After learning that her half-brother Uncle Marc hid the fact that Asha was related to Lauren, Lauren severs all ties with her estranged brother, which further strains her relationship with Asha. Though Asha is unable to forgive her mother for choosing to dedicate her life to Earthseed instead of continuing to look for her, Lauren tells her daughter that her door is always open. With Jarret's legacy in disgrace, Lauren's Earthseed religion grows in popularity in a post-war United States and throughout the rest of the world, funding scholarships for needy university students and encouraging humanity to leave Earth and settle in other worlds.Īfter Asha learns that Lauren is her biological mother, she manages to meet with her. He tells Asha that her mother is dead, and never told Lauren he had found her daughter. Marc claimed that the "Crusaders" were rogue elements who do not represent Christian America. Unknown to Asha, Uncle Marc had previously re-established contact with his long-lost half-sister Lauren. With Uncle Marc's help, Larkin becomes an academic historian but leaves the Christian faith. As an adult, Asha reunites with her uncle Marcos "Marc" Duran, who was believed to have perished in the events of the previous novel and has since become a Christian America minister. Unloved and abused by her adoptive parents, Asha grows up never knowing who her biological parents are. Meanwhile, Larkin is adopted by an African American Christian America family and renamed "Asha Vere Alexander" after a popular Dreamask hero. This launches both Earthseed and her influence nationwide and at the same time, as she is hopeful for the future of humanity amongst the stars, she gradually abandons hope that she will find Larkin and gives up her search. She gains a significant following among the affluent in Portland, Oregon, and one of her more ardent supporters helps her publish Earthseed: The First Book of the Living online, which contains the verses she wrote defining the religion. At the same time, she decides to re-establish Earthseed by teaching individuals about the religion during her travels and training them to educate others. Lauren looks for Larkin for over a year, travelling throughout Northern California and Oregon in her search. By 2036, President Jarret is defeated after a single term due to public dissatisfaction with the " Alaska– Canada War" and revelations of his role in witch burnings. To avoid retribution, they are forced to disperse into hiding. In 2035, Lauren and her followers eventually rebel and kill their captors. Lauren and several of the women are also regularly raped by their captors, who regard them as "heathen". Their Christian American captors exploit them as forced labor under the pretext of "reforming" them. For the next year and a half, Lauren and the other adults are enslaved and forced to wear "shock collars". Virtual reality headsets known as "Dreamasks" are also popular since they enable wearers to escape their harsh reality.ĭuring the course of the novel, Acorn is attacked and taken over by Christian American "Crusaders" and turned into a re-education camp. Slavery has resurfaced with advanced "shock collars" being used to control slaves. Seeking to restore American power and prestige, and using the slogan " Make America Great Again", Jarret embarks on a crusade to cleanse America of non-Christian faiths. The novel is set against the backdrop of a dystopian United States that has come under the grip of a Christian fundamentalist denomination called "Christian America" led by President Andrew Steele Jarret. Five years after the events of the previous novel Parable of the Sower, Lauren has founded a new community called Acorn centered around her religion, Earthseed, which is predicated on the belief that humanity's destiny is to travel beyond Earth and live on other planets in order for humanity to reach adulthood. The novel consists of journal entries by Lauren and Bankole and passages by Asha Vere. Parable of the Talents is told from the points of view of Lauren Oya Olamina, her daughter Larkin Olamina/Asha Vere, and Lauren's husband Taylor Franklin Bankole. It is the second in a series of two, a sequel to Parable of the Sower. Parable of the Talents is a science fiction novel by the American writer Octavia E.
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