“별들 사이에 뿌리내리기” : 『씨앗을 뿌리는 사람의 우화』에 나타난 포스트아포칼립스 세계와 공동체 회복

Abstract

Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower is a tale of science fiction and speculative fabulation that depicts a world of social inequality, discrimination and poverty. The resulting violence and crime take place against a backdrop of American society facing an apocalyptic situation due to the climate crisis and the ideology of neoliberalism. Still, the story projects hope for the creation of a new community. Butler exposes the class inequalities and grind of poverty in American society thanks to capitalism, crime, natural disasters and the harsh conditions of labor enforced by multinational corporations. She also recreates the problem of racism as a repetition of history and slavery. This paper examines the crisis of human existence caused by neoliberal capitalism through the reproduction of a post-apocalyptic future that becomes reality. It also explores the possibility of changing the trajectory of human existence by facing up to the facts of ecological destruction caused by climate change and forms of 21st-century slavery practised under capitalistic systems. The paper holds out the hope of restoring and re-creating community through symbiosis and empathic thought-shifting in a post-apocalyptic world.