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 7-9Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 7 Summary
Lauren decides to call her new belief system Earthseed, but she doesn’t necessarily think she’s making anything up—to her it’s all very real: “It feels like the truest thing I’ve ever written” (88). She has made a small survival pack for herself that includes tools, pots, money, water containers, matches, clothes, and other things she might need on the road. Her father warns her that such a pack would be a gift for a burglar, and he will not allow her to keep a weapon with it. She suspects he’s concerned that her brothers, Greg, Ben, and Keith, will get at it. They discuss where they would go if the worst happens, and Lauren expresses the idea that going north would be safer. Her father disagrees, to which she writes in verse: “A tree cannot grow in its parents’ shadow” (92).
The latest news is that the cosmological station on the moon has found more planets orbiting nearby stars. Lauren believes life might be on these planets: “I find it […] more exciting and encouraging than I can explain, more important than I can explain. There is life out there” (93). She thinks humans could adapt to life on another planet if they could get out there—out of the shadow of their parent world.
Amy’s mother, Tracy Dunn, has disappeared. July 20 is Lauren’s birthday, and she says that her gift is two lines that came to her as she woke up: “The Destiny of Earthseed is to take root among the stars” (94).
Chapter 8 Summary
A community resident, Bianca Montoya, is pregnant. She and her boyfriend will get married. Lauren doesn’t understand why people want to get married and have children in this environment, and the event causes her to reflect on her options for her future. Everyone expects her to marry Curtis and have a family. She does think she loves him, but she reflects, “[I]f all I had to look forward to was marriage to him and babies and poverty that just keeps getting worse, I think I’d kill myself” (96).
Another target practice takes place. The group finds a half-eaten corpse and sees more decrepit shacks along the way than ever. After they get home, they find that Lauren’s 13-year-old brother Keith has disappeared and taken Cory’s key with him. Lauren’s father plans to go look for him just as Keith returns, bleeding and bruised. The five guys who beat him up took their gate key. Lauren’s father runs to warn the neighborhood. Keith is forced to confess his deed at church and apologize, but it takes the boy a long time to admit he’s done anything wrong: “He wanted to show he was a man, not a scared girl” (101). Despite his father preaching “Honor thy mother and father” in his next sermon, Keith remains angry.
Chapter 9 Summary
On Keith’s birthday, just a few weeks later, Lauren’s father and Cory give the boy a BB gun. Almost immediately after, the boy disappears outside again. His father goes to look for him and even calls the police, while Cory goes into mourning and starts to show her favoritism for Keith. She accuses her husband of caring for Lauren more than Keith, saying that if it had been his daughter out there, he would have tried harder to locate her. Lauren always thought her stepmother loved her, and she considers Cory’s words: “Is she sorry? I don’t think so. Did she mean it? She did. Oh, yes, she meant it” (105).
Keith returns about two weeks later, looking fine and wearing new clothes. His father beats him while Cory screams. A couple of months later, Keith leaves again—this time, he takes Cory’s key and a gun. Lauren, thinking of her brother’s actions, writes: “I hate him” (107).
Keith returns a week or so later but waits until his father is away. He brings Cory money and gives his younger brothers chocolate. Cory begs him to stay, but he refuses, saying he’ll soon be able to make more money than his father does. He assures her he knows what he’s doing, and then leaves again.
Chapters 7-9 Analysis
Keith emerges as Lauren’s foil in this section, and the two siblings reflect the theme of Community Versus the Individual. As Lauren seeks out community and comradery when facing the reality of the world, Keith withdraws into himself and leaves Robledo, sometimes for weeks at a time. He is secretive about his actions, and while he brings back treats for his family members, he puts them (and all of Robledo) at risk by leaving the community with Cory’s key and a firearm. His recklessness, combined with his new clothes, shows that he is prioritizing his own well-being over others. He is anti-community, anti-society, and anti-discipline, and as an opportunist, Keith follows his baser instincts and counts on only himself. While Keith feels like he has carved out a space for himself in the outside world, the consequences of his individualism are shown in the following chapters when he is killed.
At the same time, Lauren solidifies her religious and philosophical ideas and names them Earthseed. She expands her ideas of space and its promise, even if there’s no intelligent life out there: “I don’t care. Life alone is enough. I find it […] more exciting and encouraging than I can explain, more important than I can explain” (93). Her philosophy posits Religion as a Living Framework for Hope and Change, looking to space travel as the solution to Earth’s decay and the hopelessness she feels when confronted with Bianca’s pregnancy. There doesn’t seem to be much possible for safety and new life on Earth, but new worlds, far away from the mother planet, offer an exciting idea for Lauren. She decides that “The Destiny of Earthseed / Is to take root among the stars” (94). The name Earthseed itself is therefore symbolic—Earthlings and the potential for new societies are seeds dispersed into the galaxy, ready to take root when they land on fertile ground. This philosophy keeps her going and offers her hope amid a world that is falling apart around her.
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