Within the novel Parable of the Sower there is a correlation between the 2008 global financial crisis and what occurs in the novel. Parable of the Sower written by Octavia E. Butler was written in the 90s but is set in our present day; the 2020s. We follow a fifteen-year-old girl named Lauren Olamina. Her community was destroyed, and she chose to leave her home. On her journey she spoke about her philosophy of the Earthseed. Lauren believes that God is change and humans are meant to shape God, accept change, and colonize other planets. As Lauren finishes her journey to leave her home, she creates a little community where she spreads her beliefs more and lives according to her Earthseed philosophy.
Engaging this book within the context of what occurred during the 2008 global financial crisis brings forth some connections between the novel and the crisis. In the novel and during the 2008 financial crisis course concepts are intertwined in the events that happened. Course concepts such as expulsion and bad faith are common themes. In the novel we see the destruction of a community where many people are killed or are forced to flee, this is an example of expulsion. People like Olamina left their town because the home that they knew was not the same anymore, it was ruined. An example of this from the novel was when Olamina said, “Last night, when I escaped from the neighborhood, it was burning. The houses, the trees, the people: Burning” (Butler 153). Robledo was in shambles; people were dead and homes and buildings were destroyed. Olamina chose to leave her town, but she really had no other choice. She either stayed in the war zone of a town or she had to leave and start her life over again. When you engage this example of expulsion with the financial crisis of 2008 you see similarities. In the 2008 crisis people were expelled from their homes. And although the destruction of Robledo is very different from a global crisis, it is also very similar. In both cases people were forced to leave their homes and start new lives with less than they had before. In both the novel and the crisis people’s lives were uprooted and immensely changed. Another course concept that relates to the novel and the 2008 crisis is bad faith. In the novel many robberies and murders occurred. This is one of the biggest examples of bad faith. In the book it says, “This is the seventh incident since Keith was killed” (Butler 117). In this section of the novel the number of robberies and deaths were discussed. Even an elderly woman was killed. People were acting in bad faith by taking lives and stealing from townspeople. In the global crisis bad faith was heavily at play. During the 2008 crisis people were forced out of their homes because they could not pay their mortgages. This was because people who did not have a high income were given subprime mortgages and those who issued those mortgages knew they would not be able to pay them back. Those in power and in the financial industry knew that they were hurting others but did it anyway. This is similar to Parable of the Sower because people were acting in bad faith in both cases for selfish reasons. And although the Parable of the Sower might be fiction and set in a dystopian world it can feel like our real world. And that is the point of many dystopian-esque novels; to make you see how similar our world can be to that of a dystopian world.
Engaging the Parable of the Sower within the context of the 2008 global financial crisis does matter given GLOBE’s insistence that students should be reflecting on changes in learning and outlook over time. It matters because when thinking of the novel in the context of the crisis you can see how what you have learned has grown. And your opinion or outlook changes, or shifts, or expands. It is important to relate literature and other global events to one another. This is because what we read in books is what we see on the news, it’s what we see in real time. Even old literature like Shakespeare relates to modern events. And focusing on relating other pieces of work to each other and to global events like the 2008 crisis greatly expanded my knowledge.
Reflecting on changes in my learning and my outlook over time has also led me to change my outlook over and over again. And now I have come to the conclusion that history is going to repeat itself, the wealthy and the powerful will never change, and the rest of us need to stand up for ourselves. Time and time again our world has been negatively impacted by people with power and money. And each time it happens people like you and me are affected. If we don’t do something, nothing will change. This outlook I have is due to my prior opinions of the world, but it is also due to the readings we have done in class. Constantly comparing different situations with each other and finding common denominators has been useful. I’ve seen that it is always someone with power who shouldn’t have power that causes these issues. But then I wonder if anyone should have that kind of power? Maybe you start off as a moral person and then you come into power and wealth, and then you become someone whose heart is cold and makes decisions based on what will keep them rich. I also start to think that power and wealth are diseases. It seems like having great power and wealth is a parasite. Your mind gets overtaken, and you just keep feeding the parasite those one hundred-dollar bills. And you’re left with a shell of a person; your empathy is gone, your soul, your love for your neighbors. The parasite takes it all. I feel that it is much less fulfilling and rewarding to live your life as a wealthy and powerful person than to live as someone like me. I don’t have money, I don’t have power, but I have a soul. And I feed my soul love and music and adventures. In my eyes I am far richer and powerful than the “big dogs”. I get to focus on the little things in life. I can look at the trees and call them beautiful instead of pricing them up for lumber. I converse with my friends while eating cheap food on our stained rug. The life I have is challenging and weird and it’s beautiful. I would not trade my strange little life for one filled with power and wealth. Because then I would lose my soul and the innocent, unconditional love that surrounds me.
As you can see, our ability to reflect upon what we learn and change our outlooks is important. It is beyond important; in fact, it is essential. Not only does this GLOBE standard make me a more well-rounded student it makes me a more well-rounded human. And throughout this class and our readings of literature such as Parable of the Sower and our focus on the 2008 financial crisis I saw how cruel our world can be. This class has helped me expand my knowledge beyond just “school stuff”. It has shaped who I want to be and has helped me to see how lucky I am to have had the opportunity to learn all of this. I think it is important to understand how literature seeps into your life beyond the classroom and that’s why the GLOBE standard is a necessary standard.