Bloodchild: Oppression in Science Fiction Essay -- Butler Bloodchild E

Bloodchild Oppression in light lyingThroughout American literary history, nearly every work of literature has covered the topic of slavery and bleak oppression in America. From William Lloyd Garrisons abolitionist papers to Harriet Beecher Stowes controversial Uncle tom turkeys Cabin to Alice Walkers The Color Purple, the exploration of the black position in America has been a theme that engrossed generations. In the past century, as science fiction has established its place in the literary genre, authors such as Octavia butler have become progressively popular. In her short story Bloodchild, Butler extends the discussion of oppression in America into the science fiction genre. In this manner her story, like intimately all science fiction, though it seems to concern itself with human beings and worlds of the far outgo and future, it also concerns itself with the here and now (Asimov 110).Within the first few passages of Bloodchild, Butler establishes that the Tlic clan has la dened the Terran clan in the past. Though this history of favorable position and oppression exists between the two species, TGatoi, a Tlic, is still a friend of this Terran family. Only she TGatoi and her political faction stood between us and the hordes who did non understand why there was a Preserveordid not care (Butler 1036). Gan and his family are forced to live on a preserve, keeping the Tlic from entering in and enslaving his family further. Already, one can see the similarity to the get together States of Americas relations with the African-American people. Butler substitutes the race appear with a difference of species, creating an obvious physical incongruity between the oppressed and oppressors. This physical difference was often r... ...d its treatment of those who differ physically from the volume of the population. Through science fiction, Butler has reached another section of the literary audience, and challenged them to free their minds and to change their wo rld.BibliographyPrimary SourceButler, Olivia. Bloodchild. The Prentice Hall Anthology of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Ed. Garyn G. Roberts. Upper Saddle River Prentice-Hall Inc., 2001.1035-1049.Secondary SourcesAsimov, Isaac. Science Fiction and Society. Asimov on Science Fiction. American Medical Association. 103-111Du Bois, W.E.B. The Souls of Black Fold. New York Fawcett World Library, 1903.Litwak, Leon. pain in the neck in Mind Black Southerners in the Age of Jim Crow. New York Knopf, 1998.Rundblad, Georganne and creature Kivisto. Multiculturalism in the United States. Thousand Oaks Pine Forge Press, 2000.