One of the young people living in Acorn, Dan, wanted to find his two sisters. They trucks were useful for commerce and for searching for the lost family members of people in the community. Acorn was successful enough to afford two trucks that included guns for defense. They grew the community and started to build a commercial business buying goods from their neighbors for resale. At the end of Parable of the Sower, Lauren, her husband Bankole, and the rest of the Earthseed Community decided to remain on Bankole’s land and build their community. The Story of AcornĪcorn was the first Earthseed community. We learn early her disdain for Earthseed, and her belief that her mother chose Earthseed over her.

It is clear from the beginning of the book that Larkin did not grow up with Lauren. We learn what happened to Earthseed through Lauren’s journal, with reflection and details added by Larkin. While the first book, Parable of the Sower, is told by Lauren, Parable of the Talents is told by her daughter Larkin. The collars serve a logistical purpose of making it impossible for the enslaved to fight back, but because they are visible, they function as a shaming symbol of subjugation as Lauren explains, “I’ve heard that some collared people kill themselves, not because they can’t stand the pain, but because they can’t stand the degree of slavishness to which they find themselves descending” (81).Parable of the Talents is the second and final book in the Earthseed series by Octavia Butler. Collars have been associated with slavery since ancient times, and so the presence of collars at Camp Christian links the brutality of the camp to the history of slavery in America. Collars are most traditionally used to restrain and control animals, and the notion of placing a collar on a fellow human being is profoundly dehumanizing, signaling that they no longer possess any basic rights or freedoms.

The collars symbolize the dehumanization of groups perceived as “other” and how systems of power rely on subjugation.

Powerful electronic collars that deliver agonizing electrical shocks to their wearers are a key device that allows Jarret’s Crusaders to overtake and dominate the Acorn community members.

Parable of the talents octavia butler