Octavia Butler’s Dawn puts the reader in a compromising position where they question the validity of the Oankali’s relationship with the human body and mind. The unsettling relationship between the Oankali, Lilith, and other humans on the ship reminded me of a course I was a teaching assistant for with Dr. McCoy in Fall 2023—ENGL 111: Literature, Medicine, and Racism. In this course, we regularly discussed topics of good faith versus bad faith decisions, consent, racism, systems of power, and–of course–Octavia Butler. As a class, we read popular fiction pieces such as Home by Toni Morrison, Zone One by Colson Whitehead, and Clay’s Ark by Octavia Butler and we connected these pieces to Medical Apartheid by Harriet Washington. Medical Apartheid is a historical non-fiction book that follows the dark history of medical experimentation on Black Americans from the Colonial times into the present. Washington goes into deep, disturbing detail of the medical abuse and mistreatment of Black bodies that are now embedded into our medical systems.
These experiments were often conducted without the full consent of the person being experimented on. The relationship between the Oankali and the humans is not an equal one, but it resembles that of a slave/master companionship. On the surface, the Oankali are a nomadic, gene-trading extraterrestrial species who have saved the human species from their own demise. The Oankali play the role of the masters, the oppressors, the colonizers. The human race plays the role of the enslaved, the oppressed. Jdayha explains to Lilith that the Oankali need to trade in order to survive. Jdayha, in particular, dances around Lilith’s questions surrounding the topic of the Oankali’s “trade” with other species and how it works, what is required, etcetera. I do not doubt that the Oankali need to trade in order to survive as a species, but I do not believe that they are being 100% truthful in how they communicate that information to Lilith and other humans on the ship, which is frightening.
The dialogue between Oankali and Lilith is filled with half-truths, assumptions, and other narratives that do not give Lilith proper autonomy over her own decisions. “In a very real sense, she was an experimental animal. Not a pet. What could Nikanj do for an experimental animal? Protest tearfully (?) when she was sacrificed at the end of the experiment? But, no, it was not that kind of experiment. She was intended to live and reproduce, not to die. Experimental animal, parent to breeding program? Human biologists had done that before the war—used a few captive members of an endangered animal species to breed more for the wild population. Was that what she was headed for?” (Butler 67). The Oankali have an ulterior motive to their gene-trading activities. They saved humanity from itself, and the remaining human population, though fearful of the extraterrestrial race, are indebted to the Oankali.
The humans are then expected to share their genetic information in order to help both the humans and the Oankali to evolve their species. Although this will lead to the survival of both species, it strikes an insidious and eerie forms of control, power dynamics, and repulsion between the two species. Thus, causing other humans (Curt, Peter, Tate, Leah, etc.) to question the validity of the Oankali and Lilith, who is caught in the crossfire of the Oankali’s elaborate trading system. When Nikanj impregnates Lilith without her acknowledgement, he makes an example out of Lilith to the remaining human population, who may soon serve the same purpose as Lilith.
Dawn is a thought-provoking novel that questions human nature and behavior, power dynamics, control, and identity. Butler is fearless in implementing themes of power. Butler’s writing is eerily reminiscent of what is occurring today. There are discussions of altering the historical curriculum of Black history in schools nationwide, especially in Florida. Certain aspects of Black history will be rewritten in attempts to control narratives regarding race, white supremacy, and oppression. Florida is the first state to celebrate that students will be learning that the enslaved benefited from slavery because it “taught them useful skills.” To which I thought: what makes the Oankali any different from the legislators who are putting these standards into place? The restrictions on African American history in Florida schools is about having power and control over knowledge. Limiting these teachings aims to control a narrative and introduce a new and untrue belief about the past and its current and future impacts. The Oankali, in similar fashion, control the fate of humanity and aim to modify human genes to create a hybrid species. They view humanity as something that needs to be “fixed” in order to survive, their intervention is their way of controlling humanity’s history and identity based on the belief that their current state is flawed.
Although the Oankali do not directly express this, I believe that they have a desire to reshape and control the human population’s history and identity. The Oankali act as an example of outsiders intervening to ‘fix’ the human race and altering their history and identities because they are too flawed to exist in their current form. To further this point, Jdayha tells Lilith that the human body is ‘flawed’ and ‘mismatched,’ “Your bodies are fatally flawed… You have a mismatched pair of genetic characteristics. Either alone would have been useful, would have aided the survival of your species. But the two together are lethal. It was only a matter of time before they destroyed you.” (Butler 40). The Oankali control the fate of humanity in their hands by modifying human genes and creating a hybrid species. The Oankali’s belief that humanity needs to be reshaped reflects their view of humanity’s inability to exist peacefully with one another without external interference.
The Oankali see which humans are fit to be Awakened, they refuse to let humans read or write, and Nikanj impregnates Lilith without her knowledge OR consent. The Oankali give many excuses throughout the text to defend their questionable teaching methods, “You’ll Awaken a small group of humans, all English-speaking, and help them learn to deal with us. You’ll teach them the survival skills we teach you. Your people will all be from what you would call civilized societies. Now they’ll have to learn to live in forests, build their own shelters, and raise their own food all without machines or outside help.” (Butler 34). It seems that the human race upon this ship are at the beckon call of the Oankali, and they are useless without them. The human race has no authority over their own bodies, what happens with it, and how it will be used to benefit the Oankali is not up to them.