83 pages • 2 hours read
Parable of the Sower
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 20-22Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 20 Summary
With shots, explosions, and fire in the distance, the group agrees to forego rest and keep pushing on. Lauren uses an earring radio she took from one of their attackers and finds out that they must avoid the Bay Area, where the quake hit especially hard and spurred chaos. They decide to leave US 101 and circle around.
After resting, Lauren awakens to the sound of gunfire. One group is chasing another, and a fire is burning in the distance. A truck explodes and ends the fight. Bankole has disappeared. She and Harry go searching for him, but he soon finds them. He has an orphaned, three-year-old child with him. Later, Lauren kisses him.
The young boy, Justin, chooses Allie as a substitute mother. Jill explains that Allie had a child, but their father beat the boy to death. She says they burned their own house down to escape, but she still worries that he’ll follow them, even though his drinking means he would never make it that far alive.
Chapter 21 Summary
The group passes the San Luis Reservoir. Finding a campsite, they’re able to rest, and Lauren talks with Bankole. She tells him about Earthseed because she needs to know if he’ll laugh at it. He says he’s not religious and compares her religion to Buddhism, existentialism, and Sufism. Lauren explains that she wants her community “to learn to shape God with forethought” (266). Bankole says he thinks it sounds too simple—Earthseed should be more mystical and more comforting. He wants to know how serious she is about Earthseed, and she explains that it is everything she is.
Bankole tells Lauren about his wife, who died five years ago when people broke into their home and beat her. He had also lived in a walled community in San Diego and had stayed because he didn’t know what else to do. Like Lauren, he left when intruders burned all the houses down and killed the people. Lauren guesses that he is a doctor. She thinks he is lying to her about his destination; she believes he isn’t just wandering and is headed somewhere. However, she wants him to stay with her.
When Lauren starts Zahra’s reading lesson, Jill and Allie join in. Afterward, Lauren reads them some Earthseed verses and some of the others help explain the philosophy to the new people.
Chapter 22 Summary
It is September. The group has been walking for a week, past the city of Sacramento along I-5. I-5 is a grim stretch of road with more bones, dogs, and children who are cannibals. Bankole asks Lauren to leave the group with him to go to his safe haven, a property where his sister and her family live. It turns out he owns 300 acres of land with wells in a difficult-to-access area.
She wants to go with him, but she is devoted to Earthseed. He replies, “I know my rival” (280), and she gets angry when he talks to her about it with amusement. She wants to start her community. Bankole says she wants him to take them all off the street so that they can start a church. He says they can all settle at his place and that he intends to marry her, which surprises her.
Lauren tells him about her hyperempathy. He has read about it and thought that it wouldn’t be bad if people had to also endure the pain they cause others, but Lauren disagrees. She wants him to know that if he feels pain, the pain might disable her as well. She asks if he still wants to marry her, and he laughs: “Do you imagine for one minute, girl, that I would let you get away?” (283).
Chapters 20-22 Analysis
The group’s trials in the wilderness continue as they witness people participating in cannibalism and learn that the entire San Francisco Bay Area is off-limits due to the earthquake. This is another real-life contemporary danger that Butler highlights in the novel—San Francisco was leveled by a devastating earthquake in 1906, so the destruction in the Bay Area in Parable of the Sower evokes that historical event, the deadliest earthquake in US history. This earthquake occurred along the San Andreas fault, which runs 750 miles through California and the Pacific Northwest. A high-magnitude earthquake along this fault line—a prospect often called “The Big One”—is considered a real risk, and the consequences would be devastating. This is one way that Butler uses verisimilitude to add weight to her speculative plot.
The group gains one more member in these chapters—Justin, a three-year-old boy. His presence as such a young child inspires hope among the group members as a tangible representation of the future. Justin’s appearance alongside Bankole’s reveal about owning 300 acres of land with clean water creates a hopeful tone, as there seems to be an end in sight for the group’s exodus. Lauren dreams of establishing Earthseed on this land, reinforcing the theme of Religion as a Living Framework for Hope and Change. The idea of community—one built upon hope and sharing—is beginning to coalesce and become more tangible. However, like the story of Exodus, the group is not yet out of the woods and will endure more trials before reaching their promised land.
Unlock all 83 pages of this Study GuidePlus, gain access to 8,800+ more expert-written Study Guides.
Including features:
Related Titles
By Octavia E. Butler
