Impact of Simple Sentences in Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower

A small look at how the simple prose style of Parable of the Sower helps it be such an impactful book.

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There isn’t any need to talk at length about the social commentary and future predicting of Parable of the Sower. Most reviews of the book focus on that aspect above all else. And now, just like in 2016, Parable of the Sower’s hauntingly accurate portrayal of our current times is taking its moment again on the stage. What many of these analyses and articles often brush past is how absolutely simple the prose is in the novel. In the introduction written by Toshi Reagon to the 2016 reprint of the sequel, the simple “plain human speak” of Parable of the Talents is praised, but I was not able to find any mention of the plain and indescriptive language and writing style that appears in the first book:

“I’m going to go through my old journals and gather the verses I’ve written into one volume.”

“I found an old canteen and a plastic bottle both for water, and I resolved to keep them clean and full.”

“Someone had cut and burned away most of my brother’s skin. Everywhere except his face…It could have been dumped in one of the canyons and only the dogs would have found it.” (Butler Parable of the Sower)

None of the above sentences are overly complex, descriptive, or even showing of the world. They are long, overly explanatory. Declarative with minimal adjectives and an unlyrical almost reflective nature: “A team I wasn’t with found a living child being eaten by dogs. The team killed the dogs, then watched, helpless as the boy died. I spoke at services this morning. Maybe it was my duty. I don’t know.” (Butler Parable of the Sower)

But the sentences lack of style doesn’t mean they don’t carry power. I think because of how simple and out of the way the sentences, language, and prose are that people can see the power in Butler’s story. If the novel was written in a more descriptive or literary way, then I think readers would be to enthralled or distracted by the story. We’d lose such direct simple, powerful lines as:

“Talk about classes. Not Armageddon.” (Butler Parable of the Sower)

When encountering simple direct prose, it keeps the reader from having to push through dense text. It keeps them engaged and allows the theme and lessons of the story to lodge deep in the readers’ minds.

Reading through Butler’s interviews, looking at her notes and journals to herself, a reader unfamiliar with her work would think she wrote descriptive and lush prose. She told herself in red and blue marker large font: “Make People Touch and Taste and KNOW. Make People FEEL! FEEL! FEEL!” (Estate of Octavia E. Butler). While reading Parable of the Sower, I don’t know if I felt anything. I though the book had many radical ideas and theories about how community saves and ways of building community. I had a lot of brain and intellectual feelings, but there was no part that I felt like I was touching or tasting or knowing the world.

I had the same feeling when I read Butler’s other most popular book, Kindred. It was one of the first books I read by her and after hearing everything that people had said about her being a great writer, I expected a book with prose that would knock me out in its style. Instead, Butler’s power lies in how simple and mentally expansive her writing and themes are. It is her ideas carried out in her simple sentences that makes her work so captivating for readers.