The fact that he has no eyes, nose, or ears still disturbed…His skin was cool and almost too smooth to be real flesh…” (23). Was it only the tentacles that gave him that sea-slug appearance? His coloring hadn’t changed. How do you represent or convey something conveyed only through words, inferences, and expectations? Consider the initial descriptions of Jdahya: “His tentacles seemed to solifiy into a second skin–dark patches on his face and neck, a dark, smooth-looking mass on his head…He looked remarkably human now. The assignment prompt reads:įor this exercise, draw or create a one-page visual representation (8.5″ x 11″) of what you imagine Octavia Butler’s Dawn’s “ Oankali” to look like, be like, act like, live like. Every time I teach the novels–which are about a post-apocalyptic Earth where aliens called Oankali have “rescued” the remaining humans–I have my students do an assignment where they try to visualize, to draw the aliens. For the past few years, I have taught Octavia Butler‘s Dawn (part of her Xenogenesis trilogy) in a number of my classes, including a class on technology and identity, an introduction to LGBT studies course, and most recently, a class on African American science fiction.
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