Octavia Butler’s narrative, “Bloodchild,” is the beginning story in a series of short stories Butler had published. This reader’s guide to “Bloodchild” serves as a platform to discuss the use of race and gender within the narrative. While Butler claims this text has nothing to do with race/slavery (Butler 30), it does not come off that way when read. Throughout this reader’s guide, you will find four different sections. Besides this section, that are three other sections looking more in-depth at the text.
- Primary Source Archive: What was going on around the late 60s and during the 70s when Butler wrote/published this narrative.
- Map the Convo: This section looks at 6 scholarly articles and maps out in bar graph form what the talk is about the narrative. What are the main focuses of the text that people are writing on? How does it compare to what Butler says the text is about?
- Author Interview: Here there are two written interviews Butler participated in regarding her work as a whole and more specifically, “Bloodchild.” There is also a video interview published where the interviewer asks Butler questions on her work, not just in “Bloodchild,” but in all her work.
I hope this reader’s guide serves as a means to permit you to think a little more critically on some of the heavily talked about topics critics have written about. This guide also highlights in the Primary Source Archive what was going on during the late 60s, early 70s that could possibly have influenced Butler´s writing in her narrative.
In a world ran by alien-like creatures (Tlic) where humans (Terran) live at their mercy, what acts are deemed to extreme for survival? What is it like to live at the hands of the Tlic? What role do gender norms play in a society where male Terran are expected to bear the children of female Tlic? “Bloodchild” by Octavia Butler, which has won Hugo and Nebula awards, is a story that tells the life of humans know collectively as Terrans living on a Preserve where alien-like creatures named Tlic hold control. The story itself focuses on a boy named Gan, a Terran who lives on the Preserve, and the Tlic creature, T’Gatoi, who assumes domination over Gan. Butler’s narrative has been read as a love story to some, as said by Publisher’s Weekly review of the short story. Publisher’s Weekly notes in their review that the narrative “… is a compelling and horrifying novella combining a love story between a human and an alien with a coming-of-age tale; it is, as Butler puts it, a ‘pregnant man story’.” Publisher’s Weekly is not the only one to think it is a story on love. The Kirkus Review notes it as a “relationship of mutual dependence, even love.” and the Nashville Public Library notes it as a symbiotic relationship. However, can a story such as “Bloodchild,” one where one group reigns over another and forces the male Terran to reproduce with female Tlic, really be noted as being a love story?
On another note, when we have one group that has control over another, how can the discussion of race and slavery not be brought up? Octavia Butler writes in the Afterword of “Bloodchild” that this story has nothing to do with race. However, critics such as Nicholas Whyte see the story with a foundation of race and gender. He writes, “it is a story about slavery or about slavery combined with gender exploitation.” Greatly comparable to the “relationship” between a master and the women they enslave, Gan is forced into the actions of reproducing by T’Gatoi, almost always against his will. Critic Erica Eller writes in her review, “her stories also invite interpretation as visions that potentially detail the relationship of a black, or Western, ‘alien society’.” The narrative, though, while Butler may deny it, is made up with one of the themes as race.
Lastly, not only does “Bloodchild” indirectly discuss race, but it also focuses on the subject of gender roles. What is considered male? Female? Butler uses this text, as she explains, as her pregnant man story (Butler 30), however, she does not just directly exchange gender roles. In the way she writes, the gender roles that we are accustomed to, male/female, are out the window, so to say, as she writes gender within the narrative in a more fluid manner. Whyte writes, “T’Gatoi combines roles which are (in our own society) masculine (leading politician) and feminine (protecting the humans from over-exploitation by her own kind).”
On a final note, Butler’s use of race and gender within the narrative is not only a topic that was pertinent in the 1960s/1970s, but one that is still problematic today. The rest of the reader’s guide will go more in-depth on the uses of race and gender within “Bloodchild.” Whyte writes, “gender and race are more consciously present in her writing than in most literature.” Now, as you proceed through this guide, keep the idea of race and the use of gender fluidity in your mind. How do these two elements shape the story? Do you think one of the two topics can be discussed without the other? Are they intersecting topics?
Bloodchild 