Bring on the tough stuff - there’s not just one right answer.
- Lauren seeks to establish her own Earthseed community, where people who live according to her beliefs can help one another out. Is there anything like that going on in the world today, or has there been in the past? It may be helpful to do some research on things like intentional communities or utopian socialism.
- What happens, good or bad, when people try to build their own communities in real life? What obstacles are in their way? How can they overcome those problems?
- Lauren looks to Alicia Leal, the astronaut, as a role model for herself. If Lauren is supposed to be a role model for readers, what can we take away from her? What does Lauren do well? What does Lauren do poorly? In what ways should Lauren be a role model, and in what ways shouldn't she be?
- Science fiction is sometimes considered a progressive or forward-looking genre—what with all the spaceships and all the computer gadgets—whereas fantasy is sometimes considered reactionary or backwards-looking, with all the feudalism and royalty and whatnot. How does Parable of the Sower fit into that contrast? It's set in the future, sure, but is it about progress, or is it about turning back the clock? Or does this model not quite make sense for the book?
- Is change as important as Lauren says it is? If so, where would you go to find out more about change? There are scientific ways of measuring change, there are philosophical/religious insights about it (see, for example, Buddhism and Heraclitus as examples), but what other avenues might people pursue if they want to give a big up-vote to change as a force in our lives?
- Read the novel's sequel, Parable of the Talents. How does your view of Parable of the Sower change in light of the events described in the follow-up work? What becomes of hyperempathy sharers? What becomes of Acorn?