Parable of the Sower Short Summary

The book by Octavia E. Butler focuses at a time in the future. There is a girl called Lauren who lives with her family and do the usual things like practicing with the available weapons, growing food that they can eat and working to protect the space they have in earth.

Since she is hyperempathetic and is also a handicap, she keeps herself away from people. The condition was caused by the drugs that her dead mother used to take. As a result, the emotions of the people who are around her affect ow she lives.

Within the community where they live, they are used to people dying from stray bullets, suicides, eaten by animals, and killed by thieves. The walls that protect them may soon fall. However, people are still optimistic.

There is a strain on the relationship between Lauren and her family members. For example, she disagrees with Garfield when Lauren tells her what they should do to survive. Lauren is punished for what she said. When Lauren disapproves the way Keith lives, she encounters problems with Cory, her stepmother. Laurens father also mysteriously disappears from the community.

The Pyros rams their track on the gate of the house where Lauren and her family lived. The resulting fire kills people in the community. Laura and two friends who survive the light take a journey towards the north. They go through many problems, but they protect each other in a bid to escape. On the way, they collect other people who are willing to travel with them. Some of the people that accept to move with them were former slaves. Soon, they have a sizable group of people. Others are running away from the mistreatment they faced within the communities where they lived. Lauren introduces all of them on her philosophy for survival.

Among the people they travel with is a man called Bankole. Soon, a romantic attachment develops between Bankole and Lauren. Bankole says he has landed in the Humboldt County where the group can settle. Because of the hardships of the journey, some people fail to make it to the land. They find that Bankole’s family members have been killed. They are now confused if they should stay or go away. The remaining group decides to remain in the land. They grow Lauren’s Earth seed to give them hope of better things to come.