Octavia E. Butler. Parable of the Talents. 1998; New York: Open Road, 2012. E-book.

Radio evangelist Chuck Swindoll once wrote a book about what the Bible says about service. He titled it Improving Your Serve. He reported that a number of people bought the book thinking that it was about tennis. A student of the Bible might think Parable of the Talents was about the story Jesus tells in Matthew 25:14-30. It is not.

I first heard of Octavia E. Butler when I read Calls and Responses, which tells quite a bit about Butler’s most famous work, Kindred. The main character in that science-fiction piece is a contemporary black woman who travels back in time. She ends up saving the life of the Legree-type slave owner because he is one of her ancestors. The whole novel is a tale about slavery written from the perspective of slaves and former slaves with a Heinlein-like twist (think of his Lazarus Long stories).

Parable of the Talents, though, is futuristic and even post-apocalyptic but at its heart is also about slavery.

Written in 1996 and published in 1998, Parable of the Talents tells us that there was a worldwide epidemic known as the Pox that lasted from 2015 to 2030. As with the Plague in the Middle Ages in the Old World, things in America descended to near anarchy. Alaska seceded, and a war began that pitted Alaska and Canada against the remaining states. Ironically, the Canadian dollar is considered hard currency, not the American dollar.

Though not as extreme as The Road, there are nevertheless roaming gangs and other lawless people taking advantage of the chaos. A successful presidential candidate in the year 2032 actually has the campaign slogan “Help us to make America great again.” (20) It is not giving much away by noting that he is ultimately fairly weak and ends up defecting to Alaska himself. Butler died in 2006, but clearly she understood some sentiment among “the Deplorables.”

In spite of the political backdrop, the story itself goes beyond politics. Lauren Olamina’s California neighborhood is burned during the chaotic times. She meets and marries an older man whose story is similar to hers: His California neighborhood was also destroyed, and its survivors are on the run. She is the educated daughter of a Christian minister. He is a medical doctor.

Lauren has an unusual ability. If this were the Marvel universe, she would probably join the X-Men. She has hyperempathy syndrome. These “sharers” automatically feel what others are feeling, whether pleasure or pain. “And in spite of our vulnerability and high mortality rate, there are still a few of us,” she says. (13)

The high mortality has two causes. The intensity of pain that sharers feel can overload their nervous system. Usually, though, the mortality is caused by some of the lawless types who consider them freaks and kill them. Lauren and most of the other sharers have learned to mask their reactions.

Based on her own observations of the world, Olamina starts her own religion. She does not have the faith in God that her father or her younger brother Marcus have. All she notes is that things are always changing. She does not know if God is an entity with any kind of personality or even if he exists. Her basic creed is God is change. Her more orthodox brother reminds her that the Bible says something different: “I am the Lord, I change not” (Malachi 3:6 KJV) and “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and today and forever.” (Hebrews 13:8 KJV)

The second doctrine of what Olamina calls Earthseed is that if human beings are to survive, they are going to have to colonize other planets and other solar systems. They are the seed from earth to be sown all over the universe.

Olamina, her husband Bankole, and a group of other survivors have decided to build an Earthseed community in northern California on some property that they own. For a few years they do all right. They survive. They make a living. They are able to protect each other from marauders. Dr. Bankole occasionally is called out to nearby towns to take care of the sick and injured, so they are generally tolerated if not respected.

After about five years, their little town of Acorn (the seed for a mighty oak) is invaded and taken over by a militia group loosely affiliated with the Federal government. The people who are not killed are enslaved. The means of slavery are collars similar to the electronic collars some dog owners use to keep their pets in their yards. The collars shock people into submission but also are used by their handlers to spy on them.

A collar, my brother was saying, makes you turn traitor against your kind, against your freedom, against yourself. (131)

The invaders of Acorn have taken over their homes and buildings. The previous residents are forced to their bidding by means of the collars. Much of the tale is how the people live as slaves. It is very similar to the way slaves lived on antebellum plantations. The setting may be in the future, but slavery is slavery even if it is not based on race. Indeed, one line from the book is virtually a word-for-word quotation from a former American slave who was interviewed in the 1930s: “I’d rather blow my own brains out than wear a collar again.” (300)

Olamina also notes:

My ancestors in this hemisphere were, by law, chattel slaves. In the U. S., they were chattel slaves for two and a half centuries—at least ten generations. I used to think I knew what that meant. Now I realize that I can’t begin to imagine the many terrible things that it must have done to them. How did they survive it all and keep their humanity? Certainly, they were never intended to keep it, just as we weren’t. (270)

To allude to the title, it is impossible to imagine what talents slavery kept buried.

Even though the Constitution prohibits slavery, people are able to manipulate the law to say that the slaves are being rehabilitated. That reminds this reader of the slave labor in Communist countries from so-called re-education camps. Butler comes across as a Constitutionalist:

The Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments—the one abolishing slavery and guaranteeing citizenship rights—still exist, but they have been so weakened by custom, by Congress and the various state legislatures, and by recent Supreme Court decisions that they don’t much matter. (40)

Activist courts!

In this case, their captors justify themselves because to them Earthseed is a cult. If we note that this was published in 1998, that might not be too much of a stretch. Just a few years before in 1993, the United States government raided and destroyed a relatively harmless communal group near Waco, Texas. The so-called Branch Davidians were an offshoot of the Seventh-Day Adventists. It would not be too difficult for Butler or anyone else to imagine something like that becoming more common in the not too distant future.

The somewhat anarchic government in the early 2030s has a Christian pretext. It is not quite as ridiculous as the Gilead of The Handmaid’s Tale, and some of the more orthodox characters like Marcus realize that it is not based on a biblical model.

Indeed, while Parable of the Talents certainly shows the dangers of anarchy, it is not especially sanguine about most governments either. Marcus says, “[W]e were caught between these two groups of goddamn saviors of the poor.” (117)

How does Olamina’s vision pan out? Perhaps there are some biblical parallels. Yes, Olamina does make use of her talents and abilities as the biblical parable exhorts. But the Earthseed teaching also has a kind of heavenly hope. In this case the Celestial City is in the same universe and same dimension, if you will. The Bible promises “a new heaven and a new earth.” (Revelation 21:1, Isaiah 65:17 and 66:22, II Peter 3:13) God Himself stays the same, but he does have some changes planned.