An Analysis Of Octavia Butler's Parable Of The Sower As A Historical Novel

According to Encyclopaedia Britannica, a historical novel is set in a period of history and works to convey the social conditions, manners, and spirits of the time in realistic manner. Also, a historical novel may have a mix of historical figures and fictional characters. An author of historical novels may choose focus on a specific event or the overall society and how a particular set of characters is affected by events of the time. Based on this view of a historical novel it may seem as though a work of science fiction could not possibly be considered a historical novel; at a glance they look like complete opposites. Science fiction novels often take place sometime in the future, feature an almost completely fictional cast of characters, and are not typically based on true events. Although science fiction and historical novels are quite different looking at their most basic definitions, they are actually similar. Based on the thesis of Carl Freedman, ‘both science fiction and the historical novel “denaturalize the present by showing it to be neither arbitrary nor inevitable but the conjunctural result of complex, knowable processes”’, Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower could potentially be a historical novel. To understand how Parable of the Sower could be a historical novel one must first look at the …show more content…
Many of the elements in Parable of the Sower reflect what was occuring in Los Angeles at the time. There was racial tension between the Black/African American and White/Caucasian communities especially in L.A. where the riots took place. Black people felt that the brutality inflicted by White police officers was racially charged and so tension arose between different racial groups. The police force was corrupted. Officers participated in unprovoked beatings or beatings that were more violent than necessary, as was the case in the Rodney King