Notable Plot Moments
“A pessimist if I’m not careful.” She did not just reject pessimism once and become a Pollyanna thereafter. It was an impulse that she had to quell over and and over. It was a dynamic and continuous act, a hard-nosed practice of staring down the worst of humanity’s evils and refusing to live in denial, all the while choosing to remember that humanity is also capable of great good.
Olamina contrasts God’s supposed super-person nature with the problem of human suffering, e.g. the story of Job. Her father is a Black Baptist preacher.
What are you? Some kind of cult? [Olamina] We believe in some of the same things.
At Lauren’s baptism at the hands of her father, the faithful are singing, “Wade in the water \ Wade in the water, children \ God’s gonna trouble the water." I’ve heard this song before in Black American film. describes it as a spiritual - a genre of music created and first sung by African Americans in slavery”. Harriet Tubman reportedly used the song to tell escaping slaves to get off the trail and into the water to make sure the dogs slave-catchers used couldn’t sniff out their trail.
[General public after astronaut dying and wishing to be buried on Mars] She had no business being there in the first place. All that money on another crazy space trip. When so many people can’t afford food, or shelter. [Newly elect president] … to begin dismantling the wasteful, pointless, unnecessary Mars program.
Changes. The galaxies move through space. The stars ignite, burn, age, cool, Evolving. God is Change. God prevails. Toying with the idea of entropy being supreme.
Notable Language
¡Ya basta!
References
- Parable of the Sower, Graphic Adaptation, Introduction. Nalo Hopkinson. 2020.
- Parable of the Sower, Graphic Adaptation. 2024. Damian Duffy; John Jennings; Octavia E. Butler. 2020.
- Parable of the Sower, Graphic Adaptation. 2025. Damian Duffy; John Jennings; Octavia E. Butler. 2020.
- Wade in the Water - Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org . Accessed Mar 14, 2022.
- ¡Ya basta! - Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org . Accessed Mar 14, 2022.
- Emily St. John Mandel: Station Eleven. Emily St. John Mandel. www.emilymandel.com . en.wikipedia.org . en.wikipedia.org . ISBN: 978-0385353304 . Accessed Mar 14, 2022.
- Parable of the Sower, Graphic Adaptation. 2027. Damian Duffy; John Jennings; Octavia E. Butler. 2020.
Olamina reminds me of Station Eleven’s Miranda Carroll. Miranda was also a Black woman who was fascinated by space adventures. Her graphic novel, Station Eleven, ended up evolving into a Bible-like entity: a source of organized belief, sometimes to the point of zealotry.