Where does Lauren live at the opening of Parable of the Sower?

Lauren Olamina is fifteen years old when the story begins. She lives in Robledo, California, with her father, stepmother, and three brothers.
Takedown request   |   View complete answer on encyclopedia.com


Where does Lauren live in Parable of the Sower?

Lauren Olamina is a fifteen-year-old Black girl living in the Los Angeles area in the year 2024. (Parable of the Sower was published in 1993.) Lauren's father is a Baptist pastor and also teaches at a nearby college. She has four younger brothers, who are sons of her father and her stepmother, Cory.
Takedown request   |   View complete answer on sparknotes.com


What happens in the beginning of Parable of the Sower?

The book opens with our protagonist Lauren's fifteenth birthday. Happy birthday, Lauren. Lauren recounts a dream for us. It's a recurring dream she has when she tries to please her father and pretend nothing unusual is going down.
Takedown request   |   View complete answer on shmoop.com


What happens to Lauren in Parable of the Sower?

When Lauren's father disappears, it has a big impact on her life. The dude just vanishes, and Lauren never finds out for sure what happened to him. At that point, it's up to her to create her own family and her own community; this is when she realizes that community is necessary for survival.
Takedown request   |   View complete answer on shmoop.com


What does Lauren have in Parable of the Sower?

This is a very different belief system than the Baptist household she grew up in (Butler Sower 38). One of Lauren's most important qualities is that she has "hyperempathy syndrome" which means that if she sees another person in pain, she also feels that pain.
Takedown request   |   View complete answer on sites.google.com


Behind the Scenes: Parable of the Sower



When her neighborhood is set ablaze Which of the following family members does Lauren escape with?

Chapter 14

After the pyros drive a stolen truck through the neighborhood gate, they set fire to homes and rape and kill the inhabitants. In the chaos, Lauren falls behind as Cory and Lauren's brothers flee.
Takedown request   |   View complete answer on sparknotes.com


Who is Lauren's father?

Lauren is totally the daughter of a preacher man: Reverend Olamina. We never learn the dude's first name in Parable of the Sower, but that doesn't mean he's not important. In fact, the book opens on his 55th birthday on July 20, 2024.
Takedown request   |   View complete answer on shmoop.com


Is Lauren a prophet?

Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower, the richly symbolic and subversive. story of Lauren Olamina, a prophet in the making, one finding her voice and her people in the midst of an America whose social order is collapsing around her, grows on you.
Takedown request   |   View complete answer on samirchopra.com


Where are Lauren and her parents heading in Chapter 2?

They are in Robledo, a city 20 miles away from Los Angeles that was once “unwalled” and “green.” After Lauren's father's parents were murdered in 2010, he inherited their house, where he and his family still live. Butler adds more details to situate the reader in this violent and divided post-apocalyptic world.
Takedown request   |   View complete answer on litcharts.com


How does Lauren view God in Parable of the Sower?

Lauren seem to think that “God Is Change”, which is mention through out the book in her poems (3). In a way Lauren want god to change the world, because of her hyperemphaty she feel the pain of world around her including her own.
Takedown request   |   View complete answer on openlab.citytech.cuny.edu


How does Lauren commemorate the burial site?

Lauren joins Bankole and says she'd like to plant a grove of oak trees around the bones to commemorate them. She also asks if it'd be okay for everyone else to bury their dead, too: her own family, Zahra's, Harry's, everyone's.
Takedown request   |   View complete answer on shmoop.com


How many brothers does Lauren have in Parable of the Sower?

Cory is Lauren's stepmother and the mother of Lauren's three brothers.
Takedown request   |   View complete answer on sites.google.com


How did Lauren get Hyperempathy syndrome?

When Lauren was attacked by a dog, she shot the dog and “The dog drop without a sound. I dropped”(209). Lauren in a prone position was able to shoot better and scared away the dog. The hyperempathy benefitted Lauren so that she could survive in the harsh world.
Takedown request   |   View complete answer on openlab.citytech.cuny.edu


Why does Lauren hide her Hyperempathy?

Lauren assures Harry that she wouldn't kill someone who had a non-life-threatening injury. She takes his hands and promises that she won't “betray” him. She explains that her father taught her to hide her hyperempathy as an act of self-defense.
Takedown request   |   View complete answer on litcharts.com


How does Lauren feel about Christianity her father's religion?

Her father, a local reverend, instilled his Christian beliefs upon her such as many parents do to develop good morals within their children. However, Lauren has since abandoned her father's beliefs and now devotes herself to her personal religion, Earthseed.
Takedown request   |   View complete answer on gradesfixer.com


Why did Lauren create Earthseed?

So Lauren's goal is to get her followers literally onto other planets: it's what she calls the Destiny. It's a long shot, but it's actually a pretty necessary goal. The people who join Lauren in working toward the Destiny are also Earthseed.
Takedown request   |   View complete answer on shmoop.com


Who attacks and destroys Lauren's community?

So Lauren grows up in a walled community in Robledo, California, when one day her community is destroyed by Pyro addicts. They manage to break down the gate and basically just attack her community and burn it to the ground.
Takedown request   |   View complete answer on storiesforearth.com


Who do Lauren and her followers rescue from a collapsed building following an earthquake?

With Bankole now walking with them, Lauren's group hears two girls calling for help from the rubble of a house that had collapsed in the earthquake. Lauren decides her group should go check on them. With Harry and Bankole standing guard, Lauren, Travis, and Zahra dig the two women out from the rubble.
Takedown request   |   View complete answer on shmoop.com


Where does Lauren plan to go when she leaves the neighborhood?

Lauren definitely plans on spreading Earthseed once she leaves Robledo. One of Lauren's verses says that all successful life is adaptable and tenacious. Lauren decides to call her book of Earthseed verses The Book of the Living.
Takedown request   |   View complete answer on shmoop.com


What does Lauren realize about Earthseed on her 16th birthday Parable of the Sower?

“A tree cannot grow in its parents' shadows,” Lauren writes in her notebook. After she reads about planets orbiting nearby stars, on her sixteenth birthday she has another thought: “The Destiny of Earthseed is to take root among the stars.”
Takedown request   |   View complete answer on sparknotes.com


Who dies in the Parable of the Sower?

Amy Dunn is a three-year-old girl living in Lauren's neighborhood. Her mother, Tracy, was only 13 when Amy was born, and Lauren writes that Amy was unloved. Amy is killed by accident when someone from outside shoots through the neighborhood gate.
Takedown request   |   View complete answer on litcharts.com


What is the body of the Parable of the Sower?

Main body. Among the main themes described in the “Parable of the Sower,” there is the collapse that the society experiences because issues such as climate change or inequality were not addressed appropriately.
Takedown request   |   View complete answer on studycorgi.com


What does Natividad do to the bones How does Lauren commemorate those who have died?

Natividad wraps the bones in a shawl she made years ago, a gesture that Bankole finds so moving that he walks into the woods to cry alone. Lauren goes to find him there, and tells him she'd like to plant oak trees in honor of the dead.
Takedown request   |   View complete answer on litcharts.com
Next question
Can snakes feel affection?