Living with the Other in "Bloodchild" & "Amnesty"

tags: power, control, living with the Other, identity, change

In her both her short stories “Bloodchild” and “Amnesty”, Octavia E. Butler explores two different worlds in which human beings live side-by-side with an alien race of beings. In “Bloodchild”, this race is the insect-like Tlic, and the world is their own, a planet to which human beings fled to escape the persecution of other human beings. In “Amnesty”, the world is our own Earth, to which the alien Communities came on a one-way transport – the reason why they left their home is, of course, never given.