Making Connections

Speculative Narratives within Parable of the Sower & Pop Culture Media

"There is no end to what a living world will demand of you." - Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Sower

What is SPECULATIVE NARRATIVE?

Speculative narrative is a way of storytelling, generally within speculative fiction, in which alternative or unlikely realities blend with the real world. Combining elements of various genres such as science fiction, fantasy, and many other, speculative narratives explore the changing potential of our past, present, and future realities, promoting this year's theme of worldbuilding. For the last year, we will be perusing Parable of the Sower in Humanities Core as a speculative narrative that combines afrofuturism and speculative fiction to explore the possibilities of the spaces that African Americans and those of like-mindeded purposes navigate to build themselves their own world.

PARABLE OF THE SOWER as a Speculative Narrative

IMAGE CREDIT: Duffy, Damian, et al. Parable of the Sower a Graphic Novel Adaptation. Abrams ComicArts, 2021.

Parable of the Sower highlights several themes throughout the novel that make or break the environments that our protagonist dwells in, revealing the elements that in ways imitate our reality, but

Within the first half of the story, prior to Lauren's exit from her hometown, Lauren's illness of hyperempathy emphasizes humanity in reference to its pain, suffering, and cruelty. The moments in which her hyperempathy is triggered are marked by red flares that represent that of blood, emphasizing the plethora of moments in the novel in which those around her commit acts of violence to others and against her, plagued by drug abuse or greed. Although this is not far from our own reality of violence, we do not firsthand experience it on the daily whereas violence and drug abuse defines Lauren's very life being born affected by her mother's drug abuse.

Following Lauren's exit from her hometown, we continue to highlight themes of violence and human suffering, but we shift towards an emphasis on the act of emigration. As Lauren and we today emigrate for similar reasons of escaping undesirable realities which represent the imitation of realities within speculative narrative, the rationale behind our movement can be paralleled to different situations within history. As the story directly addresses elements of Afrofuturism where the black community explores alternate spaces and realities, a direct parallel can be made to slavery. Just as black slaves were forced by slaveowners to leave their home country, Lauren and her people are forced to leave their hometown due to the violence that marks it to be unlivable.

Parable of the Sower : Dystopia, Utopia, or Heterotopia?

One of the major purposes in which we've seen the characters within the works we've read world build is to escape the undesirable reality they dwell in and create an alternative reality to take residence within. In determining if and when POTS shifts into different -topias, we highlight the ways in which Butler presents the novel as a speculative narrative and imitates our reality.

Dystopias are apocalyptic environments where human suffering is prevalent due to environmental depletion, drug abuse, and abuses of economic power. In this case, Lauren's hometown—Robledo—represents the dystopia that she desires to escape. Although only initially surrounded by human suffering outside the walls of Robledo, the dystopia infects her hometown when the violence breaks through the walls and commandeers her home and the lives of her family, presenting Lauren's then present situation to quite a pessimistic one that calls for a hopeful change.

Utopias are, in simple terms, near-perfect environments. But just as they nothing can ever be perfect, so is the improbability of the existence of a utopia within POTS. Lauren's idea of the community of Earthseed is the closest that Butler will ever bring us towards a utopia in the novel. A community in which God enters an equitable relationship with humans, Earthseed is never brought into complete existence in our knowledge as the novel ends as Lauren begins to build her desired world of a hopeful reality.

IMAGE CREDIT: Hruby, Patrick. "What Octavia Butler understood above all: vulnerability". Los Angeles Times, 2023.

Collectively, the world that Butler created throughout the entirety of the novel comes across as a heterotopia. Neither merely a dystopia or a utopia, the world within Parable of the Sower represents elements and is a combination of both. As it is a space that puts emphasis on notions and behaviors that differ from the normal order, we analyze how being part of the "other", isn't always negative, but rather can be a rise towards potential for a better and changed world.

SPECULATIVE NARRATIVES Within POP CULTURE MEDIA

IMAGE CREDIT: personal screenshot on iphone, Rose Bui-Luu. November, 2024.

Pikmin Bloom

A mobile game in which one works to bring to life plant beings that work alongside you to nurture the environment by tracking steps, Pikmin Bloom imitates a hopeful outlook of our reality. Combining real-life activity alongside cute, fantastical little beasts called "pikmin", Pikmin Bloom works to promote human activity in a positive way that explores both reality and fantasy.

By rewarding players with a growth of new pikmin at different amounts of steps achievements, the game offers players the ability to feel in control of their own actions and encourage human achievement. Although rewards are offered, sometimes through paywall, profit is not the gameplay's major purpose. In our reality where eyes are stuck to screens and a sedentary life is preferred or inevitable, Pikmin Bloom allows players to nurture a world in which we hope to reconnect with nature, even if it may be through the screen of a cellular device.

Mononoke Hime/もののけ姫

Mononoke Hime, one of Studio Ghibli's greatest films and one of my favorite films, explores the impact of the human footprint on our environment. Combining forest spirits that appear at different stages to signal the health of the land, with the lives of fictional Japanese characters living during the late Muromachi period, the film takes its audience through a series of first pessimitic then hopeful events to convey its message.

IMAGE CREDIT: Plenty of Popcorn

Although the film is historically inspired by past periods of Japan, the message that it offers lends to our future and our present. In a world where we battle continuing climate change, the limits of human behavior are explored and challenged, both ourselves and the environment testing how we deal with our behaviors and the effect it has on our world. As the film ends in a compromise between humanity and nature, Mononoke Hime lends to its audience a warning and the potential for change that is dependent on the steps we take next in preservation of our world.

IMAGE CREDIT: Victrola

Wolf by Tyler, The Creator

One of my favorite music artists, Tyler, The Creator, presents his third largest album Wolf as a serenade to his familial problems. Utilizing fictional alter egos as an extension of himself, Tyler highlights the depths of human humility in baring the deepest parts of one's soul through mediums such as music.

Through his songs, heavy topics involved within his own life—such as drug use, murder, bullying, and mental health—are conveyed through his different characters. By using alter egos, Tyler conveys the notion that airing one's personal issues is quite difficult, but through his characters, he is able to build a world in which he and others are comfortable enough to communicate and understand his messages. While neither merely a pessimistic or optimistic outlook on how to convey your emotions, the Wolf album offers his audience an alternative reality in coping with personal issues.

In reflection of fall quarter...

Within ten weeks, we have finished our first quarter of Humanities Core. It has truly been quite a journey. There have been times where I've been challenged to think beyond what I know and believe and there have been moments where I truly enjoy the works we've been through. We've dealt with heavy topics throughout all the readings, but topics that are essential to our understanding as students and ability to empathize and learn as human beings. And through it all, we've persevered and learned so much more than we likely thought could ever comprehend.

In choosing to end the quarter with Parable of the Sower, we end on an optimistic note that leaves us hopeful for the works of the next quarter. In many ways, this fall quarter is a much less violent parallel to the novel. Just as Lauren struggles to cope with the environment around her at the advent of the text, we students have struggled to adjust to the new worlds we've been thrown into here at UC Irvine. But over time, just as Lauren did, we've found our people, our support systems, and modified our environment to best fit our needs as full-time students and human beings. Although Lauren's modification to her environment is the forced emigration from her hometown due to the violence that plagued it, our modification to our environment isn't far off and is dependent on how we each cope with change. And just as Lauren's world has changed for the better at the closing of the novel, so has our worlds as the fall quarter comes to a close.

With that, I would like to thank those who have taken the time to peruse through my carefully constructed Digital Archive, especially my groupmates and my seminar professor. Although the Digital Archive is an assignment that is completed for a grade, it has truly been a joy to utilize it as a creative medium in which I can explore humanity and myself. Have a lovely break and look forward to my Digital Archive works in the winter quarter!

WORKS CITED:

Duffy, Damian, et al. Parable of the Sower a Graphic Novel Adaptation. Abrams ComicArts, 2021.

Header Image: Palencar, John Jude. Parable of the Sower. Four Walls Eight Windows, US, 1993

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