Bloodchild

1.     My first reaction to Octavia Butler’s Bloodchild was discomfort. I mean, egg implantation and alien worm creature are never my idea of a story that is a joy to read. However, it did make me think though, and I feel like getting people uncomfortable to this story is why it exists and why it can make a difference. It makes the reader relate to people who have been in a situation that they cannot control, such as rape victims. These kinds of things are real serious business, and I appreciated the different take on it. It took me a while to really figure out what the author meant with the different species of aliens though. I also still do not have a clear idea on what T’Gaoti looks like. The author starts by describing their relationship first, so it made it a bit difficult to get a clear idea in my head. I also wasn’t clear that the narrator was a boy. The tones about impregnation led me to think of the narrator as a girl, and I wasn’t sure about the name Liam. I was also still trying to figure out the made up vocabulary for this story that was never explained, and what the difference between the species was.

2.     I connected this story to a rape story, and nothing gets me more upset than rape. I feel like as a woman, it’s one of the worst things you can experience and it’s taken lightly by so many people. I think its good that this story can make people think a bit more about rape and to take it a bit more seriously. Being held against one’s will and being expected to like it is inhumane. I suppose that is what this author was going for. But the narrator in the end accepts it, and many people in real life do. Maybe this story would inspire someone to sympathize more with people. I also connected this story with sex education. The story itself calls the “birth” as a “private thing”. It brings forth the point that maybe exposure to such horrendous things such as rape and how one would protect themselves would help stop it (or at least get it taken seriously). I think that sex education in the US is extremely lacking, especially when many men do not understand how female anatomy works. With education and sympathy, we could change this world to a much better place.

3.     If I had to adapt this story to another medium, it would have to be a short live action movie. I would make it as graphic as possible to really get the point across. With such a delicate subject, it makes for a great horror story. I also think to adapt this, there also must be more exploration into this setting. I would have to figure out what the Reservation looked like, and what this alien planet that humans could live on would be. The story does not really describe what kind of technology these people live with as in most future sci-fi, so visual exploration is essential. Since this piece is already very discomforting, the key to success is probably to accentuate this as much as possible.