Motherhood and Matriarchy in Octavia Butler’s Speculative Fiction
Faculty Mentor
Beth Torgerson
Presentation Type
Oral Presentation
Start Date
May 2025
End Date
May 2025
Location
PUB 323
Primary Discipline of Presentation
English
Abstract
Octavia Butler was an author who was well known for including feminist themes in her works of speculative fiction. Among these themes are most prominently the themes of motherhood and the matriarchy. In this paper, I examined four of Butler’s works (two novels and two short stories): Dawn, Fledgling, Bloodchild, and The Evening and the Morning and the Night. Each of these works contains depictions of motherhood and matriarchy, although they manifest in different ways. In this paper, I will examine, through literary analysis and feminist theory, how these themes manifest, and what the use of these feminist themes can tell us about Butler’s larger social commentary.
Recommended Citation
Nygaard, Cheyenne Belle, "Motherhood and Matriarchy in Octavia Butler’s Speculative Fiction" (2025). 2025 Symposium. 9.
https://dc.ewu.edu/srcw_2025/op_2025/o4_2025/9
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Motherhood and Matriarchy in Octavia Butler’s Speculative Fiction
PUB 323
Octavia Butler was an author who was well known for including feminist themes in her works of speculative fiction. Among these themes are most prominently the themes of motherhood and the matriarchy. In this paper, I examined four of Butler’s works (two novels and two short stories): Dawn, Fledgling, Bloodchild, and The Evening and the Morning and the Night. Each of these works contains depictions of motherhood and matriarchy, although they manifest in different ways. In this paper, I will examine, through literary analysis and feminist theory, how these themes manifest, and what the use of these feminist themes can tell us about Butler’s larger social commentary.
