In the first novel of Butler’s trilogy, Dawn, readers learn about a woman named Lilith Iyapo who is, to her knowledge, being held hostage on a spaceship of an extraterrestrial species called the “Oankali.” The further we got into this story, details about the Oankali and their treatment of humans became more and more strange and troubling. Most of the suspect things I’ve picked up on and we discuss in class have connected back to the fact that the Oankali have essentially stripped away all of the humans’ self-autonomy. The Oankali’s reasoning for not allowing humans to make their own decisions is that they are able to know what humans are experiencing through their body language, in a way that humans perceive as mind reading, so they can understand them. The most troubling aspect of the Oankali, from the perspective of a human, is that they obtain consent differently than us. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, consent is defined as, “compliance in or approval of what is done or proposed by another.” Humans most commonly obtain consent verbally, while the Oankali don’t always speak to each other vocally and communicate their consent in an almost telepathic kind of way.
The very first example we see of Lilith’s bodily autonomy being violated is at the very beginning of the novel when Lilith wakes up with a scar on her stomach, with no knowledge of what happened, other than whatever had happened, had occurred without her consent. The narrator describes Lilith’s curiosity and fear over her scar, “She had acquired it sometime between her second and third Awakenings, had examined it fearfully, wondering what had been done to her. What had she lost or gained, and why?” (Butler 5). The idea of waking up with a surprise, major change to your body is absolutely frightening and rightfully caused Lilith to freak out a little bit. Although Lilith goes on to learn that the Oankali has removed a dangerous cancer from her body, meaning she will never develop it, the positive impact of the procedure can’t balance out the damage of violating her bodily autonomy.
At the end of the book, Lilith’s own body autonomy is completely disrespected when Nikanj impregnates Lilith without her consent and knowledge. When Nikanj informs Lilith that it made her pregnant, it says that it knows Lilith would not ask to become pregnant, but because of its senses, it was able to read that Lilith did want to be pregnant. Obviously, Lilith feels violated and reacts to this news with anger and frustration and she yells at Nikanj, “’I’m not ready! I’ll never be ready!’,” who bluntly responds back to her, “‘You’re ready now to have Joseph’s child, Joseph’s daughter’” (Butler 281). As humans, we cannot be told by anyone other than ourselves that we are ready for anything, despite what anyone might “know” about us.
Humans are also completely restricted from maintaining any kind of privacy aboard the ship with the Oankali. Every single corner of the ship is completely surveilled by the Oankali due to their genetic connection with the ship—they can hear and sense every single thing that happens in each room of the ship. This makes it hard for humans to create bonds and form alliances with one another when they are never able to have a conversation in private. This is demonstrated in how the humans act when they are “tested” in a fake wilderness, resembling Earth, and are meant to survive on their own. When they are made to work together, they don’t trust each other and end up resorting to violence and causing one of their fellow humans (Joseph) to die.
The Oankali use isolation tactics to make the humans more easily manipulated/controlled. They physically isolated Lilith in a plain room for a long time before they gave her any information about where she was. When she is first allowed to interact with anyone, they put a child in her room, gave her a good amount of time to form a bond with him, and then they take him out of her, leaving Lilith with no explanation. The next “person” Lilith comes into contact with is an alien named “Jdahya.” The Oankali force her to stay enclosed in her room with Jdahya for multiple days to get “adjusted” to the Oankali so it’s easier for them to work together. The narrator describes that, “They had made it clear to her that she was not to have contact with humans or human artifacts” (Butler 73). By not allowing Lilith to embrace her human-ness in any way, they are essentially stripping away her humanity, making her even more vulnerable and malleable.
When they do finally allow her to see other humans, the Oankali also make Lilith socially isolated from the rest of the humans and creates a sense of distrust from the main group of humans and Lilith. They assign Lilith the role of being the humans’ leader because they think humans will respond better to the leadership of a fellow human, rather than an alien. And although the Oankali are correct in this assumption about humans, the Oankali fail to predict that the humans won’t view Lilith as human, no matter human she appears to be. The humans view her as “other” for many different reasons: her extensive knowledge of their whereabouts, her leadership position, her ability to open walls in the same way Oankali do.
In conclusion, in Dawn, the alien species, the Oankali, are responsible for stripping humans of their humanity and autonomy, as well as literally saving their lives from the ruins of their uninhabitable planet. The relationship between the Oankali and humans is extremely complicated and comes with many troubling layers, as the definition of obtaining consent is blurred between the two different species.