Q & A: Is Octavia Butler Wrong?
Is Octavia Butler correct in her interpretation of Bloodchild as a coming-of-age story about love between two very different beings? If not, what is Bloodchild truly about? Octavia Butler opens her afterword with the bold and decisive statement “It amazes me that some people have seen “Bloodchild” as a story of slavery. It isn’t”. She then goes on to claim it is simply a story about love between two very different beings and Gan’s coming-of-age. But just because this was the author’s intention when writing “Bloodchild”, it doesn’t necessarily mean that is the right way to interpret the story. If a story is written with one intention, but everyone takes away something completely different from that story it ultimately doesn’t matter what the author meant the book to be about. “The Death of the Author” is a famous essay that states the original intentions of an author should have no weight in the interpretation or criticism of a text. In this case I am analyzing “Bloodchild” as it exists...