Bruce Bello

LaShonda Carter

Writing 39B

January 31, 2017

Social Implications Regarding Sacrifice in “Bloodchild”

Most people have heard the phrase, “I would do anything to protect my family from any harm”, but to what extent is that even true? The concept of family is different for every person. Some people may consider their football team as their family, while others just include their mother, father, and siblings. The social implications needed to decide who to protect varies from person to person. In “Bloodchild”, Octavia Butler writes about an unnatural world dominated by botflies who lay their eggs inside hosts- people’s bodies- in order to provide their offspring a safe environment. Butler exemplifies the social effects of sacrifice on the human mind, especially regarding the family dynamics of love through her incorporation of a frustrated tone of the character, and a descriptive imagery within the text to create ethos in the characters and audience, while appealing pathos for the audience in order to show how a person is willing to sacrifice their well-being for their love ones.

Butler makes the use of a frustrated tone in “Bloodchild” to demonstrate family dynamics, through her use of ethos in the character. Butler develops ethos in the character by making T’Gatoi, the botfly, like a step parent figure for Gan. Based on research paper “Single parents, Extended households, and the Control of Adolescents” by Sanford M. Dornbusch depicts the social effects that a child suffers when having a step-parent. The child becomes confused because they do not how react to a person that is looking over their wellbeing, but is not technically their family by blood. There is a tension between the step-parent and the child because there is not a sense of responsibility in the child to sacrifice his wellbeing over his adoptive parent. T’Gatoi became like a stepfather figure in the family because she will give the kids presents like eggs and be around them throughout their infancy. Ethos was portrayed in a frustrated tone when Gan accused T’Gatoi that “[She] would have done it to Hoa tonight” (pg 18). Even though Gan is angry and frustrated, there is a certain authority established by T’Gatoi because he knows that Gan will not try to attack him because he is technically family. At a certain point, Gan found it “clearly hard...to let go of the rifle” (pg. 17). It demonstrates the social struggle of Dao in trying to take action to defend himself, but the family dynamics of love were shown because T’Gatoi is considered family. If he had decided to actually confront and shoot T’Gatoi, he would have been frowned upon by society for committing murder, and there would have been more social implications within himself because he would killed an individual that loved him and cared for him.      

The psychological mind of a human being is a very complex and complicated thing to understand. The mind reacts differently depending on certain circumstance, like surroundings and dangers. Based on a published paper “The effects of family structure and family process on psychological well-being of children: from children’s point of view” by Christina D, Falci, professor in sociology at the University of Nebraska- Lincoln, demonstrated that children experience different psychological effects depending on whether their guardian is their actual parent or a step-parent. Butler connotates this psychological struggle when Gan faces a difficult task in giving birth to T’Gatoi’s offspring or leaving the responsibility to his younger sibling to suffer through that event. Butler utilizes pathos to connotate Gan’s stressful situation by appealing to family bond:  “Would it be easier to know that red worms were growing in her flesh instead of mine?” Butler is triggering the emotions of her audience, especially those who have a deep connection with a loved one because they would not be able to see their love one suffering (Butler 17). They would rather take a harsh punishment, even death to save their love one. She also makes the use of harsh vivid vocabulary like “flesh” to allow the reader to picture the image of human’s skin being teared into pieces, and demonstrate the social pressure in which Gan is in. Even after knowing all the implications and problems that Gan would face, if he accepts to take T’Gatoi’s offspring, he feels like he is better prepared and adequate to sustain the punishment. If he denied the responsibility, he would not be able to have the dignity to look at his family because as an older sibling, your primary responsibility is to protect your younger siblings.           

Butler incorporated her usage of ethos and pathos into her social portrayal by developing descriptive imagery throughout her Afterword, by describing how a maggot can develop in her skin if a botfly lays eggs on her: “living maggot living and growing under my skin, eating my flesh as it grew” (Butler 21). In going into detail of the procedure in which a botfly lays its eggs on the host, Butler appeals to the audience’s sympathy. She inspires this by noting that Gan will need to go through the same procedure when T‘Gatoi is inserting the eggs on him. Even though Gan is aware of the pain and suffering of this procedure, he never accepted the idea of this actions being committed to her younger siblings. He sacrificed his physical as well as mental health in order for his siblings to live a normal life and not sustain this traumatic event in their youth. Sacrificing your own well-being is a difficult decision that a person is not willing to make for anyone. Butler connotates how Gan overcame his fears and “sort[ed] out[his] problems” in order to become a mature young man (Butler 21). The decision that Gan appealed is not an easy decision because he is sacrificing his future over his siblings. Its takes a great amount of courage and determination to inherit the responsibilities from other people especially a loved one. Based on the research paper “A difference between the inheritance of classical juvenile-onset and maturity-onset type diabetes of young people” by Mavis E. Hetherington, it describes the different actions a juvenile is willing to take as a normal teenager compared to a mature one. It resembles similar characteristic as Gan because the mature juvenile was willing to make more rational choices, but when encountered between sacrificing his health over his family, there was no thought process needed to volunteer himself. In the other hand, the normal juvenile took more time to decided which decision to make and sometimes choice his well-being over a loved one.         

 Having a choice regarding the health of a loved one is a very difficult situation to be in. Different consequences arise from the choices a person might have committed and cause psychological stress. When Gan is debating if he should either let the Botfly insert her eggs inside of her, she is giving the choice by the botfly: “You were the one making the choices tonight, Gan. I made mine long ago” (Butler 18). Gan is meditating on a life altering experience in order for her sibling to not go through that experience. Butler demonstrates the social stress by connotating the circumstance in which Gan is in by her incorporation of pathos because any person, especially with children, know how critical their choices can affect their loved ones in crucial way. A wrong choice can lead to altering the life of your children. Even though Butler did not have kinds of her own, coming from a African American working class family lead by a single mother during the 1950’s, she viewed all the choices that her mother had to take in order to sustain her and provide her with the best possibilities. It demonstrates that Butler know the social implications that are needed in order to make a hard decision. This circumstance also resembles with the research paper by professors from Princeton and Columbia University professors “Family structure, family stability, and early child wellbeing” by Terry-Ann Craigie, Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, and Jane Waldfogel who researched the psychological implications between a child in a married and divorce relationship. Even though both relationships had the same implications, the child in the married group was able to cope better with different psychological challenges than the divorce couple. These are some implications that a married couple should take into consideration before planning to divorce because it can have long term psychological effects on the child. This type of actions is resembled in the short story because T’Gatoi is technically a stepfather figure because she has provided the family with his help and developed a meaningful connection with Gan and Lien, Gan sister. Even though Gan has had a paternal figure he would cope better with the psychological struggles if his actual father was near him.  

In “Bloodchild”, Octavia introduced innovative techniques in order to exemplify the social effects in which the human mind is exposed to, especially by the family dynamics of love. Through her use of a frustrated tone and descriptive imagery that convey ethos and pathos to the characters and audience, she was able to convey a better understanding on how the psychology of the human mind allows people to consider every aspect in order to not affect a loved one, and understand the implications needed to have an impact as a reader. In the other hand, Butler had different underlying messages regarding the creation of her fantasy story. Even though she portrayed family dynamics, it functions as a therapy for Butler because she was able to overcome her fear of botflies and write about them.  To a certain extent, Bloodchild is relatable to every person because everyone has the one person that they love and willing to give their life for, but if they were challenged by a person that they respect and admire, they will face similar conflicts that Gan faced. There should be a certain boundary to which a person is willing to break in order to defend their ideology.