Iliana Chavez 

Cassie Dowd

Writing 39B

11 February 2019 

“Bloodchild” RA Final Draft

Octavia Butler, in 1984, wrote the speculative fiction short story “Bloodchild”. Butler argues that two opposite species-- Tlic and Terrans depend on each other for survival. She conveys her argument by using symbolism, irony, and disturbing imagery. Butler inserts  symbolism through symbols to portray love, compromise, partnership, and a prolonged life. Irony is brought through with the idea of men giving birth rather than woman. Finally, her disturbing imagery is shown in the Lomas scene. She does so in order to appeal to science fiction readers to challenge their minds on gender role reversal during the new wave where speculative fiction and gender equality were the invested works of the world at the time. 

Octavia Butler makes it clear that the Terrans depend on the Tlic for protection and survival through her use of symbolism. The scenes in the beginning of her short story support the claim she identifies because we notice that T’Gatoi comforts Gan as much as she can so that he feels protected. This makes me realize that from the beginning, T’Gatoi being the one to honor Lien’s family takes full advantage knowing Gan is the one that is going to provide the offsprings for her so she comforts Gan as best as she can. The symbolism of the “body heat” creates a symbol of love and tension: “T’Gatoi liked our body heat and took advantage of it whenever she could” (Butler 1). As love is being given from T'Gatoi, a tension is rising between Lein, Gan's mother, and T'Gatoi because she almost functions as Gan's second mother. She has taken over the role of a “mother” because in the real world, the mother is the one to provide tender, love, and care to their biological children. 

Another way in which symbolism is implied is from the eggs. The eggs in this short story symbolize a prolonged life and rebirth. These eggs work as the carriers for life. In the beginning of “Bloodchild,” Lien doesn't want to eat the egg that T’Gatoi brings for her family to consume. Butler writes,

I lay against T’Gatoi’s long, velvet underside, sipping from my egg now and then, wondering why my mother denied herself such a harmless pleasure. Less of her hair would be gray if she indulged now and then. The eggs prolonged life, prolonged vigor. My father, who had never refused one in his life, had lived more than twice as long as he should have (Butler 1).

It was rare that Lien would not want to eat something that only sounds quite beneficial for her health and life in the long run. If they consumed these eggs, their life would be longer and they would be healthy. This foreshadows oppression in the beginning when Butler describes how Gan and Lien are taken hold of by T’Gatoi since she is government official in charge of the Preserve who honors their family and gives them the sterile eggs to consume.

She insisted that I eat the other one alone. It didn’t matter. There was still enough to leave everyone feeling good. Almost everyone. My mother wouldn’t take any (Butler 1). 

Lien resisted on eating them because the idea of her son being the carrier of T’Gatoi’s offspring disgusted her. T’Gatoi would enforce for Gan to eat them because she wanted his life to be prolonged so that he would be healthy and carry her offspring. A healthy Terran would be the best option for a Tlic.

 The gun in the short story is a symbol of compromise. The gun belonged to Gan’s father and was being hidden because it was against the law to have it. The symbolism of compromise resembles through the past incident that had occured of “Terrans shooting Tlic, shooting N’Tlic”, the gun was so full of power and rebellion because Gan still took out the gun even though  “Firearms were illegal in the Preserve” (Butler 7). Octavia Butler finds this act of rebellion extraordinary to know that although Gan was a child, he felt he had the power to take out the gun and use it against his life. Gan knew he was going to be the one to provide the offspring to T’Gatoi, but after he saw exactly what he was going to go through, he told T’Gatoi he was going to kill himself. Butler writes, “It would not have occurred to them to go out with a knife or gun to do that, you know” especially since it was against the law, but Gan still did (Kenan 497). T’Gatoi then made him aware that even if he did, his sister Hoa would have to go through it. Gan decides not to shoot himself because he does not want his sister to go through that horrific impregnation and this resembles a symbolism of sacrifice. 

She grasped the rifle barrel, but I wouldn’t let go. I was pulled into a standing position over her.

“Leave it here!” I repeated. “If we’re not your animals, if these are adult things, accept the risk. There is risk, Gatoi, in dealing with a partner.”

I will implant the first egg tonight,” she said as I put the gun away. “Do you hear, Gan?”

Why else had I been given a whole egg to eat while the rest of the family was left to share one? Why else had my mother kept looking at me as though I were

going away from her, going where she could not follow? Did T’Gatoi imagine I hadn’t known? (Butler 17-18)

Gan came to the agreement to listen to T’Gatoi and do as she orders because he didn’t want his sister to go through what he was planned on going through as the chosen one for the impregnation the whole time. The gun was used as a symbol of the agreement that T’Gatoi and Gan has between each other his whole life. Gan’s love toward his sister is strong. When someone loves someone, they sacrifice anything for them out of love and protection. Butler appeals to pathos and allows the reader to create emotions and see the love Gan has toward his sister. All in all, both the gun and egg were symbols of partnership since they both brought together the Tlic and Terran in some way.  

Through the use of irony, Butler challenges her readers to rethink gender roles. She is most ironic in the scene where Lomas is giving birth to the Tlic. In this story, the male body is sacrificed. Butler writes, “she opened him [and] I had never heard such sounds come from anything human” (Butler 9). When a female is giving birth, she will moan and grunt in pain from her pregnancy contractions. It is ironic that a male is giving birth in this scene rather than a female. We as humans realize that “the image of the female penetrating the male and impregnating him clearly complicates the traditional gendering of sexual imagery” because in actual life, it is only natural for women to be pregnant and give birth (Helford 264). A reversal of gender roles is the obvious irony. Gan watches the impregnation scene of Lomas that went wrong, and he automatically is horrified from it. He is the boy who is chosen by his own mother to be impregnated and carry T’Gatoi’s offspring. I found it ironic how T’Gatoi worried about Gan being too skinny. As Gan was laying against T’Gatoi, he was “hearing her complain as usual that [he] was too skinny (Butler 1). In an article, Stephen W. Potts states, “The alien needs the boy for procreation, and she makes it easier on him by showing him affection and earning his in return. After all, she is going to have her children with him” (Potts 332).  T’Gatoi already knew that Gan was the selected one by his mother to carry her offspring. She needed for Gan to be healthy and well nourished while he carries her offspring so that the pregnancy could go well. This brings to a realization that T’Gatoi gave all the attention, love, and care to Gan because she made sure to take care of him by feeding him and providing all this sort of attention so he could be physically and mentally healthy. 

 Another way that gender is revisioned is through her disturbing imagery of the Lomas giving birth scene. The story presents a “depiction of men suffering the pains of childbearing (and when "birth” means removing grubs from around your internal organs, the pain can be intense)” (Helford 263-264). The impregnation of a man already sounds so intense, and Octavia Butler  allows the reader to visualize the scene from their own perspective. We get an image of Gan’s reaction when he saw that “Lomas was unconscious again, [he] stared at Lomas in panic, realizing that [he] did not want to touch him, let alone hold him” (Butler 8). This treatment is similar to a woman preparing for pregnancy. When a woman is going through this, she begins to have contractions and goes through excruciating pain depending on whether the pregnancy is well or not. Lomas seemed to be in a bad situation and we realize that the pregnancy most likely went wrong. This causes Gan to feel like the pregnancy he’ll go through when he carries the offspring will be this painful and horrific. We can tell that Lomas was in extreme pain because he “began to groan and make choked sounds” (Butler 8). We can imagine an extremely rare image of a pregnant man giving birth and having painful contractions that result in him making loud unpleasant noises. Through Butler’s use of imagery, we are able to visualize the horrific impregnation of Lomas. Seeing the destruction of a man’s body changes the way we think about the same thing happening to a woman’s body. This is because after birth, a woman’s body changes. Woman are left with scars and stretchmarks, causing them to feel insecure of their own bodies. On the other hand, men don’t have to worry about going through those body changes. Women experience more pain than men do. 

Octavia Butler’s style reflects her determination to allow the reader to realize that there are horrific and unnecessary events that happen in life and to allow us to enter a world where two interdependent species rely on each other for survival. The attention that the Tlic would give the Terrans was out of love so that they could live a healthy life and carry an offspring for the Tlic. The symbolism portrays ways in which the Terran and Tlic depend on each other for survival, the eggs and gun brought the two species together to create partnership. The reversal of gender roles is shown through Gan and T’Gatoi. We realize that the man’s body is sacrificed rather than the woman’s body. Men giving birth rather than woman is ironic because in the real world, only woman give birth, but in “Bloodchild” this is a huge gender role reversal. It switches because Gan is the chosen one to be the carrier of T’Gatoi’s offspring. Her use of imagery on the Lomas giving birth scene allows the reader to have an image of a man who is going through a horrific birth/pregnancy. This allows science fiction readers to become fixed on gender role reversal during the new wave. Focusing on speculative fiction, it was Gan being the carrier for T’Gatoi’s offspring. 

Works Cited 

Butler, Octavia. Bloodchild . boblyman.net/englt392/texts/bloodchild.pdf.

Helford, Elyce Rae. “‘Would You Really Rather Die than Bear My Young?": The Construction of Gender, Race, and Species in Octavia E. Butler's ‘Bloodchild.’” African American Review, vol. 28, no. 2, 1994, pp. 259–271.
I feel this source would be useful for my paper because it provides information regarding
the reversal of gender roles. (Page 263-264) In “Bloodchild”, the male body is sacrificed.
“Female Tlic dominate in this alien culture; males fill a passive, primarily reproductive
function” (265). T’Gatoi, the female from the government was the chosen one to honor
Lien’s children/family. Throughout the events in “Bloodchild” Gan becomes aware that
he is the chosen one to honor T’Gatoi. As stated in the text, Gan “becomes increasingly
aware of the way humans are controlled and used by the Tlic” (265).
Kenan, Randall. “An Interview With Octavia E. Butler.” Callaloo, vol. 14, no. 2, 1991,
pp. 495–504.
I feel this source may be useful for my paper because Butler brings up how in earlier
science fiction “there tended to be a lot of conquest”. So, the Terrans whom are
“displaced people” are being protected by the Tlic. As long as the Terrans
produce offspring for the Tlic, they will receive protection from the Tlic as well. They
both depend on each other for survival, and from my understanding, this source has a
passage to support my idea I observed in “Bloodchild”. The idea that both Terrans and
Tlic depend on each other for survival in two different and unusual ways.

Stephen W. Potts, and Octavia E. Butler. “‘We Keep Playing the Same Record’: A Conversation with Octavia E. Butler.” Science Fiction Studies, vol. 23, no. 3, 1996, pp. 331–338.
I feel this source may be useful for my paper because as I read the dialogue in the
conversation, I start to observe the way Octavia Butler is as a writer. She does not really
appreciate how people who do not fully read “Bloodchild” try and make their
interpretation of what meaning she is making out of it. She provides good information
such as “The alien needs the boy for procreation, and she makes it easier on him by
showing him affection and earning his in return.” So, I feel like that would be useful to
my paper since I did observe T’Gatoi showing Gan affection since he was the chosen one for T’Gatoi.