Upon reaching the end of Octavia Butler’s, Dawn, I couldn’t help but feel disappointed. I wanted more but I can’t quite place what that more would look like. Throughout the book my eyebrows would scrunch and I’d click my tongue as I read things that bothered me but decided that I wouldn’t dwell on them too much in the moment. Finishing the book however brought it all back to the surface and I must say that the thing that bothered me the most was the lack of consent. Dawn introduces an alien species called the Oankali and they have rescued humans from an apocalyptic earth. While it seems like just a nice gesture on the surface the Oankali need the human’s to survive through gene trading. Throughout the book the Oankali make decisions for the humans and personally believe they are always acting through what they think is best/what they identify as humans deeper desires. However, humans are complicated and we define giving consent as a verbal agreement, no matter what someone might be feeling internally. Through this essay I want to explore why certain scenes from Dawn troubled me and how consent plays a role in it.
The first scene from Dawn that really threw me off was in the chapter Family, in Family Lilith, Dawn’s main character, is desperate for human interaction and is given the opportunity to meet a man named Paul Titus. After speaking with Paul Titus, getting into a bit of an argument, and then getting physically, on the verge of passing out, Paul Titus tells her, “They said I could do it with you,” (Family P.g 9). If Lilith didn’t fully process those words originally, when she wakes up Nikanj, an Oankali, tells her, “”His family thought you should have mated with him,” it said. “They knew you wouldn’t stay with him permanently, but they believed you would share sex with him at least once.”,” (Family P.g 10). That conversation happened, a conversation that excluded Lilith and she wasn’t informed of it until afterwards. When I was reading this section of the book it almost felt like Lilith was being treated like an object without will, kind of like her opinion didn’t matter. Would it have been okay if everything went smoothly and then Lilith was told? I wouldn’t say it would be. Making a decision on someone’s behalf without discussing it with them takes away their right to make choices for themselves, or what I’d argue, takes away their humanity. Humans are born with the ability to make choices for themselves and is inherently something we do all the time, so taking that away, for me, is like stripping someone of something that makes them human.
The second scene from Dawn that bothered me was in the chapter Nursery. In this chapter Lilith gains a human mate named Joseph who then undergoes “surgery”, done by Nikanj in order to make him stronger and harder to kill. During this surgery however Joseph isn’t fully conscious, though the book describes it more as him being conscious just not in control of his body. Nikanj invites Lilith to lay with Nikanj and Joseph and the three have the Oankali equivalent of Sex. While it’s in their minds mostly Nikanj allows them to feel pleasure and the issue I take all of this is that Joseph never verbally gives consent. It is said in the book that the Oankali don’t give verbal consent for things and everything is more based on feelings, that isn’t the way that humans operate. The Oankali are said to deeply understand the complexities of humans, and Nikanj shows this when it says, “”He’ll be angry-and frightened and eager for the next time and determined to see that there won’t be a next time. I’ve told you, I know this one.”,” (Nursery P.g 7). I felt so boogled by the fact that Nikanj could say this but then not realize why maybe it shouldn’t have done what it did. It’s frustrating and extremely uncomfortable to read.
The last part of Dawn that really bothered me was in the final chapter, The Training Floor. In this chapter we find out that Lilith is pregnant and for background, the reader is told that Lilith can not get pregnant until she is ready. This gives the impression that Lilith would have a say in whether or not she’d be pregnant, but she doesn’t. Lilith is distraught by this and actively voices her protest that she isn’t ready. Nikanj however tells her, “”And you are ready to be her mother. You could never have said so. Just as Joseph could never have invited me into his bed-no matter how much he wanted me there. Nothing about you but your words reject this child.”,” (The Training Floor P.g 9). Everything about this feels so sinister and like it’s actively decided to ignore any consent that Lilith or any human could give. It’s deeply unsettling and when I was reading it I had to stop and reread it again to make sure I read it correctly.
After reading Dawn I thought about how much of this book made me question where humans stand. As a society we agree on a select set of values and rules, and to have another species come in and ignore it all makes me want to be angry but they’re just operating on their own values and rules. I think the Oankali are treating humans like Oankali to a certain extent, applying what they think to humans. They acknowledge that humans are different and yet they can’t fully accept that they may be upset by having their ability to consent taken away.
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