Octavia Butler - Lilith

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Octavia Butler - Liliths Brood
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Biography

• Born June 22, 1947 in Pasadena, CA
• 1968 Pasadena City College
• California State University, LA
• UCLA
• Has won Hugo and Nebula awards
• MacArthur Foundation Genius grant
• Published 11 novels and many short stories and
  critical essays

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Butler, Octavia

• a hermit in the middle of a large city Seattle
  a pessimist if Im not careful, a feminist, a
  Black, a former Baptist, an oil and water
  combination of ambition, laziness, insecurity,
  certainty, and drive.

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Criticisms

• Heather Shaw
• Character interactions
• social taboos
• Burton Raffel
• Biology determines the destiny of a race
• No negative criticisms

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Burton, Raffel

• Carefully, expertly crafted, deeply satisfying
  as it is to the reader of more than seven
  hundred preceding pages, and tautly, firmly
  resolving as it does the major plotline question,
  this is nevertheless determinedly functional,
  essentially unobtrusive prose-unlike, say, the
  highly literary writings of Samuel R. Delaney
  (the only other black s.f. writer of major
  status)

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Lilith

• Appears in the Bible
• Associated with the end of the world
• Night hag
• In Jewish tradition Adams first wife.
• Rebelled against Adam, expelled from Eden
• Shes become a feminist symbol, especially in
  Jewish feminism

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Discussion Questions

• What does Butler mean by a hierarchical society,
  and how does it relate to individual freedom?
• Are the Oankali hierarchical and/or sexist?
• What is the significance of incest and
  miscegenation in the novel?
• Does Butler take a position on whether what the
  Oankali is doing is right?
• Is what the Oankali are doing rape? What is its
  significance?