Abuse, Coercion, and Power in Octavia Butler's "Bloodchild"

Long before Roland Barthes’ “The Death of the Author,” theorists and readers were reading texts in ways that differed from the seeming authorial position. In the field of science fiction, one of the best-known examples of a text where critical opinions about it have diverged sharply from the author’s stated position is Octavia Butler’s novelette “Bloodchild.” Butler described it as a tale of love, one which also explores the symbiotic relationship between human beings and another intelligent species. Others have read the story as about racism and slavery. This chapter proposes a different interpretation. Even if unintended by the author, the general nature and the specific details of the relationships in “Bloodchild” combine to make them analogous to sexually and emotionally abusive relationships in our world, especially those that are mediated by imbalances of institutional power. This chapter applies a Cultural Studies perspective to Butler’s story, emphasizing the nature, functioning, and influence of power within it, both implicit and explicit. It examines how the political structure of the fictional world of the alien Tlic places them in a hierarchy above the Terrans (humans) that enables the abuse of the latter as well as the normalization of such treatment. The central element of the story, the relationship between the human Gan and the Tlic T’Gatoi, illustrates how mentally and emotionally abusive relationships often function, with victims being constantly reassured that they matter, that they are loved, and that they have choice and agency within the relationships, while being constantly coerced and manipulated to act as their abusers see fit. Butler’s text amply illustrates how the one thing that renders relationships, sexual or otherwise, whether between individuals and groups, ripe for abuse and exploitation is the imbalance of power.