What it means to “Be CAREful”: A New Perspective

This semester has been a new experience and a challenge for all of us, requiring major adjustments in numerous areas of life. As this year is nearing an end, we can reflect on the ways that this year has impacted all of us, especially in regards to the pandemic. Many of us have experienced trauma, but it’s likely that many of us can say we have grown from the changes and new experiences that this year has brought upon all of us in different ways.

The themes portrayed throughout Octavia Butler’s work all have to do with the act of growing through our learning, and bringing our thoughts and ideas to life in areas where our knowledge can be beneficial in changing the way we see issues in the world around us. There are a number of different types of people that we will meet in our lives in regards to being brought and bound together and we may even find that some of the people change as they encounter more aspects of life including bias, consent, and good faith. Some people will not want to be bound together, or will struggle to get to this point. Sometimes in order to feel comfortable being a part of being brought somewhere and potentially bound together with someone else, one must figure out and be vulnerable to themselves beforehand. Some people will be very open to the thought of being brought and bound together right from the start, but will have to be considerate of others, reminding themselves that not everyone is at their same level of comfort.

Throughout Dawn, disinformation arises through the doubt that exists between the humans and the Oankali. From the very beginning, Lilith has trouble believing that she can feel safe around Jdahya. She asks herself, “Why couldn’t she just accept him? All he seemed to be asking was that she not panic at the sight of him or others like him. Why couldn’t she do that?” It is important to remember that Lilith has gone through a traumatic experience, losing her family and even trying to remember who she is. In response to this, it is hard for her to connect with others and find the will to trust them:

“Oh god. One child, long gone with his father. One son. Gone. If there were an afterworld, what a crowded place it must be now. 

Had she had siblings? That was the word they used. Siblings. 

Two brothers and a sister, probably dead along with the rest of her family. A mother, long dead, a father, probably dead, various aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, and nephews … probably dead.”

“Insane question. Could anyone who had lived through the war forget it? A handful of people tried to commit humanicide. They had nearly succeeded. She had, through sheer luck, managed to survive—only to be captured by heaven knew who and imprisoned. She had offered to answer their questions if they let her out of her cubicle. They refused.”

Anyone who has gone through loss like Lilith knows what this feels like. Everyone has a different way of recovering from trauma like this as well as a different amount of time to recover, if they ever fully do at all. The trauma that Lilith experiences affects all of her interactions with the Oankali as they are split into the groups of males, females, and the Ooloi. What we can learn from Lilith is that we must be careful about how we interact with anyone, as we might know their story or we might not. Even then, we may not fully understand how one feels. It’s easy to make presumptions, but the more open-minded we go into a situation, the better our attitudes will be towards others and the way they act or things they share with us that we might not expect. No one can get inside another’s head to experience every thought and feeling that they have had and felt.

Eventually, Lilith comes to trust Jdahya as he is straightforward with Lilith and answers her many questions the best he can, despite his answers being quite vague much of the time. He also takes in Lilith so that she will become accustomed to living among the Oankali. Eventually, Lilith becomes the one who encourages the other humans to accept the Oankali, despite being more than a human herself. When Jdahya says that the Oankali trade themselves, Lilith asks “You mean … each other? Slaves?” Jdahya responds, “No. We’ve never done that.” Lilith asks “What, then?” and Jdahya says “Ourselves.” In relation to the idea of growth within this course, I think that we “trade” the individual experiences we have with each other so that we can learn and grow from them. We each have our own “independent lives” as Butler discusses “positioning movements of independent life” in one of our course epigraphs from Imago. By sharing our own interpretations of the world and people around us, this can bring and bind us together.

When it comes to the idea of good-faith practices, I think it is essential to recognize the importance of keeping an open mind and understand that there is always room for improvement whether it be in life and the way we interact with humanity, or in our writing. Being more open-minded and accepting of the thoughts and values of others can create a more enhanced learning experience, as opposed to immediately shutting down ideas that you may not agree with.

The best way we can reap the full potential that life has to offer is by using good-faith practices that make us vulnerable to reconsidering various points of view that may not match our own and may end up causing us to change our beliefs and values. By making ourselves more vulnerable in this way, we are bound to learn more about others and ourselves through the way we interpret literature, ideally in a respectful, courteous, and open-minded manner. 

An important question to consider that we may find ourselves in often as humans is whether hiding something controversial from someone is showing harm or care. There may not be a definitive answer as our reasoning may depend on the circumstances of a given situation. In Butler’s work, Lilith criticises Nikanj for his lack of understanding of the humans when she says, “‘Better yet, prove to them they’re in a ship as soon as they’re Awakened,’ she said. ‘Illusion doesn’t comfort them for long. It just confuses them, helps them make dangerous mistakes. I had begun to wonder myself where we really were.’” Like Lilith says, this confusion makes the humans feel so helpless and frustrated that they take desperate and even aggressive measures to gain some sense of control. Information spreads quickly and can really end up becoming misinformation, as it is misleading, but not intended to hurt people purposely. However, people can end up getting hurt when things are misunderstood when people jump to conclusions.

Things are happening quicker than we can process and interpret them. Even then, we don’t always know what we can believe when we are hearing so many different things.

We must be careful about the way we choose to interpret the world around us. We can all learn something from this pandemic as the United States was hit with the coronavirus months after it had already grown to affect other countries majorly. Something we can all learn from this experience is that it is important to shy away from the mentality that “it could never happen to me.” It always can, and sometimes it even will as we have learned, unfortunately the hard way this year.

Some thoughts to continue thinkING on:

Through our reading of Butler’s work, we can pick up on the pressing questions she wrestles with over and over. We are all struggling in our own ways. No one person’s battle is more difficult than someone else’s because everything in life is relative. Our country is big, but how big is it compared to the whole world? Our world is big, but how big is it compared to the entire universe?

There will always be ups and downs. What matters is how we choose to go about our interactions with others, whether those are brought together with are going through highs or lows. Then again, we might not even know for sure what a person is going through. No one person can get inside your head to know what you are experiencing and feeling at any given point in time.

It is important to be aware of how our words and actions might affect someone else. One person may see something as an act of care in which another person sees the same action as an act of harm. We can never know for sure, but we can show that we are being careful and intentional with our words and actions by being open to listening to others and trying to understand where they are coming from, even if we can’t fully understand for ourselves. All of these thoughts that we have reflected on whether we knew it at the time or not throughout our readings in this course, are all ideas we can and should take with us as we leave this course and semester behind, and go back out into the world as independent individuals, with the power to choose kindness and understanding over hate and ignorance.

Instead of opening with a quote, I want to end with one that seems to embody what I have learned and reflected on throughout this course and provides me with a sense of closure, though I do intend to continue thinkING on what I have gained from this specific learning experience in ENGL 431-01: Octavia Butler and Social Ties:


“I chose a spot near the river. There I prepared the seed to go into the ground. I gave it a thick, nutritious coating, then brought it out of my body through my right sensory hand. I planted it deep in the rich soil of the riverbank. Seconds after I had expelled it, I felt it begin the tiny positioning movements of independent life.” –Octavia Butler, Imago

Connecting People In and Out of The Classroom: Lessons of Consent, Acceptance, and Good-Faith Through the Lens of Octavia Butler

Although we are coming together as a class where we are reading the same texts and having discussions about our interpretations and experiences, it is essential to use what we learn both through our education and individual experiences, and share our newfound discoveries with others. I think the most important sequence of concepts to be learned from Professor McCoy’s course, ENGL 431-01, and many other English courses is first to set goals for what we would like to learn, share our learning among our peers, and then to run with these takeaways and see how far we can go with applying these ideas to our own lives outside of class. The three epigraphs that Professor McCoy has established for this course all have to do with the act of growing through our learning, and bringing our thoughts and ideas to life in areas where our knowledge can be beneficial in changing the way we see issues that are discussed in the sources we are diving into throughout this course, including affirmative consent, implicit bias, and demonstrating good faith. 

In our group discussion “To the Forums! 4: Noticing Again,” there were many exchanged about the complexities of consent, especially at Geneseo, including efforts being made to increase awareness about sexual harassment and how it can be stopped. In relation to “Womb” in Dawn, something that Lilith stood out to me: “Even her flesh could be cut and stitched without her consent or knowledge” (Butler 3). This reminds me of many horror stories I have heard of my peers being taken advantage of and manipulated without their consent, and sometimes even without them having known what actually happened, as they may have been in a physical state in which they could not provide proper affirmative consent. Forced interactions will never be beneficial, but when done so in a mutually affirmative manner, we can move towards these connections that have the potential to bind us together. It is important to learn from these mistakes and “run” with them, which is one of our course epigraphs, as said by Butler to “Learn and Run!” in Dawn, so that we can improve upon these mistakes for the better and prevent a future of our society that is similar to what Lilith experiences throughout the various Awakenings. Something that Jdahya says in Dawn stood out to me and led me to some thoughts about how Jdahya’s interactions with Lilith relate to our work in Professor McCoy’s class: “‘I can only say that your people have something we value. You may begin to know how much we value it when I tell you that by your way of measuring time, it has been several million years since we dared to interfere in another people’s act of self-destruction. Many of us disputed the wisdom of doing it this time. We thought … that there had been a consensus among you, that you had agreed to die’” (Butler 15). Jdahya and his people make the assumption that humans like Lilith were purposely trying to destroy themselves, when really, all humans make mistakes that they can learn from and work together to overcome. Jdahya goes on to explain to Lilith his relatives’ confusion when he says “We didn’t know what to think when some of your people killed themselves” (Butler 19). I think that these weaknesses, mistakes, and areas in need of improvement are what bring and bind humans together in the strongest ways. Without these downfalls, we wouldn’t necessarily  have as much of a reason to confide in and learn from each other.

Implicit bias is one of the most prominent themes throughout Dawn and another basis for my critical thinking and the goals I hope to achieve from this course. In Jerry Kang’s TED Talk “Immaculate perception,” he explains implicit bias by doing an exercise with the audience in which he wants them to read words that identify colors on a screen, but ignoring letters of the word and focusing only on the colors the words are printed in. He goes on to say, “The whole point is that any two concepts that are tightly associated in our brains we can actually pair together very quickly” (Kang 5:50). This relates to the implicit bias that Lilith shows towards Jdahya, assuming that he might harm her in some way if she were to sleep: “She lay down herself, wondering whether she could relax enough to sleep with him there. It would be like going to sleep knowing there was a rattlesnake in the room, knowing she could wake up and find it in her bed” (Butler 21). Lilith even goes so far as to refer to Jdahya as “Medusa,” a mythological creature having a negative connotation, thus being reflected onto Lilith’s perspective of Jdahya and his relatives. There is a mutual misunderstanding between both Lilith and Jdahya because instead of getting to truly know and understand each other, they continue to make assumptions about the other. At one point, Lilith asks herself, “Why couldn’t she just accept him? All he seemed to be asking was that she not panic at the sight of him or others like him. Why couldn’t she do that?” (Butler 25). Lilith’s thoughts here go along with my overall goal for this course which is to come out of it as a more open-minded individual, who also encourages others to pursue their own version of being open-minded, wherever this is applicable in their own lives. I think we live in a society where people are so concerned with themselves that they become ignorant of issues that affect them, whether they want to admit it or not.

As told by Adichie in her TED Talk “The Danger of a Single Story,” it is necessary that people regain the necessary power to change a “single story” that marginalizes a group of people and instead recognize them for who they truly are. Africans are included in the many groups of people who are marginalized in society and therefore have created pieces of important literature to shift the perspective to accommodate themselves in a way that will lead to inclusion in the world. Overall, there is a feeling of belonging that is associated with literature because of how it defines us personally and not how society chooses to label us. This TED Talk raises the question of “who gets to tell which stories?” Adichie addresses what happens when a “single” story is told and how she has experienced this in her life. This is a very useful talk as it addresses the dangers of what happens when a story is told in such a way and how it takes away from the authenticity and reality of one’s experience. I think that this goes along with the ideas in our course of “meeting people where they are” and “asking questions instead of presuming.” 

When Jdahya says that the Oankali trade themselves, Lilith asks “You mean … each other? Slaves?” Jdahya responds, “No. We’ve never done that.” Lilith asks “What, then?” and Jdahya says “Ourselves.” (Butler 25-26). In relation to the idea of growth within this course, I think that we “trade” the individual experiences we have with each other so that we can learn and grow from them. We each have our own “independent lives” as Butler discusses “positioning movements of independent life” in one of our course epigraphs from Imago. By sharing our own interpretations of the world and people around us, this can bring us together.

I have learned that the way we engage with literature from very early on in life and as we grow older, impacts the ways we see the world around us, as well as ourselves individually. The best way we can reap the potential of literature is by using good-faith practices that make us vulnerable to reconsidering various points of view that may not match our own and may end up causing us to change our beliefs and values. By making ourselves more vulnerable in this way, we are bound to learn more about others and ourselves through the way we interpret literature, ideally in a respectful, courteous, and open-minded manner. There are still some ideas in question that I have left to figure out throughout the rest of this course, and even after the end of this semester because thinking and learning is an ongoing process. There will always be newfound issues to contemplate and viewpoints to consider.

Works Cited

Adichie, Chimamanda. “The Danger of a Single Story.” TED: Ideas Worth Spreading, July 2009,

www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story/up-next?language=en.

Butler, Octavia E. Lilith’s brood. New York: Aspect/Warner Books, 2000. Print.

Kang, Jerry. “Immaculate perception.” TED: Ideas Worth Spreading, January 2014,

www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=357&v=9VGbwNI6Ssk&feature=emb_title