Johanna Strong | Northeastern State University (original) (raw)

Papers by Johanna Strong

Lilith’s Brood as the Post-Colonial Window Using the lens of post-colonial theory, Octavia Butler... more Lilith’s Brood as the Post-Colonial Window
Using the lens of post-colonial theory, Octavia Butler’s Brood can be seen an example of how an invader removes the selfhood of the invaded as a means of control. Combining race, culture, and gender, Lilith’s Brood examines and attests to dehumanization as a means of restriction of the invaded and supremacy for the invader. Modern studies that focus on race, ethnicity, and region are many times studied at the same time as part of postcolonial studies, encouraging the rethinking of the assumptions of “identity, history, politics, and literature” (Parker 263). This paper explores the way Butler uses the alien invader to control the populace much as the European controlled the invaded peoples encountered by explorers. Like the European colonizers of the past, the aliens do not feel that the human subalterns can possibly understand the enormity of their situation, which is the Earth is dead and the aliens have plans for the creation of a new Earth and a new people to occupy it. In terms of theory, Edward Said argues that the way the West speaks of the East is through a specific discourse (Parker 248). He says that the East is viewed, erroneously, as “sensual, lazy, exotic, irrational, cruel, promiscuous, seductive, inscrutable… primitive, ruled by emotion… and a world where all people are alike and where their actions are determined by the national or racial category they belong to” (248). This is much the same language the Oakali use to describe the humans. ). Said says the West (or the invader) has labeled itself as “rational … democratic … modern, progressive, technological, and the center of the world…” (248). This is how the Oakali portray themselves to the Humans. These two cultures, the invader and invaded, are in direct opposition to each other. When they clash, it nearly destroys one culture entirely. It is only saved through the intervention of one of the invaders, and even then, it is only a token, an act grudgingly done. The hegemony of the invader is the one that wins in the end, and the invaded, the surviving Humans, are left to conform or die.

An academic reflection about prayer as it related to CS Lewis.

Lilith’s Brood as the Post-Colonial Window Using the lens of post-colonial theory, Octavia Butler... more Lilith’s Brood as the Post-Colonial Window
Using the lens of post-colonial theory, Octavia Butler’s Brood can be seen an example of how an invader removes the selfhood of the invaded as a means of control. Combining race, culture, and gender, Lilith’s Brood examines and attests to dehumanization as a means of restriction of the invaded and supremacy for the invader. Modern studies that focus on race, ethnicity, and region are many times studied at the same time as part of postcolonial studies, encouraging the rethinking of the assumptions of “identity, history, politics, and literature” (Parker 263). This paper explores the way Butler uses the alien invader to control the populace much as the European controlled the invaded peoples encountered by explorers. Like the European colonizers of the past, the aliens do not feel that the human subalterns can possibly understand the enormity of their situation, which is the Earth is dead and the aliens have plans for the creation of a new Earth and a new people to occupy it. In terms of theory, Edward Said argues that the way the West speaks of the East is through a specific discourse (Parker 248). He says that the East is viewed, erroneously, as “sensual, lazy, exotic, irrational, cruel, promiscuous, seductive, inscrutable… primitive, ruled by emotion… and a world where all people are alike and where their actions are determined by the national or racial category they belong to” (248). This is much the same language the Oakali use to describe the humans. ). Said says the West (or the invader) has labeled itself as “rational … democratic … modern, progressive, technological, and the center of the world…” (248). This is how the Oakali portray themselves to the Humans. These two cultures, the invader and invaded, are in direct opposition to each other. When they clash, it nearly destroys one culture entirely. It is only saved through the intervention of one of the invaders, and even then, it is only a token, an act grudgingly done. The hegemony of the invader is the one that wins in the end, and the invaded, the surviving Humans, are left to conform or die.

An academic reflection about prayer as it related to CS Lewis.