Subject: __Xenogenesis Trilogy__ by Octavia E. Butler Review

From: [email-masked] (cb52)
Date: 21 May 93 02:10:12 GMT

The Xenogenesis Trilogy:
        DAWN, ADULTHOOD RITES, IMAGO by Octavia E. Butler
                           [Spoilers]

                   Review by C. Douglas Baker

     The most striking aspect of Butler's Xenogenesis Trilogy is
the highly imaginative and unique character of the aliens she
introduces to the reader.  The Oankali are a powerful race whose
overriding drive is to collect, acquire and combine with other
life forms.  The Oankali literally absorb other life forms,
assimilating it to serve their purposes.  This never ending
acquisition and absorption of life implicitly should lead to a
near-perfect being.

     The Oankali are a study in contrasts.  While they do not
kill or destroy life and are physically passive they are highly
coercive and catastrophic to other life forms.  For example, they
force the human population to choose between sterilization and
extinction or "gene trading" (i.e. cross-breeding) and becoming
part of the Oankali community.  The price for the first option is
total extinction, eventually.  The price of the second is the
same, with the caveat that the individuals who accept the Oankali
will live a long and more comfortable life and part of their
genetic make-up will live on, just not in a completely human
form.  Another example of the coercive nature of the Oankali is
the ooloi ability to chemically and psychologically bind their
mates and humans to them.  While this process also binds the
ooloi to their mates, the mates are not always given a choice in
the matter.  That Jodahs' mates in _Imago_ seem to happily accept
their fate (eventually) makes it no less coercive. The Oankali
also intend to leave Earth a lifeless void after their living
ships have absorbed and digested the useful resources of the
planet.  Effectively, the Oankali have expropriated Earth for
their own benefit.  Does human destruction of the earth through
nuclear devices give the Oankali the moral legitimacy to take the
planet and the survival of the species from them?  As with
situations where humans interact with one another--"might makes
right".  

     The dichotomy of the human reaction to the Oankali is also
intriguing (most fully explored in _Adulthood Rites_). 
Individual humans must make a choice between two unattractive
alternatives.  They can either fight the Oankali and be made
sterile and become extinct or cross-breed with the Oankali and
still become extinct but allow the human gene to perpetuate
itself through half-Oankali, half-human "constructs".  Neither
option seems particularly appealing to any of the characters. 
Those humans who chose to live and trade with the Oankali, like
Tino, do so resignedly.  They realize that there is nothing they
can do to stop the Oankali from eliminating the human species and
creating a new one, so they acquiesce.  These humans, like
Lilith, help shape this new species and provide it some human
qualities.  Other humans will fight, die and become extinct
before allowing these alien predators to eradicate what is left
of humanity.  The reader feels empathetic to both points of view. 
It is not till the end of _Adulthood Rites_ that humans are
allowed the more promising, if not ideal choice of colonizing and
reproducing the human species on Mars.  By then it is too late
for humans who have chosen Oankali mates to join them.

     The most tragic character and personification of the
contrasts enumerated above is Lilith.  She is looked upon with
venom and hatred by the "resisters" or humans who have refused
the Oankali trade because she seems, to them, to be a traitor to
the human race.  She had little choice in the role she eventually
played in preparing them to depart the Oankali ship and survive
on earth.  It was Lilith who accepted her role of training humans
so she could prepare them to fight and resist the Oankali once on
earth.  Lilith was not even given a choice, as were others, in
participation in the gene trade with Oankali.  Nikanj impregnated
her without her knowledge and she chose the life of her child
over rejection of the Oankali.  As a result of this decision,
Lilith gives the human species another chance.  Her son, Akin,
was responsible for securing the right of humans to relocate to
Mars to begin anew and have a second chance.  He convinces the
Oankali to allow humans to colonize Mars and perpetuate their
species despite the Oankali reluctance and disagreement with the
premise of this decision.  Further, had it not been for Lilith's
humanizing influence on him this may have never occurred.  It
also becomes clear that Lilith never fully comes to accept what
the Oankali have wrought. Tragically, she laments her lost
opportunity to be part of the human colony on Mars, which would
have been most suited to her personality and abilities.  Lilith
is forcibly detached from the human race, permanently.

     The most irritating aspect of the trilogy is the Oankali
contention that the key genetic conflict of humans is
"intelligence at the service of hierarchial behavior" (p. 225
ar).  The Oankali maintain the following traits are a result of
this conflict:

     1.   Competition for mates and property (p. 73, _Imago_).
     2.   Intolerance of difference in others of their species
          (p. 186, _Imago).
     3.   Inclination towards violence.
     4.   Domination.
     5.   Competition with and killing of other life (p. 42
          _Imago_).
     6.  Eventual self-destruction.

Nowhere does Butler explain how "hierarchy" produces such
results.  Hierarchy is defined by Webster's Dictionary as "a
graded or ranked series".  In social arrangements, hierarchy
simply means that one person or group have greater decision
making ability over another.  While this certainly includes
situations where coercion, violence, discrimination, or
domination of one group over another exits, it does not
necessarily follow that a hierarchial arrangement contains these
elements.  Does a "graded or ranked series" or an hierarchial
social arrangement inherently contain the elements enumerated
above?  Of course not.  

     What Butler does not seem to recognize is that the Oankali
themselves have a hierarchial arrangement.  It is made very
clear, especially in _Imago_, that the ooloi or third Oankali
gender are the dominant group in Oankali society.  They are able
to use their abilities to psychologically and chemically
manipulate males and females.  Even though the results may (or
may not) be benign, the manner in which Jodahs attains human
mates in _Imago_ is through coercion.  They are not given a
choice.  Another example is Nikanj's impregnation of Lilith
without her knowledge.  Additionally, the ooloi also clearly have
a greater influence on the so called Oankali "consensus" or
decision making process because their capabilities give them
special insights that the other sexes do not have.  All these
abilities make the ooloi dominant over others.  Ergo, the Oankali
are hierarchial.

     While this may be pretentious, I feel Butler has used the
wrong word for her "conflict".  She could have used the word
domination.  To dominate means "to exert the supreme determining
or guiding influence on; control".  "Intelligence at the service
of domination [of others, including other life forms]" would have
made Butler's argument more cogent.  The human drive to dominate
others does seem to lead to the above results.  The key here is
that domination of one group over others is inherently
hierarchial.  Whereas hierarchy does not inherently imply
domination.  Any group or species could, given the ability to
communicate like the Oankali, come to a consensus that
hierarchial arrangements in decision making or social structure
are best for the whole.  But even using the term "domination" in
place of "hierarchy" would ignore the fact the Oankali dominate
and expropriate other life forms, including humans, for their own
benefit.  While the Oankali through their consensual decision
making are unlikely to destroy themselves as a species, they
clearly have the potential, ability, and willingness, to
eradicate other species.

     Which leads to one final contrast presented in the trilogy. 
The Oankali view life at its most basic level.  They do not view
the extinction of the human species negatively because they have
taken what is best in human genetic structure and combined it
with theirs to maximize and perpetuate what is good in human
genes.  Therefore, the good aspects of the human species will
live on in perpetuity.  No real destruction of life forms has
taken place.  They have just been absorbed into something new. 
Humans, by contrast, destroy life and each other.  Humans kill--
the Oankali do not. Humans drive other species to extinction with
nothing new to replace or perpetuate its inherently good
qualities.  And in Xenogenesis, humans have already attempted to
destroy themselves.  Maybe they do not deserve a second chance.  

%T Dawn
%A Octavia E. Butler
%C New York
%D 1987
%I Popular Library
%G ISBN 0-445-20779-5 (paperback)
%P 248

%T Adulthood Rites
%A Octavia E. Butler
%C New York
%D 1988
%I Popular Library
%G ISBN 0-445-20903-8 (paperback)
%P 277

%T Imago
%A Octavia E. Butler
%C New York
%D 1989
%I Popular Library
%G ISBN 0-445-20977-1 (paperback)
%P 220

C. DOUGLAS BAKER
Email: [email-masked]