50 pages • 1 hour read
Octavia E. ButlerParable of the Talents
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1998A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 5-9Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 5 Summary
Larkin notes that while her parents lived an isolated life in the community of Acorn, Lauren was keenly interested in the events taking place in the world around them. In her journal from the autumn of 2032, Lauren describes her efforts to access the news. Because of this, she knows that while climate change is still wreaking havoc and causing disease, things seem to be stabilizing somewhat. There are also many wars, and slavery is becoming more common in the United States, especially due to the invention of sophisticated new electronic collars. Lauren also pays particular attention to recent discoveries surrounding space travel and scientifically assisted reproduction because she continues to plan for Earthseed with the goal of establishing communities on other planets. In November 2032, Jarret wins the presidential election, and Lauren discovers that she is pregnant.
Chapter 6 Summary
In December 2032, Lauren, Dan Noyer, and some other members of the Acorn community go to the town of Eureka to meet with a man who sells enslaved people because they have heard that he might have Dan’s sisters. It turns out that the slaver does not, but Lauren is astonished to see that one of the slaves the man is selling is her brother Marcus. Years earlier, during the attack on their home in Robledo, Lauren had watched Marcus being brutally attacked and had always assumed he was dead. Lauren cunningly negotiates with the slaver to purchase Marcus and bring him to Acorn.
Lauren is somewhat astonished by how she remains calm during this tense process: “It amazed me that I could lie and laugh and behave as though nothing unusual were happening when my long-dead brother stood alive and well just a few meters away” (99). Shortly after Marcus comes to Acorn, Dan runs away. He is determined to find his sisters.
Chapter 7 Summary
The narrative includes a short excerpt of writing by Marcus, reflecting on the trauma of growing up surrounded by violence, chaos, and death. Larkin reflects on her memories of her uncle, describing him as a strikingly handsome and charismatic man whose values and philosophy were very different from those of his sister Lauren. Larkin recalls that Marcus’s “gods were order, stability, safety, control. He was a man with a wound that would not heal until he could be certain that what had happened to him could not happen again to anyone” (109).
Lauren’s journal recounts how, after Marcus recovered a bit, he shared his story with her. In the attack on their home in Robledo, Lauren was separated from her family in the chaos and escaped and hid in a nearby garage. Marcus was shot and tossed into a fire, leading to Lauren’s belief that he surely had to be dead. However, he was able to crawl away, and the next day, an impoverished couple named the Durans found him and brought him home, where they nursed him back to health. Marcus took their surname and lived with them for the next four years, trying to contribute to their community as much as possible.
Because he was educated and could read and write, Marcus was viewed as a kind of leader, and became a preacher in the community. However, the police eventually decided to drive out the impoverished residents of the run-down neighborhood, which ended in violence. Marcus got away, but the Durans were killed. Marcus started walking away from Los Angeles but was attacked almost immediately and sold into slavery. Since then, he has repeatedly been tortured, raped, and abused while being sold from owner to owner. Marcus and Lauren talk about the Earthseed religion; he is curious about it yet skeptical. He tells her that he has heard Christian America followers describing Earthseed as a heathen cult. Meanwhile, Bankole is trying increasingly hard to persuade Lauren to leave Acorn and move to a nearby town, where he thinks they will be more secure.
Chapter 8 Summary
In January 2033, Lauren and Bankole visit the town of Halstead. The town no longer has a doctor and wants Bankole to come and live and work there. He suggests that Lauren could work as a teacher, but she refuses to leave Acorn. Lauren explains that “I wouldn’t walk away from it any more than I’d walk away from the baby I would soon be having” (143). Nonetheless, rumors circulate through Acorn that Lauren is planning to leave, and several community members confront her angrily.
Marcus tells Lauren that he wants to begin preaching again because he misses doing so. Lauren tells him that he’ll have to speak at one of the Gatherings and that he will have to be open to questions and discussion, as those are crucial features of the Acorn community. In his sermon, Marcus uses the Bible and traditional Christian teachings to challenge the core beliefs of Earthseed. However, members of the Acorn community counter his arguments and ask questions that he can’t answer, leaving Marcus angry and embarrassed.
Chapter 9 Summary
By February 2033, Lauren is increasingly concerned that the newly inaugurated President Jarret will lead the country into a war with Alaska. She notices that Jarret’s war-mongering rhetoric appeals to angry and disenfranchised young men. Meanwhile, Marcus has preached several more times, vehemently disagreeing with the teachings of Earthseed. In March, Marcus and one other family leave Acorn because they do not believe in Earthseed or the community’s values. They also think that Jarret’s leadership might be beneficial to America. Lauren is concerned because “my brother […] used to despise Jarret. Now he says Jarret is just what America needs” (156). Lauren’s insight into psychology and human nature reveals that Marcus is searching for a source of security and community.
Lauren watches them go with regret but does not want dissent and tension within the Acorn community. A short time later, Dan and his sister Nina make their way back to Acorn. Dan found and rescued Nina from slavery, although their other sister had died. Dan dies from his injuries at Acorn.
Chapters 5-9 Analysis
The arrival of Marcus drives forward the rising action of the plot and builds conflict around key themes of family bonds and religious conviction. At first, Lauren is incredibly happy to be reunited with her brother, but the reunion with Marcus ends up significantly destabilizing her position as the leader of Acorn. Despite being a young woman, Lauren has established a position of authority for herself. Because she organizes the community of Acorn around collectivist and consensus-oriented principles, Lauren models non-hierarchical leadership. She also demonstrates her competence, intelligence, and fairness, which engenders trust and respect from Acorn residents. Acorn functions as a somewhat utopian model community where individuals live in harmony, contribute to a shared cause, and freely choose religious beliefs while having the opportunity to discuss and debate them. Lauren tells Marcus when he expresses his desire to preach, “If you speak, you have to face questions and discussion” (147).
These chapters introduce how Lauren’s emotional control and rational decision-making influence how others, especially Larkin, perceive her. These traits affect how she will handle subsequent challenges and lead Larkin to perceive her as cold and detached. Lauren’s commitment to Acorn also feeds Larkin’s misunderstanding: Larkin assumes that her mother always cared more about Earthseed than her own child. However, this perception is belied by Lauren’s comparison between Acorn and her unborn child, which shows that she feels equal love and protectiveness toward both.
Marcus, however, represents more traditional, patriarchal, and forceful models of religion, family, and leadership. While Lauren synthesized and adapted the Baptist teachings of their father, Marcus applied them more literally, suggesting a more direct father-son lineage and a desire for continuity, whereas Lauren could see that the changing world around her required new forms of religion. While Lauren survived and even thrived after losing her childhood home, Marcus was disempowered and emasculated after being forced into sexual slavery. Larkin’s insights and the metaphor of an unhealed wound highlight how Marcus’s early experiences of trauma shape his character and subsequent actions; there is also a hint of justification and rationalization, which foreshadows that Marcus may later act in harmful ways. His desire to regain a sense of control and a more traditional position of authority renders him a dangerous threat to the philosophy and values of Earthseed. This tension also shows that Lauren will choose Acorn when she faces a conflict between someone she loves and protecting her community. As she admits, “The truth is, I let him speak today because I wanted him to speak before he was truly ready” (149). Lauren will not put her affection for her brother ahead of her goals and the community’s overall success. This detached and strategic outlook adds credence to how Larkin feels about her mother, suggesting that Larkin’s interpretation of Lauren’s character is not unfounded, even if it is unfair.
The conflict with Marcus plays out themes of masculinity, authority, and religious conviction in microcosm within the community of Acorn, while these same themes reverberate on a larger scale within American politics. President Jarret and the Christian America faith are presented as both dangerous and appealing. Lauren shrewdly recognizes that when many people experience danger and instability, the idea of a “strong man” leader emerging becomes seductive. Lauren observes that “he knows how to rouse his rabble, how to reach out to poor people, and sic them on other poor people” (86). Butler implicitly references times in history where Fascist leaders have been able to come to power by appealing to patriotic and xenophobic rhetoric. Even while Lauren has worked so hard to build a community based on an opposing value system, followers of Acorn are still tempted to believe that their life might be better with a more aggressive, domineering, and forceful leader. As one man comments, “Maybe with a strong leader like Jarret running things, they’ll have a chance to stay alive” (22). Marcus, and by extension, Jarret, can win followers because they offer a vision of a future that is appealing to disenfranchised individuals. Rather than Earthseed’s model of achieving a secure future by working together and caring for others, Jarret suggests that individuals have to defend their own interests, weed out the weak, and eliminate any dissenting points of view.
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By Octavia E. Butler
