I’ve read this book countless times for class assignments, and I’ve developed a lot of thoughts on Lauren’s development, Acorn. ****This will contain spoilers and I don’t know how to censor them lol.****
When I read this for the first time, it was in my 8th grade english class, at a Catholic school, in 2020. pretty crazy circumstances to read that book under. anyways, onto Acorn.
the way earthseed was created left a funny taste in my mouth each time i read it. she essentially just branched off of what her father was teaching her and applied it to her life in a new way, which believe it or not, is the way religion is supposed to be perceived- it’s not meant to be taken seriously, but instead, taken as messages you can translate to your own morals and life. she went across the country and recruited people for a rebranded catholicism in my eyes. she gave them something “new” to believe in, but what she was giving them wasn’t something or anything you wouldn’t hear by going to sunday services. and when she created her settlement, Acorn, in the midst of all the chaos and evil occurring in the world around her, it didn’t fix anything. at all. it’s like shooting someone against a wall and putting up a painting to hide the blood splatters. acorn only really provided a blanket of relief, because with the way the world was headed in PotS, no amount of nothing could truly fix the damage done to the earth- it was well beyond repair, including any repair people may believe that a religion and God could fix. we see how the evil still exists outside of acorn when the people come and attack and try to harm the people at the settlement. just by having a group of likeminded individuals doesn’t ensure safety for the rest of the world. and by creating her own religion too, it kind of goes against what she stood for when she defied her fathers religion. and personally, i am highly against the colonization of other planets. if you destroy one planet and move onto the next because the one you fucked up is now inhabitable, the cycle is just going to repeat itself for however many years until all the humans just die off and there’s no more life, and the solar system is just existing.
don’t get me wrong, Octavia Butler was a genius when it came to the parallels she was able to create, but in my opinion, Acorn and Earthseed didn’t fix anything.
by yuor-angle