Do a “close reading” by finding 2 sentences that tell us we are in a different world than the “realist” one we know. Write the two sentences at the beginning of your post and write two chunky paragraphs about them. Why are these sentences particularly significant in helping the reader to begin to put together the world of Dawn?

choose two from the following quotes

“There was no visible speakers of any kind, just as there was no spot from which the light originated. The entire ceiling seemed to be a speaker and a light..”

“It’s wrong to assume that I must be a sex you are familiar with, but as it happens I am male.” 

“… in an edible bowl that would disintegrate if she emptied it and did not eat it”

“from a number of other worlds”

“Cloth! A folded mound of clothing. She snatched it up, dropped it in her eagerness, picked it up
again and began putting it on.”

“…her hand touched the long scar across her abdomen. She had
acquired it somehow between her second and third Awakenings, had examined it fearfully, wondering
what had been done to her.”

“Food continued to appear mysteriously when she napped. Water still flowed from the bathroom faucets. The light still shone. But beyond that, there was nothing, no one, no sound unless she made it, no object with which to amuse herself. There were only her bed and table platforms. These would not come up from the floor, no matter how she abused them. Stains quickly faded and vanished from their surfaces.”

“Unconcerned, her captors began a complex new series of questions and exercises.”

the reading is a book called dawn by lillth brood

Write two chunky paragraphs about the following:

1. Find one sentence in Dawn in Part II or III that you believe is especially illuminating in terms of Butler’s construction of an alien culture in Dawn. Quote the sentence and write a paragraph about how this sentence tells us something important and complicated about the Oankali.

2. What is the most interesting and complex representation of aliens you have encountered in your lifetime? It could be a TV show, a film, a piece of fiction…any cultural form in which aliens are represented. Find out the date your representation of aliens was created, include the date, and write a few sentences about why you find this representation of aliens especially significant.

“Lilith saw that the plant was beginning to open, and suddenly she knew what was happening.”

They didn’t have enough of us to make a fair trade… They didn’t have enough for the Taoht. They had to make more.”

you can pick from one of the two quotes