Bloodchild Skeleton Draft

A very rough skeleton draft:

Bloodchild is a science fiction short story by Octavia Butler. It features humans on a planet where they have developed a relationship with the aliens where some humans host alien eggs inside them until they hatch. The main character Gan, who is also the narrator, faces decisions about hosting an alien’s egg, and eventually has to face his fears and does it. It flows exactly how you would expect it to, and seems to be a about overcoming one’s fears.

But when read, the story gives out a disconcerting feeling, making the reader uncomfortable. It seems odd that such a story would give out an uncomfortable feeling instead of a happier feeling from coming over a fear. How is Butler making us nervous in a story that should be joyous, and more importantly, why does she do this?

One way to consider that question is to look at the language she uses in describing things and events in the story. Looking at the language it seems shows that it is not something inherent with aliens that gives an uncomfortable feeling, but that Butler is doing it on purpose. She is doing it on purpose with context changing, role-reversals, and de-familiarization, and they all point to her making us uncomfortable to show how weird what we think of as normal is.

First, Butler makes us feel weird by changing the context. [rest of paragraph]

This disconcerting feeling is increased by Butler making normal things seem strange. [rest of paragraph]

Butler also uses role reversal, specifically that of men and women, to make us feel uncomfortable with what is going on. [rest of paragraph]

No, these are not by accident, they are very specifically made to be almost exactly like normal, just with a slight twist to make the reader a bit nervous. [rest of paragraph]

It seems as if the story is just Octavia Butler making a point about how absurd our thoughts of what normal is are. Before reading this story, there was nothing I had read before that made me consider what I thought normal, but Butler pulls it off. She makes us feel uncomfortable with things that really shouldn’t because they are pretty normal things. In doing so, you are forced to realize nothing is as normal as it seems.