Meaghan Duffy
11/14/14
English Comp.
Professor Adam Johns
Selfish
Advancement at Whose Expense?
Frederick Douglas, an African American slave living in
the 19th century, in describing his experience of slavery, writes,“
whenever my condition was improved, instead of its increasing my contentment,
it only increased my desire to be free, and set me to thinking of plans to gain
my freedom.” Lilith, an American
post-war survivor living on a foreign species’ ship, is spoken about as such,
“She would go on being a prisoner, forced to stay wherever they chose to leave
her. She would not be permitted even the
illusion of freedom (Butler, 56).” How
different were Douglas and Lilith’s experiences from each other? Both were kept captive for years, controlled
and corrected into acting and carrying themselves a certain way. When Jdahya approaches Lilith after forcing
her asleep for two hundred and fifty years, he claims that his people have all
the answers to why humans destroyed themselves and how they can rebuild, but
what are their motives? The Oankali
preach equality for all, but they refuse to practice such an ideal. Lilith is used as a historical library of
human qualities and is scolded like a mother would reprimand her child or a
slave owner would discipline his captives, when she doesn’t abide.
“We’re not hierarchical, you
see. We never were. But we are powerfully acquisitive. We acquire new life- seek it, investigate it,
manipulate it, sort it, use it. We carry
the drive to do this in a miniscule cell (Butler, 41),” stresses Jdahya. The Oankali people have a deep desire to
constantly and consistently renew themselves, enabling them to evolve and
survive as a species, choosing to change rather than to fall into, “extinction
or stagnation (Butler, 40),” but at whose expense? The Oankali people say they are interested in
a trade, a symbiotic swap that will be co-beneficial for humans as well as
their own native species. “We trade the
essence of ourselves. Our genetic material
for yours (Butler, 40).” Jdahya spends countless hours in isolation reassuring
Lilith that everything the Oankali take from humans is completely harmless and
only beneficial to both sides, but such a phenomena is hard to understand and
perceive as the truth after observing how the Oankali people so carefully and
cautiously conduct themselves around humans while barking orders and making
clear a feeling of mutual distrust.
With the complete destruction of human civilization as it
existed after the war, the Oankali people decided this would be a perfect
opportunity to revamp human society, altering their motives and conceptions
allowing them to make a more efficient use of their abilities and magnificent
Earth. The Oankali species blame humankind’s downfall on, “two incompatible
characteristics.” Jdahya says, “You are intelligent… You are
hierarchical. When human intelligence served [hierarchy] instead of
guiding it, when human intelligence did not even acknowledge it as a problem,
but took pride in it or did not notice it at all… (Butler, 39),” that’s when it
became obvious that the two worked against each other rather than with each
other. But part of the Oankali resumé is slightly hypocritical. It is clear that equality and a social plane
do not exist across species lines, but the equality and equal standing doesn’t
seem to exist within the Oankali species either. When Lilith is first introduced to other
Oankali after being calmed by Jdahya, one of the first things she notices about
the species dynamic is that, “…in spite of Jdahya’s claim that the Oankali were
not hierarchical, the ooloi seemed to be the head of the house. Everyone deferred to it (Butler, 48).” Just like in human society, the all-healers,
the doctors, seem to be treated as the superiors when compared to the rest of
the species. While humans in a
capitalistic society, such as America, create a social pyramid based on
monetary wealth, the Oankali, being that they do not carry around dollar bills
and buy their needs and wants, seem to measure wealth and therefore create
their social pyramid based on level of intelligence.
Throughout “Dawn,” Lilith is
watched at all times and scolded for any form of wandering she does without an
Oankali beside her. When Lilith takes it
upon herself to walk around the ship trying to become more familiar with her
surroundings, she is told, “You must stay with me (Butler, 63),” by Nikanj in a
condescending tone, insinuating an inferior status labeled to the human
race. Whenever Lilith felt it necessary
to ask a question she would automatically know if it was expectable based on the
Oankali response or rather the lack there of.
The Oankali do not seem to lie, but they often withhold the truth,
dictating what the lesser human race can and cannot know about the Oankali
greater motives and reasoning. It is clear through quick and uniform Oankali
responses to human behavior and questions, that a formula for how to deal with
man was carefully created and perfected for usage in any foreign
interactions. When Lilith asks for a pen
and paper to write what she has learned from the Oankali child, for ideal human
learning, she is suddenly and aggressively denied those minute rights. “No, Nikanj asserts, I cannot give you such
things. Not to write or to read… It is
not allowed. The people have decided
that it should not be allowed (Butler, 62).”
The Oanklai people pride themselves
on hosting a social body where all people are equal, but they seem to be unable
to grant that status to Lilith and the rest of the foreign species. Possibly the Oankali believe the human
species is unable to thrive, develop and succeed in an environment where they
are given freedom. Do they believe this treatment
of humans is for their benefit, or are they strictly doing it to learn from the
humans without letting them too far into the Oankali lifestyle and reasons for
so many successful adaptations? While
slavery was recognized as an evil through the Americas during the late 1800’s
and early 1900’s most white American’s referred to it as a necessary evil. John Calhoun, an American politician and
theorist of the early 1900’s said, “ The institution of slavery benefits both
salves and slaveholders by providing a stable social and economic system. In all societies an upper class benefits from
the labor of the lower (Calhoun).” In
attempt to override the claims of unfair treatment toward African salves in
America, Calhoun went on to say, “Never before has the Black race of Central
Africa, from the dawn of history to the present day, attained a condition so
civilized and so improved, not only physically, but morally and intellectually
(Calhoun, 24).” The mere existence of
war as a concept, where humans kill and destroy life to somehow enhance other
life, is a clear absurdity and nonsense idea that only a highly flawed species
could ever believe is proper, sufficient and just. The Oankali have been watching and monitoring
the human race for many years and after such a chaotic and nonsense time on
Earth, there is not way they would be able to trust them as an equal.
Butler,
Octavia E. Lilith's Brood. New York: Aspect/Warner, 2000. Print.
Douglass,
Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave.
Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 1960. Print.
Torr, James D. Slavery. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2004.
You're dealing with some complex topics here, so I have a mildly complex question to start out: "The Oankali preach equality for all, but they refuse to practice such an ideal." Is it true that the Oankali preach equality? Certainly they criticize hierarchies. But is the absence of hierarchy the same as equality?
ReplyDeleteYour summary of the trade is fine. Then you write this: "but such a phenomena is hard to understand and perceive as the truth after observing how the Oankali people so carefully and cautiously conduct themselves around humans while barking orders and making clear a feeling of mutual distrust." I don't exactly think you're wrong here - but I'd like to know what you have in mind. This is a moment which presumably helps contribute to your argument - and I don't quite understand what you're saying or why.
Your argument that the Oankali *are* hierarchical starts at the obvious/correct point. But Lilith's views aren't stable - she has only started to learn about the Oankali at this point. So you can't just take her instinct at this moment as being authoritative - this needs to be a beginning, not the end. I'm impressed by the *idea* that the Oankali create a social pyramid driven by intelligence - but you need to prove it!
Your move to a discussion of slavery at the end is problematic. I'm not at all against an argument that the Oankali give us a complex metaphor for slavery, and which would then ask what that metaphor means. But you have a pretty short essay, and you're trying to do a number of things within it - argue that the Oankali are hierarchical, that they are specifically hierarchical based upon intelligence, that they practice a form of slavery - in an essay this short, you needed to have a very focused argument, especially to make sure that you really deal with the relevant parts of the text. I guess the main problem, ultimately, is that you don't really try to prove in depth that the Oankali are hierarchical, or practice slavery, or have a hierarchy based upon intelligence - all of these are interesting ideas, and you begin to make arguments toward them, but you needed to have a more sustained engagement with the text to really be convincing, which in turn probably would have led to either greater focus or a longer essay.