Alice Achitophel, the new Skywalker?

Star Wars can be applied in many situations or can be referenced for the fun of it. The gist of Star Wars is there are two constant orders battling for control of the galaxy, (the empire and the resistance, Jedi’s vs. the Sith), there is always a small group of plucky warriors ranging in on the front to fight for the good of the people. Star Wars is a complicated universe that many don’t delve into, but it has some relevant importance for this post. For this instance, Star Wars can be seen as a sort of out-there parallel to Percival Everett’s Zulus. 

Alice Achitophel, protagonist from Zulus is pregnant in a society where pregnancy has been eradicated for the survival of the small population on a dying earth. After she brings too much attention to herself with a rebel act, knocking down her neighbors chimney, she runs to a work friend to help get her to safety. Surprise Surprise, he is a part of a rebel group that lives on the outskirts of this town she has lived in, and doesn’t follow what the government says to do. Of course, seeing as she is seen as the last hope for humanity to continue, there is an initial celebration as she arrives in the rebel camp, but that soon dies down, with everyone staring at her. As she arrives at the camp, she travels with three companions whom she considers close friends, the short Theodore Theodore, the small and pretty Lucinda Knotes, and the black man Kevin Peters. But as she soon realizes, the rebel camp is not all that it was talked up to be, at least not for someone like Alice. Being fat, in a world where the threat of reduction camps, and thin people is something she has had to deal with her entire life, but with the knowledge of her being pregnant, it should bring some reprieve to the ridicule dropped on her, but to no avail.

Alice could be likened to Luke Skywalker, for she is a new hope for the world she lives in now like him. She is the last person to be pregnant, while Luke Skywalker is the last person in the galaxy to be able to train to become a Jedi and use the ways of the Force to defeat Darth Vader, another Jedi whom also uses the Force. However Alice soon realizes that in this rebel camp where she should be able to be free she is not, and faces more obstacles just as Luke Skywalker did on his journey to become a true Jedi master. The two can be compared to each other, as both of them didn’t really know their mothers; Luke’s died in childbirth (RIP Padme) and Alice’s died when she was a little girl. Both of them were raised with paternal figures, Luke with his uncle and Alice with her father, and both of their families were ripped away from them in a time of war. Of course there is a fact that the both of them had been handed the poor end of life, Luke had to live in a desert on Tatooine in a small hut, while his sister got to live it up in a palace on a different planet. Alice was treated poorly because of her body weight, with scarce amount of kindness in her life from people other than her family and Theodore Theodore.

Alice is pregnant which should be a huge deal and she should be treated like a human in this camp, but yet again, as in back in the city with all the other people, she is treated as dirt and is only useful for this baby that she is carrying. “Don’t misread your position, Alice Achitophel. Your condition is hardly one for which you can claim credit and it is this fact we bear in mind in our gauging of you. You are a vehicle and nothing more, an any-woman, and you just happen to have been raped, you instead of some other unfortunate.” ( page 105). Of course being treated this way is nothing new to her, but the fact that she is being treated as a vessel, being shoved in a room only to be fed, is not how a pregnant woman should be treated, especially when she could possibly be the last person on the dying planet to be able to get pregnant.

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