Zachary Utopia&Dystopia Blog

 In my opinion, Earthseed is a tremendous thing to serve as the foundation for a new community, especially a community trying to become a utopia (and prevent itself from becoming a dystopia). One of the issues with a lot of dystopian communities, both in real life and in literature, is that they become rigid in structure, and are unable to adjust themselves to improve lives for their civilians. This rigidity is the downfall of their community, as their founders have an extremely specific vision for what life *should* be like in a society and decline to consider what is working or not working for the people in that society. Earthseed, meanwhile, is based upon the idea that "God is change." Change is built into this community from the start, and this will allow flexibility to improve quality of life. 8.7.3

 At the end of the novel, a community forms after Lauren and her group escape safely to the North. They say that they will have to fight anyone who tries to endanger them because it is either going to be "them or us" that survives. This reminds me of far earlier in the novel when Lauren's father says that he has the create the armed patrol in order to fight off the robbers because it's either them or us that are going to survive. The parallelism shows how Lauren's traumatic childhood shapes her views for her utopia going forwards. 8.7.3

By the time we near the end of the novel, it is clear that Lauren has undergone an inordinate amount of trauma in her past few years, far more than the majority of people are forced to bear in their lifetime. Lauren's childhood is a dystopia on Earth, as her living environment is completely chaotic. First, it is her brother who falls prey to the world around them, as he is brutally tortured before being killed. Then, her entire neighborhood is burned by drug addicts, and most of her family killed, as she has to begin to migrate to the North. She's gone through so much trauma she needs something to cling to that helps her maintain hope in hard times, and Earthseed is this. 8.7.3