How we cite our quotes: The main text of the story is cited (Chapter.Paragraph). The date headers are not counted as paragraphs. The verses in the chapters with a single passage from the narrator's religious texts are cited (Chapter.Verse.Line#). In chapters with multiple passages, the verses are cited (Chapter.Verse#.Line#). The four section pages with the years and passages are cited (Year.Verse).
Quote #1
I can't do a thing about my hyperempathy, no matter what Dad thinks or wants or wishes. I feel what I see others feeling or what I believe they feel. Hyperempathy is what the doctors call an "organic delusional syndrome." Big s***. It hurts, that's all I know. Thanks to Paracetco, the small pill, the Einstein powder, the particular drug my mother chose to abuse before my birth killed her, I'm crazy. I get a lot of grief that doesn't belong to me, and that isn't real. But it hurts. (2.27)
In science fiction, being empathic is often seen as a super-power...or, as Butler is describing hyperempathy syndrome, as a disability which leads to delusion. To what extent does compassion require us to actually feel what another person is feeling?
Quote #2
Besides, just because I can shoot a bird or a squirrel doesn't mean I could shoot a person—a thief like the ones who robbed Mrs. Sims. I don't know whether I could do that. And if I did it, I don't know what would happen to me. Would I die? (4.34)
Often, we think of violence as being a strength, wherein those who are capable of great violence are stronger than those who are not. But it also seems that acts of violence carry a toll for the people who engage in that action. To what extent is violence a burden for the person who has committed it? For Lauren, that burden is ever present. But to what extent is Butler making a more universal claim about the human condition?
Quote #3
I walked, then rode in a daze, still not quite free of the dog I had killed. I had felt it die, and yet I had not died. I had felt its pain as though it were a human being. I had felt its life flare and go out, and I was still alive. (4.115)
This is Lauren after she kills the dog. Lauren seems to have thought that because the dog was also capable of feeling pain, its death might kill her. But she stayed alive. So how much can dogs feel pain? To what extent should we be concerned with the emotions of non-human animals? Often, discussions of non-human animal rights center around whether non-human animals can reason or not. But is rationality the only sign of personhood?