100 pages 3 hours read

Octavia E. Butler

Dawn

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1987

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Symbols & Motifs

Titles

The title of the book, Dawn, is itself a symbol. Humanity has self-destructed and was only saved through the intervention of the Oankali, so this is the dawn of a new era, a new way of life for humans, a new way of thought about what makes human beings human. It is even the dawn of a new version of humanity, as humans are genetically altered to create a hybrid species with the Oankali.

The title of the first section of the book, “Womb,” symbolizes Lilith’s new life. She is Awakened from her suspended animation plant, wet and naked, just as she was born from her mother’s womb. She is also ignorant everything in this new world, just like a newborn baby.

The title of the third section of the book, “Nursery,” symbolizes the large room where Lilith Awakens the other humans, the place where she cares for them and teaches them how to live in this new world, as she would babies in a nursery.

Fruit

The banana that Jdahya brings to Lilith in her isolation room is the first recognizable human food that Lilith has seen since the beginning of her captivity. For her, it symbolizes home and the familiar.