Parable of the Sower Summary and Analysis

Chapters 1-3 Summary

The novel consists of journal entries written by narrator Lauren Olamina, beginning in July 2024 when Lauren is 15. Each year and chapter begins with a quote from Earthseed: The Books of the Living, where Lauren records the beliefs of her new religion, Earthseed.

Lauren lives in Robledo, a gated community outside of Los Angeles, California, with her parents and four younger brothers. Lauren’s father is a Black Baptist minister, and her stepmother, Cory Olamina, is a Mexican American teacher. Theft and violence make travel outside the gates dangerous, and community residents carry guns whenever they venture out.

Though Lauren is baptized in the Baptist church, she’s skeptical about the God of Christianity. She believes “God is Change,” since change is the biggest part of life, and humans shape God with their actions. When an astronaut dies on Mars, Lauren imagines space travel as a possible future for humanity.

She’s sensitive to the poverty and destruction in her own neighborhood as well. Lauren has hyperempathy syndrome, a condition that causes her to feel others’ pain and pleasure; she sometimes calls herself a “sharer.”

Chapters 1-3 Analysis

The novel’s diary structure highlights Lauren’s separate roles as narrator and protagonist. By writing down events as they happen, she learns from these events and considers their meaning.

She’s also slowly writing Earthseed into existence. The short quotes beginning each chapter and the longer quotes opening each new year serve as maxims or proverbs—short sayings that give advice or express truths—rooted in Lauren’s Earthseed belief system. As Lauren gains experience, her understanding of Earthseed evolves. Each proverb reflects the lessons Lauren learns in that year or chapter.

In 2024, for instance, she learns about what the opening quote calls “positive obsession.” For Lauren this “positive obsession” describes an ongoing desire for a new way of life, one that will improve human prospects in a deteriorating world. Her persistence, stubbornness and self-examination are positive character traits that later help her survive. In a 1989 essay of the same name, author Octavia Butler describes positive obsession as a need to pursue a goal despite fear, doubt and setbacks.

Lauren rejects the idea of God as a larger outside force that intervenes in the lives of helpless humans. Instead, her faith demands its followers be active participants, shaping their own futures by adapting to change. This adaptation is what she means by “shaping God”; by caring for themselves and each other, humans can generate their own hope and strength.

Lauren’s curiosity about space exploration intertwines with the Christian concept of the afterlife. In Christianity, heaven is a reward that believers earn after death—a salvation from the perils of the world. To Lauren, space travel fills this role of salvation, and it’s achievable through human innovation and discovery.

Hyperempathy helps drive her need to improve conditions for humanity. Lauren is more acutely aware of the human cost of poverty and suffering than others might be. Since she can share strangers’ pain, she’s connected to others in a way she can’t avoid or escape.