Month: December 2024

At the beginning of the semester, in the very first class, we learned about some of the course concepts for the year. Some of these were “Foreclosure,” “Bad Faith,” and “Liquidity,” but one of these course concepts mattered as much as “Expulsion,” which represented the core of what the course was about, people losing their lives as they knew it. This led me to understand early on what the course was expecting me to find in reading and how to connect it to the 2008 global financial crisis. It gave me insight into how Dr. McCoy set up the course and how I was supposed to navigate it. Over a short period of time I adjusted to the new way of thinking. This gave me great clarification on my job in the classroom. 

When reading the title and description of the course, many would think that it is closer to a history class rather than an English class. This was the first sign to me that the class was more focused on the readings and what information we garnered from them rather than the specifics into the housing crisis. This outlook helped tremendously. During the collaborations in class, I was able to use my skills to connect quotes from the sources we were reading to the housing crisis. In the actual classroom I was not able to express my ideas to the class coherently, but I found that in small groups I was able to work with my classmates to expand on ideas about the subjects. This led to me being able to make leaps when connecting course concepts to books like “A Mercy” and “King Lear.” A direct example of this was me finding the quote “Both times are full of danger and I am expel.” (p.160) in “A Mercy,” which had a direct link to the course concept of expulsion, saying the word in the quote. Another example was connecting the course concept of toxicity to the house nicknamed “toxie” during the second mini-collaboration about housing in Florida. 

One thing that stood out to me in “Parable of the Sower” was the lack of liquidity within the book. The drought that affected the land had a direct effect on its differences and connections to the 2008 financial crisis. While earlier in the semester there was an immense amount of focus on the connection between liquidity and the housing crisis, in “Parable of the Sower” it is quite the opposite. In “The Big Short” and “The Old Man and the Storm,” liquidity was seen more as a cause of the expulsion, with flooding the tower and Hurricane Katrina, but in “Parable of the Sower” it is the very lack of liquidity that affects the situation they are in at the time. This is an interesting change because even though the flooding and liquidity is not there, the examples of expulsion are still there, showing the complete opposite of what we have seen all semester. 

Examples of liquidity being connected to expulsion have been seen throughout almost all the media we’ve read. One example is stormy weather. In “King Lear,” stormy weather is meant to symbolize how far King Lear had fallen in his social standing, as he was stuck out in the rain with no shelter. “Old Man and the Storm” takes a look into the effects Hurricane Katrina had on an old man named Herbert Gettridge and his family. The Hurricane was the cause of him losing not only his home, but also his love for the city of New Orleans. 

Another course concept that gains traction within “Parable of the Sower” is trust. Examples of not being able to trust people are seen throughout the novel. Not being able to trust your own family, like the father of Allie and Jill who pimped them out or Laurens brother Keith who left and became a criminal, is not an uncommon occurrence. Trust is abused by everyone in the dystopian world. This is similar to during the 2008 financial crisis, when people’s trust was abused by big banks in order for them to make a quick buck. Also, as read in “The Big Short,” Michael Burry’s investors began to lose faith in him, threatening to take their money out, but the people that trusted him got a large payout when the housing market eventually crashed, just as Burry predicted. 

Trust is something that is important for us to have in the classroom as well. Trust that we all do the reading, know the course concepts, and read the class notes. When I learned that the class would be self-graded, I was skeptical. I was also worried, wondering what would happen if I somehow grade myself too high and get called out by the professor for not being a good student. All this comes back to trust, not only in your fellow students, but in yourself to do the work and earn the grade that you want to say you deserve. I believe that I did just that, giving myself a grade that is not too high, even though I put in good effort. 

During the subprime mortgage crisis, the loss of peoples homes was a direct result of bad faith actors on Wall Street. Bad Faith is something that is seen constantly in the world and in the media we read and watch. In “Parable of the Sower” there are multiple characters and groups who are seen as “bad faith” people, such as Keith. One connection that you can make between the two is the bad faith people, in one the group of criminals that take over Laurens town and in the other the groups on Wall Street who let the housing market crash. In both situations it is from direct cause that something bad happens. 

Bad faith is something that has been taught and seen all through the course and it is something that I have strived to stay away from. Throughout the semester I’ve learned that practicing bad faith would be an impossible way to complete the course with an understanding of what it was about. Had you not read the readings or been in class while watching the other media we watched, you would not be able to follow the class. This is because the skills that the class learned while being there, seeing the course concepts on the board and connecting them to what we are talking about. After I missed one reading assignment, the first one, and after doing so I was lost in the class, not being able to connect dots that should have been connecting. This led me to not miss another for the rest of the semester, dedicating myself to recognizing the patterns in the class. After recognizing these patterns, I would sometimes 

All in all, over the course of the semester, I have been able to change the way I have been thinking my entire life. My mind as a whole always worked to understand the historical context of the time it was written or made, but this class challenged me to think of how it could connect to other times.

As I approach the end of this semester, reflecting on my journey through the course, the themes of social justice and economic crisis have unfolded in ways that were both unexpected and deeply transformative. A central aspect of this course has been engaging with Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler, a text that asks us to think critically about the future, survival, and the convergence of personal resilience with societal collapse. A key question posed in the prompt for this essay asks whether my engagement with Butler’s novel changes when placed within the context of the 2008 global financial crisis, a historical moment marked by what has been called the “housing crisis,” “subprime mortgage crisis,” or “foreclosure crisis.” As I explore this, I will reflect on how the themes of Parable of the Sower resonate with the global financial crisis, how they diverge, and how these connections contribute to my learning and understanding over the semester.

During the 2008 “housing crisis” there was a sense of vulnerability among the general population, as millions of people lost their homes due to foreclosures and the housing market’s collapse. This vulnerability stemmed from a system that failed to protect the most marginalized—particularly low-income communities and those already living paycheck to paycheck. Parable of the Sower echoes this sense of instability and societal breakdown, presenting a world where systems of power, wealth, and security have disintegrated, leaving individuals to fend for themselves in an increasingly hostile environment. The novel portrays a dystopian future where economic disparity and corporate greed exacerbate social divisions, pushing people to the brink of survival. We see a lot of similarities between the two events as the people in power show “bad faith” prioritizing their interests and the preservation of existing systems over the well-being of the most vulnerable. Bad faith refers to dishonesty or fraud in a transaction (Investopedia). In the aftermath of the financial collapse, major financial institutions were bailed out by the government despite their reckless lending practices and risk-taking that contributed to the crisis (The Big Short). This decision demonstrated bad faith, as taxpayer money was used to protect institutions that had caused widespread harm, rather than addressing the needs of the people who lost their homes and livelihoods. In Butler’s dystopian world, corporations exploit people’s desperation and suffering by creating privatized, militarized communities where only those who can afford protection and resources survive. The wealthy and powerful entities in the novel, including companies that control water and food supplies, display bad faith by treating the most basic human needs as commodities, ensuring the survival of only the privileged while abandoning everyone else to fend for themselves.

One of the key themes of Butler’s work is the idea of “Earthseed,” a philosophy that encourages adaptation and the building of new systems in the face of collapse. This concept resonates with the aftermath of the 2008 crisis, where many were forced to rethink their relationship with financial systems and their communities. In Butler’s world, survival depends not only on physical resilience but on the ability to create new ways of living and engaging with the world. In a similar vein, the financial crisis prompted individuals and communities to rethink how they engage with institutions and how collective action can provide solutions where traditional systems have failed. One key passage that highlights this idea of adaptability and the need to create new systems occurs when Lauren reflects on the nature of Earthseed, “All that you touch, you Change. All that you Change, changes you. The only lasting truth is Change. God is Change” (Butler, Parable of the Sower, Chapter 1). This idea of embracing change and building systems based on adaptability directly contrasts with the rigid, failing structures of the world around her. The old societal systems—governments, corporations, and traditional forms of community—have collapsed under the weight of their failures, leaving people like Lauren to adapt and create something new from the ruins. Earthseed is built on the understanding that change is inevitable and must be harnessed to create new, sustainable ways of living, much like how communities in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis were forced to reassess their relationship with traditional financial systems. Many individuals and communities had to navigate a rapidly changing financial landscape, marked by the collapse of established systems such as banks, mortgages, and housing markets. Much like Lauren’s response to her world, many people were left to rethink their values and priorities. Lauren’s development of Earthseed and her efforts to build a community around this new philosophy resonate with the way people after the financial crisis sought new ways to support one another and find alternative paths to security. The creation of Earthseed represents the necessity of building new social and economic frameworks—ones that can adapt and thrive in the face of collapse. Lauren’s philosophy emphasizes the importance of collective action and rebuilding in the face of overwhelming adversity. In the novel, she gathers a group of followers, teaching them the principles of Earthseed and the importance of community in survival. This mirrors how, after the financial crisis, individuals and communities came together to demand accountability and push for systemic reform in areas such as housing, banking, and social justice.

In both the 2008 financial crisis and the world of Parable of the Sower, the theme of expulsion plays a pivotal role, illustrating the systemic deprivation of individuals from the structures that once provided them with security and stability. The financial collapse led to massive unemployment, as corporations and banks laid off thousands of workers, leaving many without livelihoods (The Big Short). This economic instability caused widespread displacement, with families losing their homes and struggling to find new, affordable living situations. Many working-class communities were expelled from the middle class, experiencing a sharp decline in their financial security, which often pushed them into cheaper, less stable housing. These communities became further marginalized, and excluded from recovery efforts that predominantly benefited the wealthier classes and corporations. Similarly, in Parable of the Sower, as governments and public institutions crumble, people are forced to navigate a harsh, fragmented world without a social safety net. Lauren’s community faces the expulsion of those who can no longer afford safety or are deemed unworthy of the emerging, fragmented order. The collapse of societal structures exacerbates the marginalization of vulnerable groups, leaving them to survive in a world rife with danger and scarcity. Lauren’s family, for example, lives in a small, relatively safe community that is eventually attacked, leading to the deaths or forced displacement of many (Butler, Parable of the Sower, Chapter 10). In both instances, individuals and groups who are already vulnerable are thrust into even more precarious situations, expelled from the systems that once offered them stability, and forced to navigate worlds defined by uncertainty and fear.

My exploration of the themes of social justice, economic crisis, and narrative power in Parable of the Sower has provided profound insights into how individuals and communities respond to collapse and adversity. By combining Butler’s dystopian world with the 2008 financial crisis, it becomes clear that both events underscore the vulnerability of marginalized populations and the systemic failures that deepen their struggles. In both contexts, those in power act in “bad faith,” prioritizing self-preservation over the well-being of the most vulnerable. While the financial crisis exposed the fragility of global systems, forcing many to confront the consequences of reckless economic policies, Parable of the Sower offers a vision of hope through the philosophy of Earthseed, urging adaptability and the creation of new systems in response to collapse. Lauren’s journey and the development of Earthseed parallel how communities in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis sought collective action and alternative paths to security. Furthermore, the theme of expulsion in both the financial crisis and Butler’s novel reveals the stark reality of how societal systems push out those most in need, forcing them into precarious survival. As I reflect on these connections, I have gained a deeper understanding of how narrative and historical events can shape our collective response to injustice and instability, emphasizing the importance of resilience, adaptation, and solidarity in the face of systemic failure.

King Lear, The Big Short, A Mercy, and Parable of the Sower. Novels that were taught throughout the semester. Novels that have meaningful messages and countless amounts of interpretations. All novels consist of tragedy, hope, and mankind’s societal systems. All novels that don’t have any correlation with each other, but the 2008 housing crisis in different ways. 

Rewind, what was taught throughout this course based on the 2008 expulsion and housing crisis? At the beginning of the semester, it was just another class. Most students can say all they wanted out of it was a good grade, I for one, am. Expanding our knowledge on words we don’t fully understand or apply to our everyday lives. For example, apophenia. We were given this word at the beginning of the semester not knowing by the end it would impact everyone’s life in a different way. Countless amounts of dissecting novels, podcasts, movies, etc. that are based on this concept. So what does any of this mean and why is it related to any of these novels? Apophenia is the tendency to see patterns and connections between things that are unrelated or random (Google). Throughout these novels you can see patterns of random connections that all relate to the 2008 housing crisis and the world itself today.  

Earthseed. Character Lauren Olamina’s religion in the novel “Parable of Sower” by author Octavia Butler. The question is, why does she follow her own made-up religion and what does it essentially mean? She writes her own religion as a way to release her feelings and emotions towards the chaos going on around her as a way to find hope in the life she is living. Her family dying, her Hyper empathy emotion, and the dehumanizing civilization around her. Throughout this novel, many struggles can be seen; survival and expulsion. Laurens whole family passed away and she is forced to survive and migrate north due to her community being taken over by scavengers and fire, leaving nothing left. She has questioned whether she can survive and continue to write her religion and spread it to those who want to believe. Throughout her journey she has faced many obstacles, murder, finding food and water for her group and protecting them, and her hyperempathy which makes her feel pain from others around her. This can be in correspondence to the 2008 housing crisis and the world today because she was expelled from her home and since then has not been able to find safety, as in people who were affected by the crisis losing their money and houses and the people who had to survive. Lauren compares her group to the “crew of  modern underground railroad” in the sense that they are escaping the brutality of mankind. “So we become the crew of a modern underground railroad” (Butler 292). Of course, the brutality of the underground railroad cannot be compared to Laurens interpretation because slavery is an unspeakable horrid act of mankind but it can be compared to the journey of trying to escape oppression and violence around her. 

In the novel, A Mercy by Toni Morrison, it can become visible to readers that expulsion and survival play a major part throughout the story. A Mercy is a story about a young girl named Florens who was abandoned by her mother in hopes she lived a better life than her mother did. The story focuses on the brutality of slavery throughout the 1800s. Florens is consistently looking for the love of a mother or a parental figure while undergoing the abuse as being a slave. An act of expulsion can be seen when Florens puts the letter from the mistress on the table for the man to read. This is the first act of expulsion where Florens was being questioned on who she was by people she didn’t know. “She is owned by me and can be knowne by a burne mark in the palm of her left hand”. (Morrison 132) In the end, she was sent away without the hope of finding the love of a parent. It became clear to readers that her mother gave her up so Florens can survive and try to live a better life than she was. Her mother gave her away to help Florens survive from rape, and abuse by a harshful slave owner D’Ortega. By her mother showing mercy to trader Jacob Varrik. “…to be given dominion over another is a hard thing; to wrest dominion over another is a wrong thing; to give dominion of yourself to another is a wicked thing.” (Morrison p. 196) The ending sentences of the novel in which show the ownership of people by other people. Lauren never knew why her mother abandoned her, but readers knew why. These acts of survival and expulsion played a major role throughout the story reflecting on the 2008 housing crisis and the world we live in today, in the sense that people make life altering decisions to protect themselves or their families due to the acts of other humans who have a higher gentry. 

The Big Short, a novel by Micheal Lewis, is a story about the 2008 financial crisis. It focuses on the people who were ignored when telling higher ups that there will be a crash of subprime mortgages after people were betting against them. The novel sums up that while the rich are becoming richer by taking advantage of people and their assets, they make drastic amounts of profits and the working class and lower are losing everything they have owned. The 2008 housing crisis caused insufferable amounts of damage to many people. Losing their houses, their money, mental health increased, and their relationships with their families. People had survived off nothing. An act of survival and expulsion is when Micheal Lewis portrayed that peoples homes were being repossessed due to the insufficient payments they weren’t making on their loans. “Mobile home buyers were defaulting on their loans, their homes were being repossessed, and the people who lent them money were receiving fractions of the original loans.” (Lewis 14) People were moving in with their families after being expelled from their house, and people were being forced to survive with their families with no way of making an income to support them. Due to the crisis, unemployment increased, people were losing their jobs. Also, debt increased, causing more people to have to pay higher mortgages, taxes, and even bills. The struggles of the families in 2008 to today still, losing their goals of being financially stable, and the loss of being able to have ownership and good credit.

The novel King Lear by William Shakesphere is a novel about how a King Lear divides his empire of power and wealth to his three daughters who are forced to declare the love they have for him. In the end, King Lear ends up being betrayed by everyone but one daughter who could not give a reason as to why she loved him other than by a bond. It also ended tragically in which Cordelia dies and then King Lear follows due to his immense amount of grief and the pain he has caused by his actions. This novel portrays concepts of survival and expulsion because King Lear divided his empire up by his daughters based on how much they love him. This is an act of expulsion because he gradually expels his daughter Cordelia and disowns her. Leaving Cordelia with nothing and to survive on her own. “Here I disclaim all my paternal care, propinquity and property of blood, and as a stranger to my heart and me.” (Shakespeare Act 1; Scene 1) These are actions of expulsion because King Lear is removing Cordelia from her inheritance in the kingdom. An act of survival is within King Lear himself, after the death of Cordelia and all his wrong doing, he is trying to survive within himself and the person he became. He is within a battle of himself, and eventually succumbs to his death. “It is a chance which does redeem all sorrows that I have ever felt.” (Shakespeare Act 5; Scene 3) These acts of expulsion and survival portray the tragedies of the novel King Lear which can correspond to the 2008 crisis and the world today. The act of losing loved ones due to greed and power. These relate to the crisis and today because most people are in search of power, money, even if it comes at the cost of taking advantage of other people.

By the end of the semester, all these books portrayed ideologies of expulsion and survival through many different obstacles which connect to apophenia. The sense that all these novels can be seen to have a pattern even though they don’t relate to any of each other. In this case, the pattern we see is that throughout history novels like these express the tragedies, hope of people and human encounter, first with King Lear, the expulsion and tragedy of Cordelia and King Lear. Second, The Big Short, in the sense that the government and banks failed the hard working American people by the crisis taking away their assets, homes and families. Third, A Mercy, slavery and the harsh brutalities that women and children suffered throughout the 17th century and finally, Parable of Sower, in which society was completely wiped out and people were forced to survive and protect themselves from scavengers and fires. 

In the end, the biggest take away that can be seen from these authors, is the concept of apophenia; history is repeating itself just in different patterns. With the knowledge and obstacles that each novel holds, in the end they all find a way to connect with history and the issues we face today all around the world. For example, war, politicians, corruption, and the seeking of finding hope throughout obstacles that people are facing today. For me, it’s simple. Apophenia is a word that has countless amounts of interpretations. In my life today, books like these taught me that apophenia isn’t as uncommon as everyone thinks it is. How will this help me move forward? Was a question my professor asked me. The answer is, I think with the knowledge I obtained from this class I will look at the world in a different way.  Meaning, when I face my next obstacles, next discussions, next milestones in my life I will look back and find where it was in my history that led me to this exact moment in time. Looking for the pattern as to why I decided to come to school here, why I decided to show a random act of kindness, and why I want to become the person that my role models are. Furthermore, even though my hardships and obstacles can not compare with the obstacles faced throughout these novels, I know in the end of each tragedy and each hopeful finale you can take it how you perceive. Something to find hope in, or something to find a tragedy and learn from it; like history.      

By: Abbigail Woodworth

It is common to hear someone say “Those Taylor Swift fans are crazy” or “Everything is always about Taylor Swift.” I can say that those 2 statements are true, at least about myself. My studying is spent with headphones on, listening to her entire discography, my drives home, my showers, everything. I am always listening to Taylor Swift. I spend my weekends watching her record-breaking “Eras Tour” on my phone on some livestream. I also love to talk lyrics and discuss the meanings and stories behind her songs. I think more people would have more of an appreciation for her if they listened to her lyrics rather than her music. For example, in her album “Folklore” the whole theme is about a love triangle that Taylor completely made up. All of the main characters in this triangle “Inez” “Betty” and “James” are famous actress; Blake Lively’s children’s names. Or how her name album “The Tortured Poets Department” gives us a glimpse into Taylor’s recent relationships that have ended. For example in her song “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived” there are many clues that she is talking about ex-boyfriend Matty Healy. With comments like “if rusting my sparkling summer was the goal”(Swift, T. (2024). The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived. TTPD) Taylor was on tour during their relationship and broke up suggesting that Matty’s goal was to ruin her experience on tour by breaking her heart. Or when she says “In your Jehovah’s Witness suit” (Swift, T. (2024). The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived. TTPD). Matty is known to perform in suits that resemble the likeness of those suits. There is more to Taylor and her lyrics than people realize, although most argue that most of her songs are breakup songs. I will agree with the statement that most are about breakups, but if you dive further you’ll realize that they relate to so much more than breakups. 

To prove my statement above, I will be relating Taylor Swift’s song “How Did It End?” on her newest album TTPD to the 2008 Housing Crisis. This may seem like a long stretch for some but upon further analysis of the lyrics you too will see the similarities. Throughout this, I will be taking lines from Swift’s song and comparing it to the housing crisis. Let’s start at the beginning. “We hereby conduct this post-mortem. He was a hothouse flower to my outdoorsman.” (Swift, T. (2024). How did it End?. TTPD). The housing crisis has ended and all that is left is a massive number of foreclosed homes leaving many without houses and a bunch of economists slowly losing the money they are used to having. A “hothouse flower” is someone fragile because they have been sheltered or protected, they haven’t been left to the elements to develop endurance. The hothouse flower in our case is the economist who had been sheltered from the real world. They did not see the effects of their poorly written mortgages and the trading of their CDOs, these men had been sheltered from the real world which allowed them to move selfishly in the housing world by trading CDOs and doing what would make them the most money. A great quote within The Big Short captures this beautifully Lewis says “There was a thrilling disconnect between the pain you experienced and the damage you caused.” (Lewis, p. 145) Saying that these men were so disconnected from the damage they were causing by trading these CDOs and giving out these loans. The outdoorsman in this is the people, the homeowners. The ones who were left in the elements and had to receive the brunt of the Economists’ “fun game”. These homeowners were often drowning or faulting in mortgage payments and would eventually end up without homes.

A common theme within the housing crisis is that no one had any idea what was going on in The Big Short a character who was introduced by Michael Lewis is Charlie Ledley the kind of guy you find where the money is. Charlie is quoted saying “I had a vague idea what an ABS (asset-backed security) was.” “But I had no idea what a CDO was.” (Lewis, p.126). This is just one small example of the many people who had no idea what was going on during this time. These are people who were holding your mortgages and didn’t even know what they were doing. The people you are told to trust and blindly trust. We naturally trust those within certain fields because we simply believe they know more than us. After all, they are supposed to be the experts. Taylor says it best,  “We were blind to unforeseen circumstances. We learned the right steps to different dances (oh). And fell victim to interlopers’ glances. Lost the game of chance, what are the chances?” (Swift, T. (2024). How did it End?. TTPD). All involved in this crisis were all blind to the unforeseen. Michael Lewis suggests throughout the book that no one had any clue what was going on. Those involved in it were blinded by the money and the homeowners were blinded by the mortgages they could now get, and their futures and dreams of owning a home, their house. These same homeowners had trust in their banks and mortgage holders to know what was best for them; blind trust. They fell victim to the interlopers within the companies who were buying and selling these mortgages without any knowledge of what they were dealing with. All of these factors influenced the multiple mortgage faults and foreclosures. 

The homeowners are the victims in all of this, many having to leave their homes and fault on their mortgages or others who had their homes foreclosed on and left without a home to live in. Many of these average people wanted the dream like we all do, they wanted a nice home to live in and many to grow a family. However, due to the negligence of the economist and those involved with buying and selling these mortgages they had borrowed too much from those who couldn’t pay that much. Like Lewis describes in The Big Short “There weren’t enough Americans with shitty credit taking out loans to satisfy investors appetite for the end product.” (Lewis, p. 143). These investors and economists knew exactly what they were doing, they wanted those with the “shitty” credit. These homeowners were being set up to fail without even knowing it. Leaving them without the homes they had always dreamed of. “The deflation of our dreaming. Leaving me bereft and reeling. My beloved ghost and me. Sitting in a tree. D-Y-I-N-G” (Swift, T. (2024). How did it End?. TTPD) This lyric I believe perfectly captures the feelings these homeowners must’ve had finding out their homes were being foreclosed, or choosing the difficult decision to leave and fault on their mortgages. Their dreams of owning a house were not deflated. 

Like all things that go up, they must come down, and that is exactly what happened to the housing crisis of 2008. To economists it was harmless trading for more money, as it progressed some saw it for what it was and knew it wasn’t going to end well. To this day no one knows who or what caused this crisis. Leaving many without a finger to point and others angry. Taylor ends her song with “But I still don’t know. How did it end?” (Swift, T. (2024). How did it End?. TTPD). Taylor perfectly captures the housing crisis, as everyone is left with one question How did it end? The crisis left many homeless, in debt, and careful with who they trust. 

You may have read that and thought “Okay but what a crazy stretch, to compare a 2024 Taylor Swift song about a breakup to the 2008 housing crisis that affected real people.” To which I would say, you are right. It was a stretch to connect these two completely different things. However, upon further analysis, the stretch doesn’t seem as crazy when you look at the lyrics and relate them to the crisis. Above is evidence that you can create something from what may seem like nothing. But like King Lear once said “Nothing will come of nothing.” (Shakespeare p. 64).

Natalie Schuey
Professor McCoy
English 111
4 December 2024

As the semester is coming to an end, I look back and realize how much I have learned from this course. I was very unfamiliar with the 2008 housing crisis when I first started this class but now I am able to draw connections with it. I also have learned a lot of new terms which we call our course concepts. These concepts have been very beneficial for what we have been doing in class. The books we have read, especially our most recent book, Parable of the Sower. This book relates directly to the main course concept of expulsion, which really ties together with what we do in class. This sets an example for me and leads me to make connections with other books and work we have done previously in class.

To start with one connection between the housing crisis and the Parable of the Sower is expulsion. The main character Lauren was in two obvious cases of expulsion involving internal and external. Starting with how she felt internally, her emotions were all over the place. Lauren had lost her mother but this was not a major part of the story. Throughout the story she had felt a lot of loss. Her father was killed and her brother Keith had also passed away, after getting involved with bad people. Lauren has hyperempathy which makes her feel deeper for those who are in pain, or mentally in pain. She feels for other people which is a good and a bad thing. She is a young caring individual but this is bad for her because it makes it easy for people to take advantage of her. During all of this time of expulsion with herself and others she is going through a hard time because she feels it all. Her home was taken from her which hurt her internally because her image of home is no longer home for her. She has a lot of mental pain and expulsion. Although physically kicked out of where she lived, this sticks with her internally because her image of where she grew up and her memories are no longer there. Lauren had lost a lot and people were expelled from her life, along with her home.

She also was also physically expelled from her home like most during the housing crisis. She was forced to leave after her home and her neighborhood had been destroyed. She lost her family and her home which put a big impact on her decisions throughout the book. Her safe home with walls had physically been torn down and involved with the dangerous world that took her happy life away from her. This drug had forced people to act out and take away things from other people. Lauren was not safe and she was not the same person as she was in the beginning of the book. After what she had been through she went through a lot of character development.

Many people during the housing crisis struggled to find a home or somewhere to stay, which is very similar to how Lauren felt. Lauren was on and off with where she was staying, she found other people and had to get away from her home. Although she had reason to be forced out because of the new drug, what she called home was no longer an option to her. The book relates directly to the housing crisis, but at the same time has aspects that differ from one another. The arson causing drug and the hyperempathy were aspects of the book which did not relate directly to the housing crisis.

Mentally the housing crisis was a very stressful time, and caused a lot of people to be put under a lot of pressure. The housing crisis relates to Lauren because of how emotional it really was for the people involved,“In 2008 it was the entire financial system that was at risk. We were still short. But you don’t want the system to crash. It’s sort of like the flood’s about to happen and you’re Noah. You’re on the ark. Yeah, you’re okay. But you are not happy looking out at the flood. That’s not a happy moment for Noah. (The Big Short)” The Big Short, was a very supportive book which draws connections to the housing crisis. I was able to make this connection, and really feel it when reading Parable of the Sower. I could feel for Lauren when she was going through all of the expulsion and loss. It makes me think about how hard of a time she would have to go through with her hyperempathy. She lost her brother, her home, and was on the move. She had lost trust for people and could only rely on herself and those she was with. Lauren had been tired of waiting and searching for a home, “Walking hurts, I’ve never done enough walking to learn that before, but I know it now. It isn’t only the blisters and sore feet, although we’ve got those. After a while, everything hurts. I think my back and shoulders would like to desert to another body. Nothing eases the pain except rest. Even though we got a late start, we stopped twice today to rest. We went off the freeway, into the hills or bushes to sit down, drink water, eat fried fruit and nuts. Then went on. The days are long this time of year. (Parable of Sower 179)” I felt that this quote was related to the housing crisis, because although in the book it was physically draining, it shows how mentally draining it can be for those who became victims of losing their homes. Which relates directly to the housing crisis because communities and people were lied to and forced out of their homes without any offers or consideration.The housing crisis was where many people lost their homes and jobs due to the government giving out risky loans. This is very important to the books we have read because it shows how there can be a connection between losing everything and how it can be at fault from someone else. The housing crisis and Parable of the Sower go hand and hand which made it easier to draw connections and read the book.

While reading this book I found it very interesting to come across these things because it made me want to read on. It didn’t feel like I was really learning because I was being entertained. I had such an easy time reading this because I understood so much from previous material. The term expulsion has become a word that I have developed into my vocabulary. After reading King Lear, I became more aware of how many ways there can be expulsion involved. Lear, like Lauren, had been expelled from his own home. I also was able to connect the course concept toxic and toxin to Lear and Parable because of the toxic people and environments they both were involved in. Lear was in toxic relationships with his own daughters, while Lauren is around toxic people in a toxic environment. They also had a connection with the term toxic, because there was a lot of poison in King Lear, while Lauren is living with a drug which is forcing people to commit arson. I saw the biggest connections between these two books, even though they were very different it felt very similar. I had a really hard time understanding and reading King Lear, but I feel if I were to go back and read it again I would have an easier time understanding because of the other books and things we have worked on this semester such as, A Mercy and The Big Short.

I have learned a lot this semester and I have been able to tie in what we have previously done into the Parable of the Sower. As previously mentioned, I have connected the books to one another but specifically I had been able to connect the housing crisis to these books. I was able to see the struggle of the characters in the books we have read, and I connected it to the struggle of those in the housing crisis. Overall I have learned a lot about what the housing crisis consists of, and a lot about expulsion and other course concepts. I have gained a lot of understanding as a reader and a student in this class. The 2008 housing crisis, like the story line in Parable of the Sower, shows what happens when greed and inequality spiral out of control, leaving people to face reality and forcing them to find new ways to survive and rebuild. There was a lot to learn from the housing crisis and this book, to always plan ahead, and not to trust everyone and everything. I have gained so much from this course as an individual, I have learned so much and I will continue to draw connections and conclusions with what I have gained this semester.

Final Self-Reflective Essay

By: Samantha Kim

Jumping into the class “Lit: Expulsions and Housing Crisis” as a first year student, I had little knowledge on the concept of expulsion and the housing crisis. I didn’t know what to expect with the class. This class really deepened my understanding on these topics. We read different books such as William Shakepear’s King Lear, Toni Morrison’s A Mercy, Michael Lewis’s The Big Short, and Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower. When I saw the books we were going to read, at first I was confused on how some of these books like King Lear would connect to either of these two topics. But as we read the books it all connected back to the topics and showed many examples of the topics. In King Lear, there were many examples of expulsion. For example, King Lear who is the father of three daughters, expels his youngest daughter Cordelia. Lear expels Cordelia after she does not overly express her love for him and flatter Lear in the way he was hoping. Lear also expels The Earl of Kent after Kent questioning Lear and wanting him to reconsider his choice of expelling Cordelia. These decisions of expulsion made by King Lear created major consequences resulting in Lear losing his home, power/kingdom, and his relationships with his daughters. In the book A Mercy, the main character Florens experiences expulsion throughout the book. The expulsion from her mother and expulsion of the blacksmith whom she loved had major negative effects on her. The book The Big Short, focuses on the housing crisis. There was corruption in the US mortgage market and a collapse of the housing market due to the subprime mortgage defaults. Thus negatively affecting the people/homeowners. But positively affecting a small group of investors who profited and made a significant amount of money off of predicting the crisis. After reading these books it now makes sense on why these books were chosen for this specific course. We were able to see many examples of expulsion and the housing crisis within these books. 

The book Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler and the 2008 financial crisis have many connections. Parable of the Sower takes place in a dystopian future which affects society greatly  due to many factors, including economic instability, environmental degradation, inequality/classism, homelessness, and the structure of government. All of these factors created a destabilized community. All of these factors can go along with what happened after the 2008 financial crisis. The 2008 financial crisis had issues such as subprime mortgages, systematic inequality, housing bubble, and problems with financial institutions. In Parable of the Sower, there is the rich/wealthy and the poor. The rich live in safe gated communities for residents while the poor live outside the gated community walls and are struggling with extreme hardships. “But people who have no homes will build fires. Even people like us who know what fire can do will build them. They give comfort, hot food, and a false sense of security” (Butler, p. 180) The major issues with the economic systems causes an unsustainable community leading to survival and strongly affects the unity and trust within the community. This relates to how the people were affected by the housing crisis. The wealthy were able to manage their way through, while the less fortunate classes had to deal with high unemployment rates, difficulty to pay mortgages, plummeting home values, foreclosure, limited credit access, struggles to find affordable housing, and unstable housing situations. In The Big Short it states “If we’re right, people lose homes. People lose jobs. People lose retirement savings, people lose pensions.” “It reduces people to numbers. Here’s a number-every 1% unemployment goes up, 40,000 people die, did you know that?”  In Parable of the Sower, Lauren lost trust in people in order to protect herself from the violence, theft, and people that would use their power in a bad faith way over those less fortunate. For example, in the book it states “Nobody’s safe, Zahra told him.No matter how pitiful they look, they can steal you naked.” (Butler, p.181) It was easier for Lauren to not trust a lot of people and prepare for the worst to try to protect herself because there were people in the community who were acting in bad faith to put themselves first during this time. This relates and connects to the 2008 housing crisis, because the homeowners and home buyers could not trust the investment banking and insurance practices anymore, because they were far too risky and CDO’s did not care about what would happen to the homeowners and buyers. There was a large number of homeowners defaulting on their mortgages and people losing trust in the financial system and banks feeling like they could not rely on them anymore. Public faith was lost in the housing market because of the lack of regulation. 

All of this does matter for students to see given GLOBE’s insistence and emphasis of the importance for students to be able to have the ability to “reflect upon changes in learning and outlook over time.” It is very valuable for students to see this crisis in both a real world example being the 2008 crisis, and then the crisis in a novel form being Parable of the Sower. Both the Parable of the Sower and the 2008 housing crisis are great for students to reflect on, and encourages students to create their own outlooks to these real life serious issues. The crisis opens up different interpretations, meanings, and ideas. Students can notice changes in this global crisis and see if anything evolves within these economic, environmental, societal issues, and systemic failures in the present day. Personally, I find this very valuable and am glad I learned about this big crisis because it really does affect so many people. Learning about the 2008 crisis gave insight and shed light on the economic systems and financial markets. We as people can hopefully prevent future events and see warning signs, with now having a better understanding and a better foundation in making these decisions. As for the class/course all together, I now have a different well developed perspective on both expulsion and on the 2008 housing crisis.

Parable of the Sower and the financial crisis of 2008 have an abundance of similarities and themes that present themselves throughout each story. Although one is fictional and one is based on a true event they have a way of connecting with each other in various manners. Parable of Sower is set in a dystopian based society that lacks government intervention and includes extreme economic struggle and disparity. There is a large theme of displacement and fighting to keep a stable home. Throughout the story we are presented with various struggles within the community such as protecting families from danger, drug use and terrible hygiene and expulsion from living situations. A coming goal for the main character in Parable of the Sower, Lauren, is a constant pursuit of change within people’s morals and a pursuit to find peace and security for all. She calls her teachings of these values “Earthseed”. Earthseed is her own “religion” in which she sets out on a proselytization to try and help as many people as she possibly can. The reason she sets out on her own is because she was expelled from her living conditions due to the threat of violence, robbery and arson within her own community. These themes of pressure have a direct correlation throughout the 2008 financial crisis in a multitude of different ways. Commonalities between the two books include economic inequality, societal morals, housing insecurity, trust and reliance on public systems. 

The Parable of the Sower has a society based on extreme wealth disparity with few elites holding wealth and resources while the less fortunate are left to fend for themselves. This ties directly to the 2008 financial crisis because people who couldn’t afford the housing they were getting into were preyed upon by brokers and large corporations for their monetary benefit. In the crisis people were offered mortgages that they would never be able to actually afford causing an eventual burst leading to hundreds of thousands of people losing their homes. In Parable of a Sower there are different communities, those who are protected and have enough money to provide for their families and then those left to provide security for themselves. Similarly between both the Parable of the Sower and the financial crisis people with less economic power and freedom were left vulnerable to collapse. This can be seen in Parable of the Sower when Lauren and her family are forced to leave their home because of growing threats of violence. The same is true for the lower class during the financial crisis in that when the “bubble popped” on the mortgages those with not enough money to cover the insane inflation and costs were forced to find housing elsewhere oftentimes at underwhelming, overpriced locations. There is a theme of financial deregulation within both stories as well. In the Parable of the Sower there is an example in which Lauren states she is taking three thousand dollars with her for food that will only provide for about a week. This is mirrored in the financial crisis when the same AAA mortgage bonds that were once worth hundreds of dollars only sold for fractions of what they were once worth. Inflation is a major connection between both stories as it causes the characters and real world people to both live out of their means and struggle to make ends meet. 

Societal morals is another major theme that arises throughout both the Parable of the Sower and the financial crisis of 2008. In some form or another people were able to get away with pretty much whatever they wanted without government intervention or penalty from the law. This concept ties back to our course concept of moral hazard. Moral hazard is defined as a lack of incentive to guard against risk where one is protected from consequence. This term had direct correlation to both the 2008 financial crisis and Parable of the Sower. More specifically in the 2008 crisis large banking firms and other mortgage agencies avoided fair penalties from the law after the crisis had been pinpointed on their actions and decisions. These bankers knew what they were doing would eventually cause harm to people being given these outrageous mortgages. This understanding of these moral wrongdoings paired with the reliance on minimum penalties and avoidance of legal trouble allowed them to commit acts of moral hazard. The same concept is true within Parable of the Sower in relation to the dystopian society and how it functioned. The book strongly suggests a society in which is chaotic and lawless. There are instances throughout the book where left and arson are committed without a consequence of law. These acts play a huge role in the community security of Lauren and her neighbours in the manner that when these acts become more prevalent there isn’t much they can do about it. These criminals understand that they can get away with this without anything happening putting communities and almost all citizens in danger. To me this connects with both the financial crisis and the Parable of the Sower because the bankers and lenders and the criminals in Parable of the Sower can be grouped together. They both institute a mindset of being able to get away with anything to personally benefit themselves. Another aspect of societal morals that connects between the two is drug use and addiction. In the Parable of the Sower it is extremely common to see many people openly using drugs on the street and almost becomes a way of life that is normal within many communities. The same can go for the analysts and brokers of wall street and other financial areas during the time leading up to the financial crisis as cocaine and other stimulants became highly popular. The addictive qualities reach further than just the drugs but also the money as well. In both The Parable of the Sower and the crisis the desire to acquire money through any means necessary proved to deteriorate the very fabric of order and moral integrity. 

Another concept that happens in Parable of the Sower that brings forth comparison with the 2008 financial crisis is the theme of housing insecurity. Probably the largest topic about Parable of the Sower is a journey to spread ideas forced out of the fact of expulsion. Laurens journey to spread the ideas of “Earthseed” are caused because her home became dangerous and unable to live at. This connects with the financial crisis because once the bubble had popped there became a point where people were unable to keep their homes and be forced to find housing elsewhere. This idea also ties into the fact of trust in public systems. Without the security and backing of government in both Parable of the Sower and in the real world situation of 2008, families were forced to fend for themselves as governments were rendered susceptible and weak. Having faith that a government can help regulate and protect your family was no longer a viable option and left people vulnerable to expulsion and unavoidable change. 

Parable of the Sower and the 2008 financial crisis have powerful narratives that highlight the consequences of unchecked economic systems, social inequality and moral decay. They both depict worlds that are left to fend for themselves as structures set in place had failed to protect them. After reading Parable of a Sower we can see how wealth disparity, housing insecurity and lack of societal morals can push individuals to seek new hope and survival. Ultimately both the Parable of the Sower and the financial crisis reveal a need for change whether it be through Laurens quest of spreading the “Earthseed” or financial law reform from the United states government. When looking at an overview of both of the stories we are reminded about the importance of maintaining strong responsible governance, ethics and moral integrities to prevent the failure of societies in the future.

The fall ‘24 semester was the toughest yet. Throughout the semester I challenged myself, I felt defeated, I felt happy, I felt drained, and I kept going. Lauren’s Journey in Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler reminds me of the events I encountered during the fall ‘24 semester. I feel as though I relate to Lauren, but I also want to help her, this reflects upon my wanting to help myself as well as the profession that I am going into, which is teaching. As a teacher, I want to help younger children not only to learn, but also to find themselves, and fight for themselves to encounter anything that comes their way. To succeed in my goal, I first need to help myself and learn how to encounter battles on my own. The fall ‘24 semester has helped me face these battles and shown me what I am truly capable of. During my semester I reflect upon the concepts of good faith, trust, foreclosure, incentives, and pressure. 

A week before this semester started, I was getting ready to move back to Geneseo and start my last year of college. I felt content as I was still living in my house with my family and had the support of my loved ones for the whole summer, but part of me was excited to move into my new apartment with my friends whom I had not seen for three months. As I began Parable of the Sower, it reminded me of how I felt right before I moved to school, Lauren and I both were living at home with our families content. As I enjoyed the last few days of being at home before moving back, I got a little sad thinking about how I won’t have my home gym anymore, how I won’t have as much free time, and how I won’t have my family to live with, but I trusted Geneseo which kept me at ease. It was not out of the blue for me to feel upset about coming back, because I usually did, but I kept reminding myself that this is always how I feel, and once I got to school I would be so distracted that I wouldn’t have time to dwell on what I am missing from home and adjust just fine, how I usually do. The first few days of moving to school were great, I got to spend time with my friends I hadn’t seen in three months and get used to my new schedule as I still had a good amount of free time. Around the second week of school, I felt like I was drowning in homework with such a small amount of time to complete it. On top of this, I would come home from super stressful days to a very quiet apartment. I was not used to this because I had lived with 17 girls the year prior, and now it was only 3. I thrived from spending time with my friends in that big house as they distracted me from my academic load. I felt as though I was missing this in my new apartment. I felt very lonely. I felt foreclosed on, from my home with my family and all of my favorite things I had back at home. I felt similar feelings that Lauren felt when she lost her house and her family. Lauren was alone, wandering and looking for someone to support her. 

As the semester progressed, I began to get used to the adjustment of the workload, the quietness of my apartment, and the stress. With stress came pressure, as I always felt pressure to start a new assignment to get ahead on time even if I had just finished one. I knew I deserved and should take a rest day, but something about that made me feel guilty because nothing comes from nothing, as quoted in King Lear (Shakespeare et al., 2007). If I did no homework all day, I would get nothing done, and that would feel like a waste of a day. I felt like I was always worrying about what I had to do next even if I had completed 5 assignments in one day! This made me feel like Lauren as she had been traveling for days and weeks and wanted a rest day so badly but said it wasn’t time yet (Butler, 1993). Through this pressure, I began to find a balance, and I began to learn more about myself that I didn’t know before this semester. I learned that my planner was my best friend, and by staying on top of my work two weeks in advance eased my mind. I also learned that I am not someone who can grind out my homework for multiple hours of the day, and I work better by working every day, but for shorter periods of time. By looking at the assignments I had due within two weeks, I could spread them out so that I could focus on 2-3 assignments a day, which helped reduce my cognitive overload. I got used to focusing on homework for about 2-3 hours a day, and sometimes if I was lucky, I’d get a day off and feel okay with letting myself have a break. I formed stronger connections and friendships with my classmates as we were going through the stress and pressure together. We leaned on each other with questions and support and came together as one to tackle the semester. I got used to my quiet apartment and tried to plan an hour out of every couple of days for a social activity with friends, even if that meant going grocery shopping together, because being with my friends made me happy. 

As the semester is coming to an end, I feel like I can relate to Lauren’s journey, on a much smaller scale of course. As she headed up North, she picked up Allie, Jill, Bankole, and others who supported her every day, as she returned the favor to support them as well. I also made friends to support me in my classes, as I tried my best to support them too. My friends outside of my classes were also a great support system to get my mind off of school and share laughs with. As the semester comes to an end, I also recognize my professors who are in good faith and recognize and appreciate my hard work throughout the semester. This makes me feel happy inside as I love forming connections in general. I am very appreciative of these professors and that I got the chance to meet and work with them and learn their personalities which I hadn’t known back in August. As I come to the last few days of the semester, I recognize what I have learned about myself, and all that I have accomplished that I didn’t know I could do. I feel very proud of myself and realize that even though the days felt long, the weeks felt so short. I guess it is true that time flies when you are busy!

If I were to do this semester again, I would tell myself to relax and reassure myself that even if it feels impossible, I can do it. I would tell myself that my mental health is more important than school, and learning how to cope with a big workload is key. I would remind myself to lean on my friends and family for support and to look on the bright side, that I am so fortunate to have an amazing family and home life that makes being away from home so hard. I now know that no semester can be as hard as this one, and that brings me peace as I think about next semester.

As I think about only having one semester left at Geneseo, I think about the future ahead of me and having a classroom one day doing what I love… but there is the thought of expulsion that comes to my mind every so often. The thought of being expelled from my college life. From my friends, my sorority, my apartment, and my routine. As this thought comes to my mind, I have begun to think about how in life you encounter many expulsions, sometimes they’re big and sometimes small. You experience expulsion leaving your elementary school at 5th grade to move to middle school. Once you leave are in high school you experience expulsion of free education, and all of your high school moments, homecoming, high school sports, and high school football games. Leaving college will be another expulsion in my life, but I will get through it just as I got through the others. And after this, I will experience more as I find new jobs and leave old ones, officially move out of my parent’s house, and more that I don’t know yet. As I feel expelled throughout my life, I will remember back to how I have gotten through tough situations, and how Lauren has as well. 

Works Cited

Butler, O. E. (1993). Parable of the Sower. Four Walls Eight Windows: 

Shakespeare, W., Raffel, B., & Bloom, H. (2007). King lear. Yale University Press. 

Cassidy Hand

Professor McCoy

English 111

6 December 2024

When I started this class, as a first semester freshman, I was unsure how the title of the class “Expulsion & Housing Crisis” had anything to do with an English course. When thinking of the terms expulsion and housing crisis my initial thought was people were losing their homes because of weather, or they were being taken away due to financial reasons. I soon learned my interpretation was close, but there was still much more to be learned and understood.  I wasn’t expecting to read King Lear, The Big Short, A Mercy, or The Parable of the Sower, not to mention having topics in these books ultimately relating to the title of the class. After reading these books I was able to understand how these books connected to the course topic of expulsion and housing crisis. As a class we also determined many different course concepts like, bad faith, trust, moral hazard, toxicity, fraud, and risk to help interpret the true meaning of our reading. Expulsion was seen in both King Lear and A Mercy. In King Lear his daughter Cordelia was expelled by Lear after she refused to flatter him excessively during a public declaration of love. In A Mercy expulsion is shown multiple times after Florens is expelled multiple times. Florens is expelled from her mother, the widow and daughter Jane, and the blacksmith. In The Big Short and The Parable of the Sower we saw how the housing crisis came into play. In The Big Short, the focus of the book was around specific events that led to the financial crisis in 2008. The financial fall, which was caused by several failures in the industrial setting such as risk taking and fraud, led to a collapse in the housing market. The Parable of the Sower, has a similar focus on economic change. The book focuses on the combination of global climate change and economic crises which leads to social chaos.

The Parable of the Sower turned out to be my favorite book out of all the novels we were assigned. I was able to grasp a better understanding of what the author was trying to relay to the reader. I was able to bring together the course concepts and the main topics of the course, expulsion and housing crisis, to The Parable of the Sower. I found that I was able to connect The Parable of the Sower to the 2008 housing crisis, but also was able to pick out reasons why it wasn’t the same. In The Parable of the Sower, the main character Lauren starts off living in what could be considered a gated community and one of wealthy status. Those living in this community were protected from the others who lived a much harder lifestyle of poverty, crime and drugs outside the walls. Those on the outside always found their way in to steal and cause harm to those who had more than they had. The community began to fall apart and feel unsafe. Lauren expresses her concern in the book and states, “Now, I have to go home. I don’t want to. The idea scares me to death. It’s taken me a long time to write the word: Home.”This caused them to want to move to another wealthy area, called Olivar, which was seen to be safer and provide them with new opportunities. Laruen shares her perspective in stating, “The people of Olivar aren’t frightened, impoverished victims. They’re able to look after themselves their rights and their property. They’re educated people who don’t want to live in the spreading chaos of the rest of Los Angeles county. Some of them said so on the radio documentary we all listened to last night–as they made a public spectacle of selling themselves to KSF.” It also states “ Marcus tells me the Garfeilds are trying to get into Olivar.” The downfall to what was seen to be a great move was an application process people needed to do to get into Olivar with no guarantee of acceptance in. Similar to the 2008 financial crisis where there was mass foreclosures, job loss and housing crisis, people were placed in situations where they needed to make tough choices that affected their livelihood. In both the book and the 2008 financial crisis wealthier people experienced significant gain while poorer people struggled to survive.

The Parable of the Sower is also different compared to the 2008 housing crisis. The main  difference I found was in The Parable of the Sower the community experienced an extreme shutdown causing an economical fall that appeared to be so bad that it wasn’t able to be fixed.There was destruction to the environment and  people left the community for better neighborhoods because of the poor people constantly stealing and hurting people in the community. The people were scared to live in the community so they made a choice to find better neighborhoods to live in. The following quote from the book helps to paint that picture: “We’ve never been rich, but to the desperate, we looked rich. We were surviving and we had our wall. Did our community die so that addicts could make a help-the-poor political statement?” The people of the community felt helpless with no other answer than to leave their homes for a better place to live .Where in the 2008 housing crisis there was also an economical fall, but the communities were able to maintain stability by coming up with solutions to help them through. Instead of society falling apart, it remained together because of the actions taken to address what was happening and find ways to help. The government stepped in with actions. These actions were mentioned in an article found on the Federal Reserve History website stating, “One set of actions was aimed at encouraging lenders to rework payments and other terms on troubled mortgages or to refinance “underwater” mortgages (loans exceeding the market value of homes) rather than aggressively seek foreclosure. This reduced repossessions whose subsequent sale could further depress house prices. Congress also passed temporary tax credits for homebuyers that increased housing demand and eased the fall of house prices in 2009 and 2010. To buttress the funding of mortgages, the Congress greatly increased the maximum size of mortgages that FHA would insure. Because FHA loans allow for low down payments, the agency’s share of newly issued mortgages jumped from under 10 percent to over 40 percent.” 

My understanding of GLOBE is to get people thinking in other ways through experiences in different cultures, diversity, viewpoints, etc. It is important to stay open minded and think outside of the box while reading and learning about something unfamiliar. Being exposed to something different than I am used to has encouraged me to want to learn more about expulsion and housing crisis after not having much knowledge about that topic, especially in an English class. Through this course I was able to read new novels that I never would have picked up on my own that I ended up really enjoying. I also learned how to connect course concepts with the text I was reading to better understand the idea that was trying to be portrayed in the novel. Overall, this course was very beneficial in learning how to connect outside problems to texts. 

By, Kyle Mele

After finishing The Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler and other sources of literature, including The Big Short by Michael Lewis, A Mercy by Toni Morrison, and even King Lear by William Shakespeare, common themes of trust and expulsion emerge within the character’s stories and even in our everyday lives. Entering this course, I knew little about the 2008 housing crisis; however, through the literature, we can explore the root cause, revealing the mistrust between homeowners and investors, leading to widespread expulsion. As stated in The Big Short, professional investors predicted and invested in the subprime mortgage market’s downfall, resulting in millions of dollars in profit for themselves and causing immense damage to many homeowners by forcing them to foreclose on their homes. 

When analyzing the events leading up to the subprime mortgage crisis and the following events, a state of panic arose within communities as news of the investor’s fraudulent behavior became public. The state of panic induced by bad-faith actors can be directly related to the sequence of events occurring within Lauren’s community in The Parable of the Sower. Within Lauren’s world, a lack of protection for a community resulted in mass arson, robbery, and even murder, leading to the expulsion of many characters from natural rights of life, liberty, and property, as outlined by John  Locke’s philosophy. That protection is a wall. We get this insight when Lauren states, “then there were the pitiful, unwalled residential areas. A lot of the houses were trashed burned, vandalized, infested with drunks or druggies, or squatted in by homeless families with their filthy, gaunt, half-naked children” (Butler 10). The communities residing without a wall’s protection resulted in their people being expelled from their homes and even their rights. Their lives become filled with fear as their neighbor’s homes burn, as they are robbed, and as they struggle together to survive. This similar concept could be applied to the subprime mortgage market, where future homeowners were forced to foreclose on their homes, stripping them of their right to property. In both scenarios, a lack of mistrust can be analyzed, as not knowing those around you and whether they are simply acting in bad faith can lead to expulsion. When relating to the protection offered by the wall, the inventors within the subprime mortgage market may represent a form of protection for future homeowners. The Big Short highlights how this was not the case by discussing the  Collateralized Debt Obligation (CDO). Investopedia.com defines this as “a collateralized debt obligation pools together various types of debt, such as loans or bonds, and repackages them into tranches that are sold to investors.” The CDO was what investors used to gain many of their profits, particularly by betting against the market; throughout The Big Short, a CDO was described as “a credit laundering service for the residents of Lower Middle Class America. For Wall Street it was a machine that turned lead into gold” (Lewis pg 73). With the investors acting in bad faith, the protection offered to homeowners has been lost, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation and expulsion.  In Lauren’s community, she thinks it’s “crazy to live without a wall to protect you, Even in Robledo, most of the street poor- squatters, winos, junkies, homeless people in general- are dangerous. They’re desperate or crazy or both. That’s enough to make anyone dangerous.” (page 10). When analyzing the subprime mortgage crisis and how this related to Lauren’s community, we can see how a lack of a source of protection may lead to the formation of problems within a community. In Lauren’s world, the lack of protection caused people to go crazy, living day by day with a hope of surviving; driven by greed and life or death instinct, people would go to great lengths through crime to survive. In our lives, investors of Wall Street, driven by greed, forced millions to foreclose on their homes to generate a profit for themselves. Ultimately, whether in Lauren’s community or the real-world financial systems examined in The Big Short, the devastating consequences of mistrust remind us of the critical need for protection, integrity, and collective responsibility to prevent cycles of exploitation and expulsion.

My mom has always told me that “trust is a concept that takes years to build but only seconds to destroy.” It is a concept that I hold very dear to my heart and one that follows me in my everyday life. Lauren’s character within Parable of The Sower resonates with my values through her condition, “hyperempathy,” which allows her to feel the physical pain of those around her. “​​If hyper empathy syndrome were a more common complaint, people-couldn’t do such things. They could kill if they had to, and bear the pain of it or be destroyed by it. But if everyone could feel everyone else’s pain, who would torture? Who would cause anyone unnecessary pain? I’ve never thought of my problem as something that might do some good before, but the way things are, I think it would help. I wish I could give it to people.” (page 115). I have always viewed myself as a people pleaser; as a supplemental instructor, I work hard to ensure my students feel more confident learning organic chemistry, even if this means sacrificing additional free time. I feel for the students when they don’t understand a topic, I was in their shoes once. Maybe I am hyperempathetic in a way. Lauren really does have a point with her statement. Would the subprime mortgage crisis have occurred if this condition was more common? If all of the investors acted in good faith when dealing with their new homeowners, would they need to be so watchful of every little loophole that may result in them losing their homes? In Lauren’s community, desperation drove people to engage in crime as they struggled to survive, similar to how Wall Street investors, driven by greed, could cause much damage for more money in their pocket. In light of this situation, someone’s definition of a home may bear differing meanings; in Lauren’s words, “that garage was home now, and all I wanted in the world was to be there” (Butler 166), which holds in the face of expulsion. We are vulnerable without trust, which is a protective barrier, like a walled community. The subprime mortgage crisis is a prime example in our everyday lives. As we continue into the coming years, we can potentially use Lauren’s character development and how concepts of trust and empathy can come together to prevent cycles of exploitation followed by expulsion.

So what? Who cares? Lauren’s character, alongside the numerous examples of expulsion in the literature, describes a tale of caution as I proceed. I am preparing to graduate from SUNY Geneseo this December in hopes of attending medical school and becoming a practicing physician. The need for trust and empathy shines among the words written on each page as we think about events like the subprime mortgage crisis. As a physician, I can foster hyperempathy and foster trust within my patients by working alongside them, preventing the development of vulnerability. Feeling and acknowledging the pain of others is the key to problem identification, the first step in problem solving. The Parable of the Sower gives great insight into how mistrust within our communities can have devastating effects; without trust, the bonds holding together our relationships with each other, our government, and even our community wither and eventually crumble. As I leave Geneseo, I carry with me a newfound knowledge from our course texts and see how course concepts like trust and expulsion relate to many aspects of our world, which should not go unnoticed. Although hyperempathy may hurt feeling eachother pain can build our relationships stronger as we show eachother that we care. The strongest relationships are those with the greatest foundations, so as a community, we should build each other up rather than hold each other back. Only when we work together can trust be established, and the protective wall is formed. Only then can we work toward preventing expulsion.