Blood Child - Week 12 Diverse Position

  This weeks short story I decided to read was “Blood child” by Octavia Butler. The story though strange, with Alien’s laying eggs in human in order for their young to survive. Is surprisingly interment. 

My reaction to the story is a mixture of confusion and disgust. It’s very gross to think about multiple limbed beings implanting eggs inside of you let alone willingly. There is an odd dynamic between the creatures and the humans. It’s almost loving but yet maybe not? 

There is a strong connection to child birth. It is very smiler and can be just as painful (considering C-sections) yet their partners still get them pregnant. It is even just as risky of death, in later past most mothers didn’t survive childbirth. So how different is the love between these creatures and the humans they pick to carry their young? Even the way they pick the humans hosts are very similar to the way high ranking men picked their young wives. Maybe that’s what makes the story so disturbing for in many ways this had been going on up until recently and in some countries its still the same. 

If I was going to change this short story into a different medium, I believe a comic would be the best translation. I would try not to change much about the story. Though if I had to compress it I would cut out some unnecessary details. The brothers explanation of way he is scared of the creatures un-like the others could be erased for it is clear after the extraction why he is. I would also shorten the beginning a bit with the mother only cause the true action is the blood children’s birth. I don’t believe many readers want to dwell on three pages worth of panels about the mother’s past that is later never explained. Other then that I would like to keep it as true to the short story as possible. The story is too great as it is to ruin it by cutting too much out or adding unnecessary things.