Stypula 1

Harrison Stypula

Dr. Nicole Peeler

SEL 237

12/9/2022

Religious Oppression and Hierarchical Struggle in Parable of the Sower

In the Parable duology by Octavia Butler, she introduces the reader to the character Lau-

ren Olamina, and the beginnings of her religion and belief system, called Earthseed. This religion

she creates and develops in Parable of the Sower begins as a response to her issues with her fa-

ther’s Baptist Christian faith. Religion as a tool, has often throughout history been used to con-

trol groups of people under hegemonic leadership, and in and of itself necessitates a hierarchical

order. By creating a religion which revolves entirely around one’s own ability to control and

change what is around them and how they perceive situations, Earthseed itself is fundamentally

grounded in the necessity for hierarchical structures. It’s because of this that the religion Lauren

creates, no matter how intent on making it something different from the dominant structures,

could still fall prey to the faults of humanity in building hierarchies. Along with this need for

control comes the unhealthy aspects of hierarchies that corrupt religions like her fathers’ and the

changing government structure that begins taking harsh control over the populace. In displaying

these aspects of how humanity brings out the faults in hierarchically arranged societies Butler is

thinking through these concepts and is providing the reader a complex thought experiment of

when an ordered society or group becomes too ordered.

Butler’s novel focuses on Lauren Olamina over the course of a few years of her youth

growing up in one of the many walled communities in dystopian California. As she begins her

series of journal entries that make up the entirety of the novel, she expresses her discontent with
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the Baptist religion her father, the community reverend, has raised her in, and first forms her own

ideas about what God is and means. When their society is brought down after a series of attacks

from the homeless outsiders who are kept back by the walls, Lauren is left without her family

and only two members of her community, Harry and Zahra, who stay with her after the destruc-

tion of their home. On the road Lauren develops the new faith she began in their community, and

names it Earthseed, peppering in verses defining it between journal entries. Throughout her jour-

ney they pick up other travelers along the road, and she begins to tell them her ideas about Earth-

seed, and the way that her changing God functions in their lives. Through all the struggles they

face on the road trying to find a place to settle, they at last find a place of sanctuary, though not

what they would’ve hoped, and make plans to grow Earthseed as a community (Butler, Sower,

316). In order to fully examine this religion and the other hierarchical structures that exist around

it, I would like to examine Butler’s work within the context of Marxist theory, including the use

of religious ideologies in society and the concept of hegemony; Butler’s own background in her

writing, including her other works, most notably Parable of the Talents; and how both interact

with the religious themes in Sower and the hierarchical structures within. 

Coming from a background of being marginalized herself, in the science fiction commu-

nity and in her day-to-day life, there is likely at least a small amount of the work that has gone

into Butler’s writing that comes from her own personal life. Even in describing her reason for

writing on topics that revolve around themes of power distribution and alienation she explains

she choose topics of power “because [she] had so little,” (Canavan 15). Additionally, her own

youth growing up as the granddaughter of a Baptist preacher and living in the faith may have in-

fluenced the events taking place in Sower and the motivations behind Lauren (Hampton 85).

Having Lauren as a character who questions the religious structure of family, her father in partic-
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ular, and by extension the ordered structures of the world around them, seems to mirror the life

of Butler who made her way into an industry that was constantly trying to shut her out. As an au-

thor, she may have self-inserted in both versions of Lauren as in her original drafts of Sower, she

created Lauren not as her teenage self but as an older, more cynical woman not unlike the char-

acter Bankole in Sower (Canavan 102). 

It is this reflection on Butler as a person that seems to be represented in the duality of her

two versions of Lauren, displaying both the hopeful and misanthropic qualities of Butler as a

writer. This furthers the idea that there are not necessarily good answers to questions about hu-

manity. Lauren as a character is Butler’s way of thinking through the possible outcomes for hu-

manity in a situation like that presented in the Parable duology, especially given the multiple

ways in which Butler viewed her. Lauren has her religion and her principles, but even so she has

the capacity to do things that are contrary to destabilizing the ordered structures abusing their

world. Rather instead her actions begin forming her own group. Notably, her actions at first to be

distrustful and avoid others on the road are contradicted when Harry points out that she decided

to let the characters Travis and Natividad join them (Butler, Sower, 207) in order to form a more

powerful unit. Later her behavior as an unwillingly harsh leader is brought out as she confronts

Jill about falling asleep on watch (Butler, Sower, 286). These are subtle decisions of a leader, but

she is a leader, nonetheless.

Regardless of whether she means to or not Lauren becomes a leader with a great amount

of authority over the people in her group, and has them ordered into various sections, such as

who is to be trusted more and who is allowed on watch. This structuring is something that Butler

is subtly adding to show that even people who are exceptionally dedicated to breaking free from

the traditionalist bonds fall back into them during times of extreme struggle such as they face on
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the road. By separating members of an ever-growing group into these sections, she is essentially

creating an impromptu hierarchical structure herself. Even within Earthseed as a religion there

are those who find themselves becoming absolute believers and those who still fall to the fringes

of belief about her changing God, essentially creating sub-divisions within Earthseed itself.

Before going further, it is important to question what reasoning goes into the idea of try-

ing to make a religion that does not succumb to negative hierarchical structures, rather than giv-

ing up on order entirely. The reader cannot know for certain Butler’s reasoning for creating a

character who wishes to find a safe balance between chaos and order, but by looking to the text

there is more insight to be gained about what Butler is examining here. Lauren’s society as a

whole is faced with hegemonic control which affects her primarily in the form of religion, with

her father living as the de facto leader of their community among a few others.

As with many governing structures, religion is the typical source of coercion, making the

society or community a hegemonic one in the sense that “the state controls its population through

coercion rather than violence (Upstone 45). In this way the dystopian United States, and Lau-

ren’s community through their church, is unknowingly led in a frozen ideology that their religion

will keep them safe. Further examples of hegemony in Lauren’s community alone come with the

expectations of women only being useful for teaching the children and getting married to pro-

duce even more children into an already overpopulated world (Butler, Sower, 86-87). It is not a

violent control that is made by the inner leaders of their community, but one in which the reli-

gious ideologies control a group that wants something to follow desperately. Whether it is the ne-

cessity near the beginning of the novel to have a baptism for all of the children (Butler, Sower,

14) or the use of sermons to publicly shame her brother Keith after he foolishly left the walls and

lost the key and clothes (Butler, Sower 92) Lauren’s father and his faith holds onto this idea of
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control. An idea which he and the others in the community fail to see as empty control, ulti-

mately leading to their destruction. It’s these models of religion and the ideologically frozen state

of her community that seems to cause Lauren to first dismiss her father’s religion (Butler, Sower,

14). These are the aspects of strict religious, and therefore societal, rules of how life works that

cause Keith to fight back against the dominant structure and Lauren’s father to presumably lose

his life. By creating Earthseed it seems that Lauren’s aim is to create a world that is freed from

these traditions, and by extension from the even worse source of hierarchical control outside

their walls. 

The governing body of their dystopian United States that begins Sower is seemingly

hegemonic in the sense that they are at first using non-violent means to obtain workers in com-

pany towns that quickly fall back into slavery. This slavery is then endorsed as normal by their

new president and enacted by the international corporations seeking dominate and monetize the

population (Butler, Sower, 118). This idea is fueled by Christian fundamentalism further in small

references in Sower and emphasized in the Christian America movement in Butler’s later Para-

ble of the Talents. A concept which is furthered by the work of Philip Jos in his study of funda-

mentalism and the use of religion in Butler’s Parable books. In his discussion and examination

of both Sower and Talents Jos compares the traditional use of dominant, and often alienating,

fundamentalist religions in dystopian novels to the depiction of Earthseed. This way Butler dis-

play’s Earthseed according to Jos shows a “nondogmatic belief system” similar to alternative

writers on Christianity, that doesn’t falter to the same influences of the kind of fundamentalist

Christianity posed in most dystopia, as well as the ways in which this kind of religion is played

out in Parable of the Talents (Jos 408).

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I find this idea to be reasonable but would still follow the argument that Earthseed is not

exempt from the possible flaws with religion and organized structures. In line with what Jos ar-

gues, Earthseed is similar to a nondogmatic Christianity, and I would argue in turn that it there-

fore falls under the idea that their truth, no matter how neutral, could be twisted as it becomes

“opposed by forces of evil that must be vigorously fought,” in order to prove themselves the

dominant religion and group of people (Jos 410). The forces of evil in question being the govern-

ing body in Talents, which also display this act of needing to dominate “evil” in its behavior to

non-Christians. By introducing fear in Parable of the Talents of non-Christian peoples, it justi-

fies these attacks, rape, and enslavement on Earthseed and other non-Christians (Jos 411), much

in the same way it was justified in real American history. This is perhaps another note of Butler

bringing the reader to a point of view that speaks of real racism and prejudice among the Chris-

tian Right. Even among the early Christian Government in Sower there is evidence of this move-

ment springing up with the previously mentioned slavery, such as the case of Emery Solis who

was forced into the debt slavery that first springs into existence here (Butler, Sower, 288).

Opposing these oppressive religious and political structures are those who fall outside the

purview of the dominant fundamentalist population, including Earthseed, the other homeless and

jobless individuals on the road, and most notably the “paints.” This particular outsider group falls

into the direct opposite of the fundamentalist government and seemingly displays no ordered

structures. The paints are addicted to the drug described as “pyro” which causes intense pleasure

from setting and being around fire, shaving their heads and painting their faces giving them their

name (Butler, Sower, 110). These paints form the exact opposite of any and all organized hierar-

chies that exist in the world that Lauren is forced to survive in, and constantly become a threat to

hers and other groups' survival.

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To begin with there seems to be a complete lack of control on the part of the paints. This

can be seen by their obsession with fire, perhaps illustrated by Butler as a metaphor for their

chaotic and unbridled nature. When described by Keith for the first time to Lauren, he explains

he “heard some of them used to be rich kids,” (Butler, Sower, 111). Further he tells her that they

seem to have no sense of self-preservation in their obsession with fire, and often get close

enough to be burned or catch fire, behaving like “they were fucking the fire,” (Butler, Sower,

111). This carelessness displayed by the paints could be interpreted that they are people who

have given up on society, however their drug addicted state makes this hard to determine. This is

perhaps another intentional decision from Butler to make the reader question what kind of bal-

ance there should be between hierarchical social ordering and the lack thereof. In introducing the

paints, Butler provides the reader with a clever and rather never-ending thought experiment.

Through examining the paints there is the possibility of what could happen in a societal structure

that is completely without any hierarchical order.

One possible way of observing the paints as a group is by looking to their place among

the other social structures. Despite the fact that their domination of other people and the environ-

ment is excessively violent and destructive, they could in actuality be seen as an example of ab-

solute freedom, unrestrained by any of the societal pressure that comes from ideological hierar-

chies. Besides this the reader can see the lack of caring that the paints display, towards both the

people they victimize and even each other, never attempting to intervein even when one of their

own catches on fire.

Despite this callus lack of caring, oddly some scavengers are even willing to regard the

paints as more than animals obsessed with fire and sex and see them as an anti-rich movement as

Keith describes them to Lauren (Butler, Sower, 111). Besides Keith’s description, the later words
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of a scavenger to Lauren that, “She died for us,” regarding a paint who died burning her commu-

nity, implies a sense that some of the scavengers act as vultures flocking to the destruction left

behind by paints, seemingly believing that the paints acted this way on purpose (Butler, Sower,

163). In this sense, it could be described by this reasoning that the paints are in a class-based war

with the rich. Away from that assumption it seems the paints work as less of a hierarchical struc-

ture and more as a hive minded group. They come together as a collective being to destroy for

their own pleasure, with nothing beyond their own self-motivated point of view. They are less

concerned with what position they are in between the impoverished and rich and are freed from

the need for domination that is characteristic of human beings and displayed by many in the

story. The paints themselves seem to care for nothing except their obsession with fire and burn-

ing things to get closer to it. The consequences for what they burn has next to nothing to do with

any need for being better than anyone else they attack, but instead gives the reader a display of a

true hierarchy lacking in society. The scavengers around them benefit from their blind aggres-

sion, as the paints seem to display no care for material goods or supplies. In the end, those who

gain even a little from the paints are likely to view them as heroes or freedom fighters because

they get more food, money, or objects than they had, if for no other reason to justify their own

gain at the expense of the paints destroying communities like Lauren’s. Outside of the com-

pletely structureless paints, and their opposite of the overly hierarchical governing structures,

there is the seeming middle ground of Earthseed. However, Earthseed itself is still not freed from

the struggles of living in a hierarchically structured society.

In Butlers biography, written by Gerry Canavan, he includes among his summary of But-

ler’s life and her accomplishments, a chapter regarding the Parable duology, and introduces a

concept in close relation to Butler’s work, being the Gaia hypothesis posited by James Lovelock
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(Canavan 98). In this examination, he refers to the theory that states the Earth is “a vital, organic

totality, an incomprehensibly vast living thing able to regulate itself the way a body does,”

(Canavan 98) and the in words of Lovelock that it views “the biosphere as an active, adaptive

control system able to maintain the Earth in homeostasis,” (Lovelock 23). Lovelock’s original

theory of Gaia explores the possibilities of an Earth that wishes to live in “harmony” with the liv-

ing matter on it (Canavan 98) and in Lovelock’s own words “the goal of the self-regulating

Earth, which is, according to my theory, to sustain habitability” (Lovelock 26). In examining this

theory, Canavan brings to light a notable feature of Butler’s work, that if we are to believe in an

Earth that is “living” and meant to thrive with humanity, wouldn’t a faraway world capable of

sustaining life have this same function? For Butler, she asks the question in her stories of what if

the supposed planet and environment colonized by Earthseed was not pleased by such an inva-

sion and treats them as a virus like any living being would.

Lauren is ignoring the idea of what may come about by traveling to another world as a

large group. Along with this idea Earthseed runs into the problem of believing themselves the

dominant species when it comes to traveling to another world. In line with the Gaia hypothesis,

and in true human spirit, this ignores that they themselves would be outside invaders to the

planet. Even beyond that, in order to be able to get so far as traveling to the stars, particularly

from where Lauren ends the story of Earthseed at the end of Sower, this requires them to be

highly organized and structured to be able to maintain control and order to be able to travel to the

stars. In doing so Butler is perhaps showing the reader a possible outcome of what may come to

pass if Earthseed follows it’s Destiny to travel to the stars, based on the ways that their own

home world has already been destroyed by waring factions, the paints and homeless, (Butler,

Sower, 228) or the manipulative corporate bodies looking to exploit the population and the planet
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for their own gains (Butler, Sower, 120-121). The very idea of the Destiny is dependent on the

idea that the followers of Earthseed will lack the destructive and categorical nature that typically

comes with humanity, and usually religion, which in and of itself is a far-flung idea. It is unsur-

prising however, as Lauren is throughout Sower a teenager, who is still young and naive with her

desire to be a prophet, without seeming to think through the complexities of organizing people

that Bankole references late in the novel. Further, the Destiny relies on the idea that humanity

both has the right and the knowledge to colonize and take over a foreign world.

In this sense, it seems that Earthseed is not unlike any other religion or governing body

that believes they have the right to colonize another world without concern for how it may im-

pact said world. This is not unlike the concept in Christian mythology that Lauren would be fa-

miliar with, illustrated with the verse, “Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in our image, accord-

ing to our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, and

over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth,’” (NKJV

Bible, Gen. 1.26). This idea that humans have dominion over all seems to carry over into Lau-

ren’s otherwise vastly different religion. It does so in the sense she believes they have the right to

dominate whatever planet that they find habitable. The kind of leader Lauren would need to be is

not unlike the older version of her that Butler envisioned in her original idea of the Parable se-

ries. Earthseed at first where it ends in their colony named Acorn may not be at this point but

could just as easily be corrupted as any structure (Butler, Sower, 328). As Bankole points out to

Lauren, “If you get people to accept it, they’ll make it more complicated,” acknowledging the

fact that people will always make things different than their original intentions (Butler, Sower,

262). Even Butler has regarded her own intention of showing that “‘the human way’” of taking

over and dominating a planet by force is not effective (Canavan 99). Based on this fact that
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Earthseed is all about changing and manipulating the world as it changes as well, it leaves little

room to expect that they would not fall prey to the abuses that often come along with advanced

hierarchies. No matter how ideal of a hierarchical system, or lack thereof, that Lauren tries to

make with Earthseed, it is still a human organization that can be plagued by the complications

that Bankole speaks of. As an author, Butler acknowledges this fact that humans are naturally de-

structive when they are not ordered, like the paints, but at the same time shows how even when

they are they collapse in on themselves. This leaves the reader in the position of interpretating

this puzzle that Butler proposes of how humanity can survive with or without hierarchies.

 Because of this openness about humanity’s self-destructive nature, it leaves open the

question of what is to change the future of Earthseed from becoming the likes of Wildseed in

Butler’s Patternmaster series, in which a group and community of people is made and bred to be

molded by one individual (Hampton 80). This is not Lauren’s intention, but we can feel out the

possibility that Butler may have been moving towards this idea. The very sense that humanity is

only able to be truly good and “adult” upon achieving this goal of reaching the stars in and of it-

self is necessitating that humans must do this in order to become better (Butler, Talents). The

way Butler describes Lauren, and her concept of Earthseed, is not in and of itself as a bad idea or

structure, but she is openly questioning and proposing problems, such as this possibility of Earth-

seed devolving into a Wildseed-esque colony and the previously mentioned sources. It is all a

method of working out if hierarchical structures are truly necessary in a society even when they

become damaging, and in some cases work towards destroying themselves because of damaging

ideologies.

Rather than showing that Earthseed is just blind hope, Butler proposes alternatives to the

existing structures like the paints, who despite their violent behavior never seem to act negatively
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towards each other. In doing this they serve as an uncomfortable but possible example of what

society could be without those hierarchies. In the end the reader is left without answers, and the

words Bankole tells Lauren on the very last page of the novel seems to encapsulate Butler’s sen-

timents exactly, that he believes they don’t “have a hope in hell,” of surviving in their new

colony. It is pessimistic but in the end Butler’s work, and even Earthseed, isn’t meant to be just a

light of hope in the dark, but instead is toying with how far once can create an ordered group,

providing examples of how human behavior can be plagued by hierarchical issues and the human

desire for dominance.  

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Works Cited

Butler, Octavia E. Parable of the Sower. Four Walls Eight Windows, 1993.

Butler, Octavia E. Parable of the Talents. Seven Stories Press, 1998.

Canavan, Gerry. Octavia E. Butler, University of Illinois Press, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://

ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/setonhill-ebooks/detail.action?docID=4792718.

Hampton, Gregory Jerome. Changing Bodies in the Fiction of Octavia Butler : Slaves, Aliens, and Vam-

pires, Lexington Books, 2010. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/

setonhill-ebooks/detail.action?docID=662241.

Jos, Philip H. “Fear and the Spiritual Realism of Octavia Butler’s Earthseed.” Utopian Studies, vol. 23,

no. 2, June 2012, pp. 408–29. EBSCOhost, https://doi-org.setonhill.idm.oclc.org/10.5325/utopi-

anstudies.23.2.0408.

Lovelock, James. The Revenge of Gaia: Earth's Climate Crisis & The Fate of Humanity, Basic Books,

1998.  ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/setonhill-ebooks/detail.ac-

tion?docID=879540.

New Spirt Filled Life Bible. New King James Version, Thomas Nelson, 2002.

Upstone, Sara. Literary Theory: A Complete Introduction. John Murray Learning, 2017.