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Octavia E. Butler's Parable Of The Sower

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Family members and close friends impact people’s lives in immeasurable ways. Octavia E. Butler uses this to develope Lauren in Parable of the Sower through interactions with the people around her. Growing up in a bleak area of a now dismal United States, her faithful upbringing contrasts with the necessary survival mentality demanded by the outside world.Two effectual characters in Lauren’s journey are her father, Reverend Olamina, and her younger brother, Keith. These two characters represent extremes of both devotion and destruction as they influence Lauren to choose her own path as an adult. Each character has a separate impact on Lauren as she matures into adulthood. While it may initially appear that Reverend Olamina is Lauren’s foil …show more content…

While Keith’s actions do not directly affect Lauren’s relationships, the pieces of insight Lauren takes from Keith do. This is evident after Keith runs away from home as it creates tumult in the family. Lauren’s disapproval of this agitation inflicted on their parents forces her to reevaluate her plan of leaving the community as well. The emotional turmoil between her mother Cory’s persistent accusations and the Reverend’s desire to move forward as a family forms a division in the household. In this conflict, Lauren sides with her father and the differences between the two begin to dissipate as similar ideologies spawn. This is paralleled when Keith’s corpse is identified outside the wall and neither Lauren or the Reverend cry for him. When Keith dies, his torment against the family ends and the family is able to move on. The result of the temporary conflict in the family caused Lauren to trust and respect her father more, as his guidance helped her prepare to one day leave. However, soon her closest companion disappears. Now, without the closure of death and the sense of duty to her family, Lauren forces herself to stay in the neighborhood: “[they’re] a rope, breaking, a single strand at a time” (Butler 116). This is the first time Lauren feels completely unable to leave because she knows if she leaves and her father returns, the family will be

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