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"Orgies of Breeding and Dying": Unmapping the Politics of Death in Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower
Malmö University, Faculty of Culture and Society (KS).
2019 (English)Independent thesis Basic level (degree of Bachelor), 10 credits / 15 HE creditsStudent thesis
Abstract [en]

This thesis investigates the relationship between necropolitics and spatiality in Octavia E. Butler’s critical dystopian science-fiction novel Parable of the Sower. In the novel, some groups of the population are marked for death, while others are marked for life. I argue that the novel reveals a particularly modern version of necropolitics that runs through not only the narrative, but also, in Butler’s view, the contemporary American society. Further, this thesis analyses the different spatialities in the novel and the bodies allowed or made to occupy them. Particular attention is paid to the gated communities, company towns, shopping malls, and unwalled residential areas and streets, arguing that in the novel intersections of race, class, and gender affect one’s proximity to death. The thesis also explores the nomadic expansion of space and the blurring of the boundaries between survival and homicide, terror and freedom in the novel.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Malmö universitet/Kultur och samhälle , 2019. , p. 40
Keywords [en]
Critical dystopia, Science Fiction, Necropolitics, Spatiality, Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Sower, Intersectionality
National Category
Humanities and the Arts
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-22086Local ID: 28838OAI: oai:DiVA.org:mau-22086DiVA, id: diva2:1482006
Educational program
KS K3 English studies
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Examiners
Available from: 2020-10-27 Created: 2020-10-27Bibliographically approved

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CiteExportLink to record
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Citation style
  • apa
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