Destiny Samanie
Science fiction has, historically, explored the stars and examined what being human means. Extraterrestrials often reflect human fallacies or what society considers alien. In her novel Dawn, Octavia E. Butler creates a symbiotic relationship between her Oankali species and an endangered human race. Interactions with this alien race amplify the perceived flaws of humanity as the Oankali seek to meld the two species together, creating complicated and often contradictory allegories in the process. There has been an abundance of commentary on the themes of both gender and race in Butler’s work, often directed towards the novels Fledgling and Kindred. However, in the critical conversation surrounding Dawn, the topics of heteronormativity and consent are not often discussed in detail. A close reading of this text through the lens of a queer perspective on sexuality, gender, and consent will reveal the way that Dawn seeks to embrace change without fully embracing true equality, further enforcing the binaries that it may have sought to critique. Adopting this critical lens allows for a deeper understanding of how intersectionality–the overlap and interaction between cultural identities–impacts interpretations of the text itself.
The novel follows the perspective of Lilith, a human who is learning about the Oankali alongside the reader. The ooloi, the Oankali’s third sex, are often cited as an example of Dawn’s defiance of human norms. Introduced as “one of the creatures scheduled to bring about the destruction of what was left of humanity” (Butler 52-53), the ooloi play a prominent role within the story as the beings that specialize in gene manipulation and will facilitate interbreeding with the humans that are allowed to wake. This third sex disrupts human gender expectations, though human characters often ignore the third category altogether and label ooloi individuals as “men” or “women.” Lilith disapproves of her fellow humans’ binary mindset towards the Oankali, stating, “That . . . was a foolish way for someone who had decided to spend his life among the Oankali to think—a . . . deliberate, persistent ignorance” (Butler 99). In Lilith’s eyes, to accept the Oankali is to accept this strange new perspective on sex despite how different it is. However, despite Theodora Goss and John Paul Riquelme’s claim that this new sex “moves beyond human dichotomy” (444), the introduction of the ooloi is not comparable with modern ideas of those that are agender or gender nonconforming. The ooloi are a well-established and vital sex within the Oankali society; they are as regular to this species as males and females are to humans. Rather than a destruction of the binary, the third Oankali sex simply creates an additional category to which the humans must conform. In “Part 3: The Nursery” of Dawn, the humans that Lilith has awoken are paired off with ooloi in a relationship structure that mirrors the Oankali’s own: a male, a female, and an ooloi. This separation into “pairs of humans, each with an ooloi”
(Butler 211) occurs while the humans are drugged and unable to properly consent or fight back. Forcing people into a new dynamic is not the same as deconstructing binaries, despite critics such as Goss and Riquelme framing it as such. In Oankali relationships, the ooloi are responsible for modifying the genetics of the mating trio to create offspring. To truly defy assigned gender roles would be to eliminate the perceived necessity of said roles, not reassign the task of creating offspring to a different member.
Another instance of humans being molded into the gender roles of the Oankali is seen in the transformation Lilith goes through. In order for her to better handle possible altercations among the humans, Lilith’s body is altered to be stronger and taller than before. Alongside her ability to manipulate the walls of the Nursery, this differentiation sets Lilith apart from her fellow humans as something strange and alien. After she’s able to easily subdue the aggressive Jean Pelerin in a fight, Joseph informs Lilith of the rumors Jean is spreading about her: “She’s telling people you’re a man. She says only a man can fight that way” (Butler 165). In this instance, Lilith is defying the expectations placed on her because of her gender, but this does not separate her from gender roles as a whole. In place of the expectations for human females, Lilith is made to be more like the female Oankali with their larger, stronger bodies. This essentialist portrayal of sex is seeped into the very pores of Butler’s work, from the visible differences between the Oankali to the social interactions between the humans. Males and females are always separate in their behaviors, which, in combination with an overall focus on biology, leaves the impression of imposing norms rather than encouraging differences. While pondering whether or not Dawn truly portrays essentialist themes, Jeffery Tucker cites Octavia Butler as stating, “I do think we need to accept that our behavior is controlled to some extent by biological forces . . .” (180). It is not lost on Tucker that Dawn only provides minimal push-back against the stereotypes it presents. Unlike the more traditional essentialism pushed by humans that dislike the Oankali, the standards that the Oankali themselves present go unchallenged by the narrative.
The prevalence of heteronormativity within Dawn generally goes unacknowledged by the larger scholarly conversation. To many other critics, the aforementioned formation of triads between humans and ooloi conveys an expansion of typical human relationships, one that is often recognized for its implications about interracial relationships, with an oppressing class that forces cultural assimilation onto a resistant minority group. However, there is an emphasis placed on the sexuality and sexual activity of characters within Butler’s story; the humans are paired together in a manner that an earlier Lilith compares to breeding livestock, and ooloi wedge their way into these duos without warning and without establishing conscious consent. Setting aside the issue of consent for now, relationships in Dawn are primarily presented in terms of socialization and reproduction. When Allison Zeigler does not get with a man, several people align with the aggressive Peter’s attempt to force her into doing so, and one of the spectators by the name of Jean states, “It’s her duty to get together with someone” (Butler 200). If there is one aspect that Butler details about the group dynamics, it is how the relationships between the humans play out. Nearly every character with a name pairs off with someone else, echoing Jean’s outrageous statement in a metanarrative sense. The frequency with which heterosexual relationships form is immediately obvious, as if it is inevitable. When the ooloi come into the
Nursery with the drugged humans, Lilith makes this observation: “Victor Dominic and Hilary
Ballard were awake and together, holding one another, though they had shown no interest in one another until now” (Butler 209). It is difficult for one to accept interpretations of the ooloi-inclusive triad as a queer alternative to these duos when this type of compulsory heterosexuality is created under these conditions without question. This is made even more worrying when taking into account the consistent chemical tampering that allows the ooloi into these relationships in the first place. Even though there is some resistance from human men who feel emasculated from being so easily subdued by such an alien creature, it is vital to acknowledge how having so little autonomy and consent over their own bodies affects these humans. Within the text, Lilith observes, “When that influence was allowed to wane and Peter began to think, he apparently decided he had been humiliated and enslaved. The drug seemed to him . . . a way of turning him against himself . . . in alien perversions” (Butler 218). Despite Lilith’s acceptance of the drug as a way to soften the disturbing appearance of the Oankali, it is still being used against the humans to force them to accept the ooloi. These humans do not consent to or even know about the chemical imprinting that binds them to their new mates until it has happened. With this in mind, reading the ooloi as a defiance of heteronormative relationships becomes less viable. The ooloi, in fact, appear to be more of a predatory influence than a liberating one.
The dynamic that the Oankali are enforcing is incompatible with human needs and wishes as ooloi explicitly disregard verbal protests because they think that their own interpretations of a person’s bodily responses are more important. When Joseph protests Nikanj forcing him into a nonconsensual sexual encounter, Nikanj says, “Your body said one thing. Your words said another” (Butler 215). Despite critical interpretations of this interbreeding as positive progression for the human race, it is impossible to ignore the fact that said interbreeding started without consent. Joseph does not consent to being in this trio, and Lilith does not consent to being impregnated with the first generation of hybrids. Discussing the high regard that Oankali hold for communicating through flesh, Nolan Belk writes, “They focus so much on body knowledge that they ignore personal identity when it comes to decisions” (382). However, even these criticisms are brushed aside by certain critics that explain away the motivations of the Oankali and insist that human morals cannot be applied to this alien race. This, for all intents and purposes, is highly incorrect. The entire point of explorative literature like science fiction is to portray issues and concepts as they are reflected in real life. To disregard the moral implications of the Oankali’s oppressive behavior is, as Lilith would say, “deliberate, persistent ignorance” (Butler 99). Such readings erase the individual voices of the humans within the text and disregard human autonomy, just as the Oankali do.
In “Octavia Butler’s Disabled Futures,” Megan Obourn claims that there is an important message to be learned about disability and autonomy from Butler’s series: “The trilogy . . . demonstrates how communal versus individual choice can injure people who experience it as racial oppression, lack of reproductive choice, and rape” (126). Throughout the book, the humans are not allowed agency over anything, from their fates to their own bodies. By manipulating the humans into unwanted, heteronormative relationships and forcing them to adopt the Oankali culture, the Oankali stand as figures ripe for critique. Before Lilith herself falls for the messaging of the Oankali and has her boundaries broken down one by one, Butler details, “they had done it all so softly, without brutality, and with patience and gentleness so corrosive of any resolve on her part” (Butler 74). In moments such as these, Butler portrays an awareness of the systems at play within her work. She knows what the Oankali are doing is wrong and wants the audience to experience it from Lilith’s perspective. These issues, however, are not properly explored by the text (or by critics) in a manner that fully realizes their implications. The novel’s interests may lie elsewhere–-in embracing change and uncertainty, as Goss and Riquelme suggest, or in exploring hierarchical thinking without providing specifics, as Tucker observes–but that does not change the fact that the story events have consequences and shape interpretations of the work. A story cannot encourage forward mobility through escaping binaries while simultaneously boxing its characters more firmly into systems against their wills.
Works Cited
Belk, Nolan. “The Certainty of the Flesh: Octavia Butler’s Use of the Erotic in the Xenogenesis Trilogy.” Utopian Studies, vol. 19, no. 3, 2008, pp. 369–89. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20719917. Accessed 8 Dec. 2024.
Goss, Theodora, and John Paul Riquelme. “From Superhuman to Posthuman: The Gothic Technological Imaginary in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Octavia Butler’s ‘Xenogenesis.’” Modern Fiction Studies, vol. 53, no. 3, 2007, pp. 434–59. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/26287111. Accessed 8 Dec. 2024.
Obourn, Megan. “Octavia Butler’s Disabled Futures.” Contemporary Literature, vol. 54, no. 1, 2013, pp. 109–38. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43297908. Accessed 8 Dec. 2024.
Tucker, Jeffrey A. “‘The Human Contradiction’: Identity and/as Essence in Octavia E. Butler’s ‘Xenogenesis’ Trilogy.” The Yearbook of English Studies, vol. 37, no. 2, 2007, pp. 164–81. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20479308. Accessed 8 Dec. 2024.