Dawn

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Bradford, K. Tempest (July 10, 2014). "An 'Unexpected' Treat For Octavia E. Butler Fans". NPR . Retrieved October 15, 2021.

Robyn McGee, "Octavia Butler: Soul Sister of Science Fiction", Fireweed 73. Fall 2001, pp.60 and following. Octavia E. Butler, reading her description of herself included in Parable of the Sower, during a 1994 interview with Jelani Cobb Nittle, Nadra (November 4, 2022). "Octavia Butler's middle school has been renamed in her honor". The 19th. The International Astronomical Union named a mountain on Charon (a moon of Pluto) Butler Mons to honor the author, after a public suggestion period and nomination by NASA. [83]The Pasadena City College Foundation". pasadena.edu. Pasadena City College. 2019. Archived from the original on July 8, 2019 . Retrieved April 5, 2019. Darrell Schweitzer, "Watching the Story Happen", Interzone 186 (February 2003): 21. Reprinted as "Octavia Butler" in Speaking of the Fantastic II: Interviews with the Masters of Science Fiction and Fantasy, 2004. ISBN 978-1-4344-4229-1, pp.21–36. a b Raffel, Burton. "Genre to the Rear, Race and Gender to the Fore: The Novels of Octavia E. Butler." Literary Review 38.3 (Spring 1995): 454–461. Devil Girl from Mars: Why I Write Science Fiction", Media in Transition (MIT February 19, 1998; Transcript October 4, 1998)

A World without Racism": "NPR Essay - UN Racism Conference", NPR Weekend Edition Saturday (September 1, 2001)Paul's violence against Lilith speaks to an underlying question throughout Dawn: does gender determine behavior? As Lilith learns more about Oankali life, she realizes that different genders seem to have different roles. In particular, the ooloi seem to have more power, even though the Oankali claim they are not hierarchical. Lilith herself wonders how Nikanj will change after it goes through sexual maturity: "She wondered what it would look like with its second pair of arms, what it would be like as a mature being. More like Kahguyaht? Or maybe more like Jdhaya and Tediin. How much did sex determine personality among the Oankali?" (81). She admits, however, that this is a hard question to ask, even when thinking about humans: "She shook her head. Stupid question. She did not know how much sex determined personality even among human beings" (81). Paul seems to have a different interpretation of gender and behavior than Lilith. Despite the fact that he has been living among the Oankali for a long time, he does not refer to the ooloi as "it" and instead use "him" or "her" according to that ooloi's personality. When he refers to Nikanj as a "he," Lilith corrects him: "'Nikanj isn't male. . . It's ooloi'" (87). Paul responds that Nikanj "'seem[s] male'" and that gendering the ooloi as male or female is a habit of his: "'When they woke me up, I thought the ooloi acted like men and women while the males and females acted like eunuchs. I never really lost the habit of thinking of the ooloi as male or female'" (87). Lilith thinks that Paul's way of thinking is senseless, explaining that she has "'taken their word for what they are'" (87). Nevertheless, she does seem to hold on to a sense of predetermined gender roles. She believes that Paul acted the way he did when he was alone with her because "'he has no one to teach him to be a man'" among the Oankali (99). Ultimately, it seems like characters in Butler's world understand a direct link between gender and behavior, human and Oankali alike. This is why, at the end of "Family," Kahguyaht reveals to Lilith that it used to believe that a man would be more appropriate for Lilith's upcoming role: "'I didn't want to accept you, Lilith. Not for Nikanj or for the work you'll do. I believed that because of the way human genetics were expressed in culture, a human male should be chosen to parent the first group. I think now I was wrong" (110). Interestingly, even though in our culture women are more easily thought of as parents than men, the Oankali believe that characteristics that are more "male" would better serve a parent in this context. We will see in the next sections how Lilith rises to the occasion of "parenting" the group of Awakened humans on the ship. In interviews with Charles Rowell and Randall Kenan, Butler credited the struggles of her working-class mother as an important influence on her writing. [9] [57] Because Butler's mother received little formal education herself, she made sure that young Butler was given the opportunity to learn by bringing her reading materials that her white employers threw away, from magazines to advanced books. [12] Octavia Butler profile and photos at the Huntington Library. She bequeathed her papers to the Huntington. She also encouraged Butler to write. She bought her daughter her first typewriter when she was 10 years old, and, seeing her hard at work on a story casually remarked that maybe one day she could become a writer, causing Butler to realize that it was possible to make a living as an author. [7] A decade later, Mrs. Butler would pay more than a month's rent to have an agent review her daughter's work. [12] She also provided Butler with the money she had been saving for dental work to pay for Butler's scholarship so she could attend the Clarion Science Fiction Writers Workshop, where Butler sold her first two stories. [23] Holden, Rebecca J., "The High Costs of Cyborg Survival: Octavia Butler's Xenogenesis Trilogy". Foundation: The International Review of Science Fiction 72 (1998): 49–56.