Help me make sense of the themes in Octavia Butler’s books
I am mainly seeking a response from those who have read more than just her most popular books, like the Parable series and Kindred.
I have now read through almost all of her books: Kindred, Parable of the Sower, Parable of the Talents, Dawn, Imago, Adulthood Rites, Wild Seed, Mind of my Mind.
I recently had to stop about 1/3 of the way through Clay’s Ark because I am so sick and tired and unsettled by the persistence of certain themes in her works. In almost all of her works you will find lots of: pedophilia and grooming, age-gap relationships, rape, incest, and human breeding.
WHY??? Especially in the Lilith’s Brood and Patternist series, why are the books so focused on these disgusting sexual themes? And the worst part is that I can’t seem to tell if she is making a critique/argument against these things or if she’s just normalizing them. The main characters you’re supposed to like end up buying into and often enjoying these dynamics of rape and forced breeding and incest. These books would seem to be a wet dream for a sexual predator. What am I missing?
I thought Clay’s Ark was finally going to be different until the family arrived to the secluded village with the mysterious alien illness and the two 16 year old daughters get gifted to older men to be bred. I stopped reading the book once the daughters started to like and crave the idea of their captors.
Help me understand!