83 pages • 2 hours read
Octavia E. ButlerParable of the Sower
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1993A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 10-13Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 10 Summary
It is the year 2026. Keith has returned home a few times; now it’s June, and he’s back again. He tells Lauren that he has a room in a building with some other people. Lauren knows he’s not living an honest life. While she makes food for him and their brothers, they discuss the past. They recall the time their father beat Lauren when he caught her in the bushes with someone when they were 12. She asks Keith about the outside and how he survived when he first left. Keith explains that he slept in a box, stole things, used his gun to get money and food, and then hooked up with a group he could help with his skills, including literacy. He tells her about the “paints,” people who shave off their hair, paint their skin different colors, take the drug pyro, and burn things. Keith has brought presents for the others, but not for Lauren. She expresses that she doesn’t want anything from him. Then, three weeks later, Keith comes back again and gives her birthday money.
A month after Keith’s last visit, Lauren’s parents go downtown to identify his body. Lauren’s father later tells her that Keith’s eyes and skin were burned—in this society, drug dealers brand people who steal from them or compete with them. Wardell Parrish suspects Lauren’s father of murdering Keith based on the fight they had last year, but no one backs him up.
Cory now regards Lauren poorly, as if she blames her for the family’s state. Lauren doesn’t cry at her brother’s death: “I hated Keith as much as I loved him” (122). She ruminates on how if everyone had hyperempathy syndrome, there’d be a lot less pain in the world.
Chapter 11 Summary
It’s now October 2026, and Lauren believes the 11-household community is slowly dying. Another attempted robbery resulted in a murder, the seventh incident since Keith’s death. People are starting to talk about moving to a community called Olivar, a Los Angeles suburb that a corporation called KSF has taken over. KSF is planning to dominate clean energy options in the southwest. To do so, they are offering citizens security, food, jobs, and help in return for smaller salaries. The company is actively recruiting, and Cory wants to try it, but Lauren’s father is adamantly against the move. Joanne’s family, though, wants to go.
Lauren is making plans to leave at age 18 and begin Earthseed. She plans to go north and has put maps in her pack to find her way there: “Given any chance at all, teaching is what I would choose to do” (133). Lauren hopes that clarity and truth will help her in her path.
Chapter 12 Summary
Joanne’s family is moving to Olivar, and Lauren and Joanne talk about the move. Jo is sad to be leaving Harry Balter, her boyfriend, who—like Lauren—thinks Olivar is a trap. Although Lauren thinks there’s no future in Robledo, she does not confide in her friend about her plans.
One day, Lauren’s father disappears: “I don’t know what that means. I don’t know what to think. I’m scared to death” (138). A group of people searches down River Street, and the following day, they go into the hills. They find an arm, fresh and whole, in the branches of an oak tree, but they aren’t sure it’s his. Then they hear a man screaming, but they can’t locate a source. Eventually, they find bones, five corpses, and other remains, but nothing is definitive.
Five days later, no one has found anything, even though everyone is still looking. Lauren speaks at services, and others informally eulogize Reverend Olamina. The citizens sing “We shall not be moved,” but Lauren thinks this isn’t true—they will be moved: “It’s just a matter of when, by whom, and in how many pieces” (144).
Chapter 13 Summary
More than a month later, Reverend Robinson comes to preach at Lauren’s father’s funeral. Then, the Garfields leave for Olivar. Lauren thinks Cory will try to get their family into Olivar now, but she doubts they have a chance. She and Curtis make love, and he wants to marry her and get out. She confesses that she was planning to leave Robledo alone, but he intends to accompany her. She won’t marry him, saying it’s “too crazy.” He counters that the situation will never get better: “You just have to go ahead and live, no matter what” (149). She says she wants to marry him after her family is back on its feet, so he’ll have to wait for her. She knows she has to tell him things and find out how he’ll react to them. He says he’s already been waiting for her.
The night before Christmas Eve, the Payne-Parrish house is set on fire. While everyone is trying to put out the flames, other houses are robbed, including Lauren’s. The intruders did not make it into her father’s office, and they did not find the money hidden by the lemon tree or in Cory’s closet. Some of the Payne-Parrishes do not make it out alive.
Cory takes on some of her husband’s work, although it’s not strictly legal. Cory will have to go outside, and Lauren will take on Cory’s teaching duties. Other members of the community pick up the slack. Lauren remains strong, saying that they will survive and hold together.
Chapters 10-13 Analysis
These chapters detail the ways that Robledo is dying, starting with Lauren’s last conversations with Keith and his brutal and tortured death. As with his life, Keith’s death reinforces the theme of Community Versus the Individual. Lauren’s father notes that Keith’s wounds are consistent with the punishments doled out by drug dealers for people who compete with them or steal from them. This paints both the outside world and Keith as being chiefly self-concerned, creating a society in which everyone is out for themselves and will harm others to keep what they have. By contrast, the Olaminas try to keep each other safe, in particular Lauren and her father. They share survival tips, and when Keith goes missing, the family searches for him, determined to keep themselves whole. With Keith’s death, the whole family unit is permanently out of reach, symbolized by their patriarch’s disappearance and presumed death.
Reverand Olamina’s disappearance lays bare the patriarchal nature of Robledo; without him, the community has little hope of staying together. This reflects a limitation of nonegalitarian communities. Lauren notes, “We are coming apart. The communities, the families, individual family members. […] We’re a rope, breaking, a single strand at a time” (125). While the Reverand’s presence did not literally deter crime, his absence leaves a void that is ultimately filled with discord. Violent attacks against the community increase, and Lauren experiences the fracturing of her family. As the community deals with burglaries and murders, many families turn to the idea of Olivar, a place that offers some hope of protection, food, and shelter. However, Olivar represents the end point of Class Divisions and Inequality; because it is a company town, its residents must devote themselves to the KSF corporation, including its low wages. Lauren demonstrates that such a place is just a different type of entrapment, not a place that will liberate people from the danger and scarcity that threaten them.
In contrast to the false hope and class exploitation embodied by KSF, Lauren continues to develop Earthseed, reinforcing the theme of Religion as a Living Framework for Hope and Change. She devises a plan to go north, and this seems to inspire her to consider life paths she rejected before. While Bianca’s pregnancy sparked fatalistic and suicidal thoughts for Lauren, she talks to her lover Curtis about going off together and getting married. She continues to believe life in Robledo is unsustainable, but her fractured family unit gives her the opportunity to envision new paths toward family and community. As with the fire motif, the destruction in these chapters therefore gives space for new hope and life as Lauren charts her future and Earthseed’s.
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