11/13/2023 0 Comments Octavia e. butler dawnKahguyaht wants Nikanj to get it over with. Kahguyaht wants Nikanj to perform a surgery on Lilith that would alter her brain chemistry and improve her memory, but Nikanj does not want to perform this procedure without Lilith's consent. Lilith thinks that it is angry at her, but in fact it is angry at Nikanj. When it returns home, it argues at length with Nikanj. Kahguyaht fixes the situation and reveals to Lilith that it had been tracking her all day. A group of Oankali, including Kahguyaht, surround her. In Tiej, however, the soil rejects Lilith's food remains and starts bubbling dangerously. Previously, she had buried the remains of her food in the ground and the ship had reabsorbed them. She sits down for a rest and has two oranges as a snack. By the time she gets to Tiej, however, she is lost and cannot find her way. She leaves Jdhaya's neighborhood, Kaal, and sets off for Tiej, Fukumoto's neighborhood. She decides that she wants to find Fukumoto and speak with him. One day, she hears two Oankali speaking about a human, Fukumoto. She decides to wander away from Nikanj and does this multiple times. Lilith asks Nikanj for writing tools so she can learn the Oankali language more quickly and gets frustrated when it refuses. Kahguyaht tells Lilith that she and Nikanj can learn from each other. They poke and prod her until she gets tired. Nikanj shows Lilith off to its friends, who have never seen a human before. Kahguyaht takes Lilith back home and puts her in the care of Nikanj, its child. Lilith knows this is how the Oankali stored her body between each of her Awakenings. Sharad is sleeping in a plant that keeps him young and healthy. Later, Kahguyaht takes Lilith to see Sharad, a child who was placed in Lilith's room while she was still enduring solitary confinement. Lilith begins wondering if there are Oankali who can still be poisoned by human food, which makes Kahguyaht suspicious of her. Kahguyaht responds that the ooloi have studied humans and learned how not to get poisoned by human food the same does not go for Lilith, who has to be careful about what she eats aboard the Oankali ship. The Oankali and Lilith eat a meal of human food which prompts Lilith to question why it is not poisonous to the Oankali. Upon arriving in Jdhaya's home, she eats a meal with the rest of Jdhaya's family, which include Jdhaya's mates, Kahguyaht (ooloi) and Tediin (female), and their child, Nikanj (ooloi). In the second section, “Family,” Lilith lives with Jdhaya and his family as she learns more about the Oankali. However, she cannot take this opportunity-she still has an instinct to live. He tells her that if she wants to she can touch him and he will sting her with his tentacles so that she dies. Lilith is disgusted at this thought and tells Jdhaya that she wishes they just left her to die on Earth. The future humans will be human-Oankali hybrids and it will be her job to bring them into existence. Lilith realizes that the Oankali have now truly continued the human extinction that the war began. He tells her that the Oankali are traders and they expect to trade genetic material with the humans. Lilith asks Jdhaya what the Oankali want from the human race. Once Lilith is able to get used to Jdhaya, he brings her out of her cell. The vegetation has grown and those animals which did not go extinct in the war have repopulated. In the two hundred fifty years since humans have left Earth, Earth has rejuvenated. Lilith has been awakened because she has work to do-it will be her job to wake the other humans and prepare them to return to Earth. They have several other humans in isolated confinement. Jdhaya tells Lilith that she has been sleeping on this ship for almost two hundred and fifty years. The aliens, who refer to themselves as the Oankali, exist in a symbiotic relationship with the ship. Outside of her room is a giant alien ship built out of living material. He is there in order for Lilith to acclimate to his presence so that he can bring her out of her cell. This alien tells her that it is a man and his name is Jdhaya. She soon discovers that it is an alien being with tentacles all over its body. During this Awakening, she realizes that there is a shadowy figure with her in her room. Normally, her captors ask her questions from somewhere in the ceiling, and she never sees them. Lilith has no idea who her captors are or what they want from her. She remembers that she is twenty-six years old, she had a husband and child who died in a car crash, and that there was a deadly war that wiped out most of the human race. She knows that this is not the first time that she has been Awakened. The first section of Dawn is called “Womb.” It opens with Lilith Iyapo, who has been living in isolated confinement.
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