Character Clues

Character Analysis

Actions

They always say actions speak louder than words, and we here at Shmoop find that to be true pretty often. Actions are a really strong way to characterize someone. In Parable of the Sower, our opinion of Keith is pretty bad from the start, but it turns downright dark once he reveals that he murdered a man to steal his money.

Contrast that kind of action with what his sister Lauren does: she trips a "coyote" that tries to take advantage of a couple with a baby outside a commercial water station. She takes a risk to physically defend the vulnerable. There's a big smackin' difference between that and killing somebody—you hear that, Keith?

Direct Characterization

Since this is a first-person novel, our narrator Lauren can tell us her thoughts all the time quite conveniently. She can say "My brother [Keith] isn't very smart, but he makes up for it in pure stubbornness" (8.47). She can call Gregory her "smartass of a baby brother" (14.52). She can directly characterize people this way, and we believe her because she has a reliable track record of telling the truth, even when it brings bad consequences upon her. If she weren't a reliable narrator, however, we might question these direct characterizations more.

Thoughts and Opinions

Since this novel is, in many ways, a philosophical one, we learn a lot about people's thoughts and opinions, and that helps us understand who they are as people.

The most obvious example is Lauren, what with all her Earthseed verses about what reality is, what God is, what matters, and what doesn't. Somebody who writes "We are flesh—self aware, questing, problem-solving flesh" (2027.Verse) is probably a pretty thoughtful person, trying to figure out what human beings are, right?

Zahra, to take a contrasting example, has a different mindset. "I don't care about no outer space" (18.83), she says, thereby dismissing Lauren's idea of the Destiny. Thoughts and opinions aren't so important to Zahra, which characterizes her as someone who believes more in action and everyday life.

A final example is our boy, Travis. He questions Lauren about Earthseed often—she admires his persistence at it—and that shows us that he's like Lauren in some ways: like her, he's a pretty thoughtful person.