Dystopia Critique

This book fits the definition of dystopia in such a way that life is almost as bad as possible for a group of people. The divîners face severe oppression in their society. How the divîners are oppressed as defined by the Five Faces of Oppression is outlined below.

Children of Blood and Bone and the Five Faces of Oppression

Exploitation

All of the divîners are exploited in some way in Orïsha. They and their families are expected to pay high taxes, enforced by violence from the guards. Those that cannot pay are sold to "the stocks" which is a slave trade. Women and girls sold are typically sold into sex slavery, while men and boys are sold into manual labor. Some divîners sold to the stocks, as seen in Ibeji, are sold into violent games for their masters' entertainment. In Ibeji, a desert city, slaves must pay one gold coin for a cup of water. As enslaved people don't have money, and the masters don't want to pay for the slaves to drink water, many of the slaves are severely dehydrated and malnourished.

Marginalization

Divîners are marginalized because they are seen as second-class citizens. Anyone is allowed to hate on and be violent towards divîners without consequences. Divîner women and girls face sex crimes towards them from people that hate them.

Powerlessness

The divîners in Orïsha are powerless because they are purposely kept weak. High taxes keep them from making a livable wage, and they are reluctant to speak up for fear of more violence towards them or being sent to the stocks.

Cultural Imperialism

The severed connection to magic and the slaughter of maji is a form of cultural imperialism. By killing all the maji adults and leaving only the children, the divîners have no source of information about their maji culture other than their memories. Zélie mentions how she rarely hears people speak in Yoruba, the maji language, after The Raid. Speaking Yoruba was outlawed, and the maji adults who knew Yoruba were killed, leaving only children who had limited memories of the language. Without being able to practice magic, speak Yoruba, or talk about the gods, divîners are forced to leave behind their culture and assimilate into kodisán culture. Over time, this loss of culture leaves a generation who doesn't know what life was like before The Raid.

Violence

Violence takes shape in many forms in Orïsha. Most severely, the slaughter of the maji during The Raid was an immense display of violence that shaped how the surviving divîners lived. Throughout the book, any divîner displaying magic abilities was dealt deadly force. Even Inan was killed by his father when he discovered Inan had maji abilities.

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