DGD is alright with me

In Octavia Butler’s, “The Evening and the Morning and the Night”, the word “disability” is a social label put on people who are different. Lynn attempts to live a normal life amongst her peers, but has no luck. The judgment coming from others towards her has a significant effect on her self-esteem. Butler describes a difficulty in Lynn’s everyday life at school, “I didn’t like the way people edged away from me when they caught sight of my emblem. I’d begun wearing it on a chain around my neck and putting it down inside my blouse, but people managed to notice anyway” (267). Lynn has to hide her difference from the other students when she should be embraced for her struggle. Instead of seeing the value of DGD, society disregards and discriminates against them.

Society keeps DGDs around for the off chance that they may produce something that benefits them. Butler does this to point out the “fair weather” nature of normal humans. If a person is different in a non-productive way, then they have no value.  If a person is different, but may benefit society, then they have some opportunities. Lynn reflecting on the possible reasons why she is still allowed to attend school, “And some of us went good- spectacularly- and made scientific and medical history. These last kept the doors at least partly open for the rest of us” (266).  The poor DGDs would have no support were it not for the accomplishments of a few.

By labeling people with DGD, society takes a difference in human beings and makes the difference into a disability. All DGD people could be productive yet different members of society if they could all get the same treatment like Dilg. Butler creates Dilg in order to show that people who are considered disable can lead happy, healthy, and even productive lives.

Seeing Double ‘n’ Triple

“Woman on the Edge of Time”, by Marge Piercy depicts the psychiatric profession as an oppressive and unjust system. The awful medication administered by the doctors makes a patient for a day a potential life long customer. When responding to an attendant, Connie says, ““Why should I stand there for twenty minutes waiting?” She tried to speak with quiet dignity but the medication slurred her tongued. “The medication makes me dizzy. I’ll wait here”” (103). Connie can not even stand in line long enough to get lunch. All she wants to do is sleep, but patients are not allowed to sleep during the daytime. Every detail from sitting to standing is controlled by the nurses and the doctors. Anyone would go crazy with that much lack of freedom. Later in the story, Connie talks about the type of operations her ward commits, “Please, Dolly, do something. I beg you. Look around this ward. They’re operating on us. They’re sticking needles in our heads!” (212). Connie’s friend does not sympathize with her. Instead, she gives the status-quo justification for the hospital’s actions. Dolly says, “You forget what the world’s like, shut up here. I’m on top now. I know what I’m doing. And last week I made four hundred dollars!” (212). She can turn her face at the obviously awful things happening at the ward because she is making money. It almost seems as if the ward is afraid of finishing rehab on their patients because they are worried about losing their jobs. Dolly continues, “Daddy says they’re famous doctors from a university. That they’re famous doctors from a university” (212). Hiding behind a degree in order to push their own agenda of testing on humans makes these doctors awful. Marge Piercy exaggerates Connie’s situation in the psych ward in order to commentate on the corruption and non-help that psych wards can have on their patients.

Chimpette

Pat Murphy’s “Rachel in Love” focuses on man’s dominion over animals. Rachel, the protagonist chimpanzee, struggles with humans trying to change her from an independent intelligent chimp into a breeder for science. This happens with the loss of her father, Dr. Aaron Jacobs. Along with Dr. Jacobs, Jake the janitor seems to sympathize and help Rachel more than any other human. Even though they both help the chimp, each man uses Rachel for their own means. Jake the janitor gets to drink more on the job and do less work because he lets Rachel out of her cage. Dr. Jacobs substitutes Rachel for his daughter when she dies.

The drunk and perverted janitor, Jake, lets Rachel out of her cage on the basis that she helps him clean and then return to her cage. He does spend time with Rachel after they clean, but that entails sitting with him while he masturbates. Rachel lets him get to his relaxation sooner, “By the time he is halfway through the second cup, he is treating her like an old friend, telling her to hurry up so that they can eat dinner” (228-229). On top of that, Jake is too drunk to do a good job, “The few blackboards are sloppily done, and Rachel, finished with the wastebaskets, cleans the places that Jake missed” (229). Drinking for hours finally catches up with Jake and Rachel is there to make up for him. On first impression Jake seems like a good friend to Rachel. She even loves Jake in some odd way. This has more to do with her seventeen year old mind with the innocence of an ape, than her really seeing Jake’s self-worth.

Dr. Jacobs also appears like a great person for Rachel to have in her life, but he too has his selfish reasons. Rachel broods over the idea of having a chip planted in her brain like the other chimp that can sign. She does not question the fact that she roughly had the same thing done to her by her father. Rachel reciting her favorite bedtime story, “He used a mixture of norepinephrin-based transmitter substances to boost the speed of neural processing in the chimp’s brain…. In the chimp’s brain was all that remained of Rachel Jacobs” (219), At least the other chimp had his own natural personality. Dr. Jacobs was more in love with the idea of the chimp being like his daughter, than he was with the chimp named Rachel.

Ikhe

My wife does nothing but cook awful meals, have babies, and take care of children. She doesn’t even have to raise the kids past the age of accountability. A little bit after the time they can talk, our children get sent to a government center that can provide for them much better than we can. Ugh! Ann does nothing well except produce clean babies. Besides her one to two hours of work, she sits at home ready to piss me off when I get there. If she had any idea about the amount of work I do in order to keep us from being on Subsistence, then she might stop burning my bacon, screaming at me to wake up, and wasting my money. She is so fortunate that I am an easygoing man or I’d have left her a long time ago.

This first person narrative of Mr. Henry Crothers illustrates the unsympathetic attitude Henry has towards his wife. Nothing that Ann does for the kids, the home, or Henry is good enough in his eyes’. On an everyday basis, the most ridiculous symptom of Henry’s treatment of Ann is with bacon. Being extraordinarily particular, Mr. Crothers says, “Then why’d you cook bacon? You know I can’t eat bacon without eggs” (69). Henry may have a bacon with egg only palate, but he goes too far by yelling at his wife. The co-op ran out of eggs, which must be Ann’s fault. Far worse is Henry’s treatment of his kids. Ann has to raise kids like a cattle breeder, while Henry cannot be bothered with them. The kids stay in the basement while Henry eats breakfast and go to bed before he gets home. Ann reflects on Henry coming home from work, “The children were asleep before he came home, and Ann was glad. Sometimes they got on his nerves and he swore at them” (72). To Henry, his kids mean a bonus check from the government. Ann has to curtail Henry’s encounters with the children because he does not even care to see them.

Taking this story as an exaggeration of what the household was like for women in the 1950s should still scare the reader. Women were underappreciated and that really shows in this text. The role of a breeding maid does not suit anyone. Having this story set in a science fiction world allows for the overstatement on the deficit of quality of life between men and women of A.E. Jones’ time.

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