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Shixian Cui
Professor Nat Murphy
Writing 39A
May 4, 2016

In the book Parable of the Sower, the author Octavia Butler describes a dystopia world in
2024. The governments collapses, followed by the disorder of the society. People are split into
different classes. In the lower class, People, who are isolated by rich, starve and starts to kill each
other for food and water. Climate is getting unprecedentedly terrible. There are hardly any rain
drops through out a year. Environment is seriously contaminated. It becomes difficult for people
to obtain the clean water. The world Butler imagines is based on exactly what we are
experiencing nowadays. Butler is showing the dangers of not taking water seriously as a political
issue.
In such a chaos background, Butler introduces the heroine Lauren, who is a thoughtful
and independent girl. She, or we could say the author herself, strives to find a system that is true
to her experience and suitable to peoples observation. Lauren has been diagnosed with
hyperempaphy due to her mothers addict to drugs when she was pregnant. It means that she
could feel the pain of others, which definitely brings sufferings to her childhood. Hence Lauren
becomes highly sensitive to the pain of others and also the misery that they experience. When
Lauren pedals on the street, she often sees homeless people, who have no money to spend on
food or water, cutting off each others legs and ears, or get poisoned for having contaminated
water and bad food. Butler states that As I rode I try not to look at them, but I couldnt help

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seeingeveryone I saw made me feel worse and worse. (Butler 12) Lauren has to suffer all the
pain from others she sees, and she knows better than anyone that how much grief the shortage of
clean water brings to people. Hyperempathy someway actually helps her observe more things
and becomes insightful in this society.
Later in the book, Butler mentions that it rains for four days in 2025. Lauren remembers
the last time raining was 6 years ago. People run into the rain with great joy and enjoy it soaking
their clothes. They take out the tubs, barrels and other containers to hold the rain, and also they
now can have a chance to clean themselves, because apparently they dont have money to take a
shower. If now we see a person who are standing in the rain till soaking, we would think she or
he must be crazy, but if we imagine the rain drops as the bills falling from the sky, we could
understand how people eager for the rain in Laurens world. Because for those people, clean
water is just money. At that time, dirty has already become a fashion. (Butler 21) If one is
clean, others would think the one is showing off. He or she would get beaten up or robbed on the
streets. Every time Lauren goes out of walls, which segregate the poor people away, she must
wear the filthy clothes which will not attract others attention. The way Butler talks about it is
full of irony, which reflects the miserable life that lower class live. She argues that clean water
has become a limited resource in the future, and people have to pay for it.
Butler states that People here on earth cant afford water, food or shelters (Butler 21).
Water is provided for sale at Commercial water stations. Only the water there is clean to drink.
There are not enough water stations so there exists many water peddlers who sells cheaper
water to poor people, while the water is not safe to drink. Because it contains chemical residues
like fuel, pesticide, herbicide and whatever else has been in that bottle that peddlers use (Butler
236). Even if people boil them, the chemicals still remain. A lot of times, peddlers poison

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themselves because the fact that they cannot read. They havent received any education before,
which lead to the lack of basic knowledge. Lauren often see dead bodies on the street with a
bottle filled with water besides them. They are poisoned by the contaminated water, so no one
would take the water from those bottles. Once the water supply cannot be guaranteed, the
survival of human will be threatened. In 2011, Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant, the worlds
largest nuclear station, experience the tsunami triggered by Tohoku level 9 earthquake, resulting
in three nuclear stations meltdown and the release of radioactive material. Within hundreds of
miles, many food was detected that contained radioactive material. Worst thing is that the
Fukushima coast has some of the world's strongest currents and these transported the
contaminated waters far into the Pacific Ocean, thus causing great dispersion of the radioactive
elements. The local government restricted the fishing work. The contaminated water directly put
the lives of local residents at risk. Around August 2012 two greenling fish were caught close to
shore. They contained more than 25,000 Becquerel of Caesium-137 (a radioactive element) per
kilogram, which is the highest measured since the disaster and 250 times higher than the
government's safety limit. [3] Nuclear pollution may cause the rise in the probability for human
to have cancer or other type of serious disease. The radioactive material has drifted to every
corner of the the ocean. Industrial activities maximize the profits and bring the high speed of
human development, but for many times they are sacrificing our living environment.
In the book, Laurens dad mentions that Water costs several times as much as gasoline
(Butler 21). Imagine the water, the basic of basic for human to stay alive, is more expensive than
gasoline. Even now we sometimes complain about the high price of gasoline in California. In
Laurens world, lots of people definitely cant afford it and thus people get malnourished. Human
relies so much on water. It brings life, nourishes nature, and take away the fire. However, putting

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out fire by fire department becomes a priceless thing in the future. Butler mentions that The
adult men and women put the fire out with the garden hoses, shovels, wet towels and blankets.
With the fact that water is more expensive than gasoline, most of households apparently cannot
afford such a big bill that put out fire by using water. Using hoses or wet blankets might work to
some situations but it won't be as efficient as using water. Also, the shortage of rain and continue
drought definitely increases the possibility of catching fire. Fire has become a big threaten to
peoples lives. According the article If You Think the Water Crisis Can't Get Worse, Wait Until
the Aquifers Are Drained,[2] written by Dennis Dimick published on National Geography,
aquifer is main water source for US and we are drawing down these hidden mostly unrenewable
underground supplies at unsustainable rates in the western United States and in several dry
regions globally. Aquifer is one of the earth underground layer that contains fresh water. Human
use water well to extract water from it since ancient time. Columnist Dimick describes the
disappearing underground water as out-of-sight crisis, because we cannot see it! A new report
from Stanford University states that nearly 60 percent of the states water are now met by ground
water. While reporter Brian Clark Howard says that well-drillers in the central California are now
working overtime. Farmers short of water now much wait in line for more than one year.
However, Dimick mentions that Californians know little about their underground supply because
well-drilling records are kept secret from public view and theres no statewide policy that limits
the groundwater use. Well owners are now can pump as much water as they want. In central US,
a recent Kansa State University study says that if farmers in Kansas keep irrigating at present
rate, 69 percent of Ogallala Aquifer will be gone in 50 years. If aquifers are depleted, the land
will begin to subside or sink. Managing and conserving ground water becomes an urgent
challenge. We have to raise our awareness on this out-of-sight problem. Its the governments

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responsibility to make policies to regulate the fresh water use, and sustainably exploit our
resources. The ocean takes about 71 percent of the area on earth, while fresh water, which people
can consume, takes only 2.5 percent of the total water available on this planet. According to
UNICEF, approximately 894 million people dont have access to improved water sources [1]. We
human merely has these little water on earth, while we are still polluting and over-exploiting it.
We should raise the awareness on the shortage of fresh water which may lead to the serious
dangers as Butler says in the near future.
Water is contaminated and the shortage of water has lead to the high price of drinking
water, which also brings violence and turbulence to the society. Water station is the only place
for people to buy the clean and drinkable water. People go in with money and come out with
water. These are the main targets for robbers, so the water station has become a dangerous place
to go. Laurens dad warns her for many times that Dont do it. Suffer. Get your rear end home.
(Butler 237) This is what her dad want her to do once she get caught for water. Three is the least
number of people to go to buy water. Lauren says that Two to watch and one to fill up. Beggars
and thieves are hanging around these places all day. I cant imagine that it is such dangerous to
merely buy some water in the future. Peddlers are also easy to become the target of robbers.
They are often being found with their throats cut and money stolen. Many times on television,
Lauren finds the whole blocks of building burning in Los Angeles, while no one wants to put it
out with water. Government does not exist, or only in name. The only thing people want is to be
alive. Every corner of this society is full of starvation, disease and drugs. Mobs are walking on
the streets, driven by the money. By showing all these terrible consequences, Butler is eager to
warn us that we have to raise the awareness of the shortage and contamination of water.
In Post-Apocalyptic Hoping: Octavia Butler's Dystopian/Utopian Vision, Jim Miller

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argues that Dystopian double-think that belittles or ignores the devastation of the environment is
all too real. The idea of a water shortage is also not much of a stretch if one considers the
phenomenal growth that has occurred in the South western United States with little or no thought
given to the fact that the region lacks the water to support such growth. [4] When the global
economy rapidly develops, human often choose to sacrifice our environment to pursue the
maximization of the profits. We have already seen our climate is beginning to change. No one
wants to live in the dystopia world that Butler describes in the book. Butler is showing the
dangers of not taking water seriously as a political issue. We have to raise our awareness to the
water pollution. Water is the origin of life. Its our responsibility to protect the water resources
for future generations. Like Butler says, God is change. Change includes grief and happiness,
gain and loss, pain and enjoy. God is there, and human has to shape it, while whether it changes
into a bad direction, or a bright future, it depends on us.

Work Cited
1. http://www.conserve-energy-future.com. Water Polution Facts. Web.
2. National Geography, If You Think the Water Crisis Can't Get Worse, Wait Until the
Aquifers Are Drained, by Dennis Dimick
3. Tabuchi, Hiroko (25 October 2012). "Fish Off Japan's Coast Said to Contain Elevated
Levels of Cesium". New York Times Asia Pacific. Retrieved 28 October 2012.

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Jump up ^ (Dutch) Nu.nl (26 oktober 2012) Tepco sluit niet uit dat centrale Fukushima nog lekt
Archived 8 January 2014 at the Wayback Machine.
Jump up ^ Fukushima Plant Admits Radioactive Water Leaked To Sea.
4. Post-Apocalyptic Hoping: Octavia Butler's Dystopian/Utopian Vision, Jim Miller