The Parable of the Sower Essay
The Parable of the Sower Essay The most important thing in every body’s life is to always lead a comfortable life. Life that is full of happiness, and minimal challenges. One may wonder the reason as to why in the previous centuries our ancestors fought so much in order for us to be Free State, to a point of others losing their lives. It greatly poses a big challenge to me especially when I imagine how life would have been if we were still under colonies.
“The parable of the sower” by author Octavia Butler is set in California, and it talks about what the Americans need to attain in the near future in order to be developed state, with an image different from the early 1980s and 1990s.It covers a period of three years, 2024-2027.Some of these issues they aim at changing include the fear of crimes, rise of illegal immigrants an the issue of drug abuse (Butler, 1993). The author expresses this well when he uses an example of a fifteen year old African American girl, who is introduced to us as Lauren Olamina
Los angelus is the place where Lauren used to live, a place where poverty and crime are the common words used to differentiate it from the neighborhood. She passes through a very tough life that none of us could ever wish to experience. It is such a pity to see that, this young girl lost every thing in their farm, after the arsonists set every thing under fire, leaving her with no choice but to head on to the northern side by foot with some other companions in search of better life.
A society that does not respect Human dignity is a rotten society. A good example is where Lauren lived. This is a society that had no security as we see that, so many crimes were being committed every now and then. Every body used to live in fear of what may happen to him or her any time.
The issue of drugs and unemployment contributed too much towards the often committed crimes in this area (Butler, 1993). The major challenge therefore was on the government to come up with the strategies that would tackle this problem so that the civilians may enjoy their freedom. One of the most important things about a society that enjoys freedom is that, their economy keeps on escalating. Looking at an example of the parable of the sower you will agree with me that, so many young people in that society did not do any activity that can boost the growth of the economy as they spent time on drugs and committing crimes.
Another important point to note from the novel is that, freedom is very important factor in the society, for it gives hope to the people. It is very touching to see that, one of Lauren neighbors called Mrs. Sims decided to shoot her self after her house was set on fire, and the entire family died there. This should have acted as an alarm to the government to swiftly intervene and give security to the citizens so as to stop further deaths. The worst thing here is the fact that, these people were being killed by their countrymen and not terrorists from other countries.
A society that does not know the importance of freedom can never know how precious life is, as brutal deaths to them appears to be the order of the day. In the parable of sower, killing of innocent people had left so many people desperate and as a result they lost hope in life.
For Lauren, traditional religion was not that necessary. What mattered to her is the change as she rejected the Christian system and decided to start her own religion based on what she had experienced and observed in life. The major teaching we get to learn from this is that, change is very important as she tells us that, based on her own observation, she must admit that, change betters some ones life (Butler, 1993). This reminds me of our country history during the pre-colonial period where everything had to be done according to the way the colonies thought it should be, but when our freedom fighters got that freedom, everything changed and it has shaped our lives very much.
From this novel we get to compare the impact of freedom and class of the people in the society. Class here stands for the living standards of people who live in that given society, and how well they are financially. The author tells us that, people in California live a very different kind of life compared to their fellows in the neighborhood where they do not experience crime issues. When you look at the places around the world where crime rate is high, you will notice that, these places either live below poverty line or, they are in the middle class level. It is very rare to hear of insecurity issues in areas where living standards are high.
It is very important to notice the way in which the author uses gender to bring out the need of freedom. Gender here means more than being a male or woman. From the novel we get to know that, the most affected people in the society that does not have freedom is the woman. He supports this by use of the example of Lauren through out the nine chapters as the major character, where we get to see the hardships she encountered. It is also important to note that, men can play a very major role of enforcing freedom if they wish to (Butler, 1993). When you look at the crimes that were being executed you will notice that, men were the ones behind them. For example we can see that Lauren younger brother goes out only for him to come back beaten thoroughly after attempting to steal. The people who feel the pain and need freedom in this novel are the ladies. A good example is shown by Mrs. Sims after shooting her self due to the deaths of her family members.
Special attention has also been paid to the issue of age. When Octavia uses an example of a 15year old girl to show us how she went through trying times in life, what comes into our minds is how innocent young people might be affected incases of living without the necessary freedom. At the age of fifteen, this girl was left homeless and she barely knew what good life is. This is very bad because she should have been concentrating on other important issues such as education. It was due to this difficult experience in her youthful stage that made her say that, it was better for her to believe in her own religion but not the traditional religion because she did not see any Christianity in the society she was living. Could she have experienced a free and friendly society, then she could not have talked negatively of religion and the society (Butler, 1993).
The kind of people the author uses in the novel is mostly the black Americans. This shows that, redemption is much needed to the blacks and can only be attained by ensuring that, proper measures to deal with drug cases and poverty are put in place.
Most of these blacks are the immigrants who come here illegally and the only way out they can survive is through involvement in crimes and drug abuse.
