Week 12: Bloodchild by Octavia Butler (3)

 

1. What is your reaction to the text you just read?

    I feel unnerved by this story. Being raised as breeding cattle and kept from rebellion with mind-altering eggs but a giant insect race of aliens is kind of a bleak thing to read about or imagine, no matter how unlikely it is. I also felt the sort of powerlessness and oppression that the characters in the story were feeling. In the story there was no mention of escape or revolution, just acknowledgement of the cage and the situation, and anger, but no clear way out but death.


2. What connections did you make with the story? Discuss what elements of the story with which you were able to connect.

    I was able to connect with multiple aspects of the story. I connected with Lien’s desire not to participate in a society that leads to the oppression of her family and people, and to witness the atrocities being committed by her oppressors, while simultaneously being helpless to stop it. I connected to Qui’s anger and revulsion at the society he had been forced to live in. 

I also sympathized with Gan’s plight. The path of his life was predetermined before he was born, and he couldn’t do anything about it.


3. What changes would you make to adapt this story into another medium? What medium would you choose; what changes would you make?

    If I were to adapt Bloodchild, I’d probably adapt it into an audio drama. I think the absence of a visual element would heighten the feeling of powerlessness


4. Are there elements of this work that you would consider afto-futurist?

Bloodchild by Octavia Butler, through the relationship between the Tlic and the Terrans, explores the parasitic nature of oppression. The Tlic, large insectoid creatures, exploit the Terrans (which can be assumed to be humans) by keeping them in “Preserves” and using them as hosts for their larvae. They keep the humans controlled with sterile eggs, which works like something of a mollifying drug.

As much as Tlic like T’Gatoi would like the humans to believe that it’s a mutualistic relationship, the fact is that the Tlic need the Terrans, not the other way around. If Tlic did not exist, then Terrans would not need protection from them. This mirrors the way that African Americans were historically oppressed and were told that they needed their oppressors to stay alive, when really, without the interference of said oppressors, there would be no need for them.

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