Contemplating and Contesting Violence in Dystopia: Violence in Octavia Butler's XENOGENESIS Trilogy
Titel:
Contemplating and Contesting Violence in Dystopia: Violence in Octavia Butler's XENOGENESIS Trilogy
Auteur:
Braid, Christina
Verschenen in:
Contemporary justice review
Paginering:
Jaargang 9 (2006) nr. 1 pagina's 47-65
Jaar:
2006-03
Inhoud:
This paper considers the modern understanding of violence—its complexities, realities, and subtleties—in the context of Octavia Butler's science fiction trilogy, XENOGENESIS. The first part presents a general discussion of violence and dystopia in a modern context, with a brief overview of the trilogy's plot. The second section briefly defines the ethical dissimilarities between the story's Humans and aliens, studying the explicit and implicit manifestations and regulations of violence in and between each community, while paying particular attention to the subtly coercive violence managed by the dominating, yet ostensibly benevolent, alien Oankali race. In Butler's problematizing of “easy” utopian strategies for eliminating violence, the dystopian trilogy poses a relevant challenge to justice today, raising important questions: Why do we still turn to violence as an answer to conflict? Why do we confuse calculated pretenses of justice in which violence hides itself—that is, forms of authority that underlie self-serving motives of the state, which are sometimes mimicked by its citizens—with the incalculability of justice? The third and final section reflects on the importance of the challenges of XENOGENESIS in light of justice today.
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