heading to Bankole's land to start an Earthseed community. Bankole (fake casting) When Bankole was first introduced into the story, I remembered Lauren feeling attracted to him- but she claimed it was familial. Due to Bankole's age, (57), I sort of assumed it was because Lauren lost her father. I do believe this plays a part in their relationship and Earthseed- a sort of "father" figure for both.  However- then they slept together. I just can't condone this- I just can't. I get it kind of- like the moral decay of society and then going back to tribal roots of humanity. But child brides????? I mean I understand eighteen is the age of consent and to marry but to a man who is 39 years above her?  I really dislike how casually that was looked over: when Lauren tells Bankole her age, he...

 As a woman, reading Parable of the Sower is a breath of fresh air compared to reading the sexist rambling thoughts of Winston in 1984. Not only is the main character in Parable of the Sower a black woman, but she's one as well with a "disability". (I put this in quotes because her hyper empathy is seen as a disability really only in this context: it was because her mom was on drugs, and because there is so much suffering in public right now it makes it hard for her to function.) This allows for a totally different and unique perspective on a dystopian future. While all women suffer from horrible things in both the worlds of Parable of the Sower and in 1984, the perspective that is taken on this is totally different. In 1984, Winston shows readers a very small part of what's happening in the world around him. He discounts poor people as being 'too stupid', and he laments about women's lack of promiscuity towards him specifically. Even though it's not t...