Between a Rock and a Hard Place : The Identity Struggle of a Hybrid in Octavia E. Butler's Xenogenesis Trilogy

Sammanfattning

Octavia E. Butler’s Xenogenesis trilogy (1987–1989), also known as Lilith’s Brood, presents an interspecies relationship prompted by necessity but evolved with differing degrees of eagerness for the humans and the alien Oankali. This unequal relationship, mainly characterised by a lack of human consent, is reminiscent of colonialism. Nevertheless, the human characters oftentimes behave as the coloniser as their mindset reflects that of a white patriarchal society. Thus, the process of turning the human character Lilith into a human-alien hybrid to serve the Oankali agenda further problematises the already complicated identity position of an arguably colonised subject. Consequently, the purpose of this essay is to investigate the effects of Lilith’s hybridity on her identity in order to show that both the other humans’ and her own perception of her hybridity threaten the maintenance of a stable identity as they put into question her humanity. Lilith’s identity struggle is analysed through the use of postcolonial theory and its concepts ambivalence, binarism, ‘going native,’ othering, and unhomeliness. I look at the interplay between Lilith’s hybridity and her relationship to the other humans, the Oankali, and her hybrid children to reveal that identity formation and maintenance is a delicate and socially contingent process, that fear of the Other can result in the denial of parts of one’s identity and negatively affect its stability, and that interspecies motherhood is threatening to one’s identity as it forces the subject to sacrifice either its values or its progeny. In the end, these findings show that while it is possible for Lilith to find ways to accept her hybridity, more often a white patriarchal mindset forces her to believe that she must lessen or repress the alien part of her identity in order to remain human, which impedes the possibility to maintain a stable identity.