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There has to be more that we can do, a better destiny that we can shape. Another place. Another way. Something!

At the beginning of Parable of the Sower in Chapter 6, the teenaged Lauren senses that her community’s reaction—and the entire country’s reaction—to climate change is misguided, as people are attempting to cling to the disappearing past rather than adapt to the new present. A young visionary, Lauren is beginning to articulate her own worldview, which revolves around working with and shaping change to the benefit of humanity, and relying on collectivist rather than hierarchical communal structures. However, what Lauren hasn’t worked out yet is the greater destiny that humanity should be reaching for and working toward—she knows there’s a better way of living out there, but she hasn’t yet found it.

Then, someday when people are able to pay more attention to what I say than to how old I am, I’ll use these verses to pry them loose from the rotting past, and maybe push them into saving themselves and building a future that makes sense.

Lauren struggles in getting people to take her seriously because she’s very young. Her own friends, such as Joanne, are frightened by her predictions of the future and turn to their parents for protection from Lauren’s visionary, but discomforting, foresight. Adults, even intelligent and rational ones such as her father, are stuck in a state of denial that keeps them closed off to Lauren’s ideas, which mainly revolve around needing to accept and adapt to change. Many of the people she travels with, such as Harry, Zahra, Travis, and Bankole, aren’t entirely convinced by Earthseed and don’t take it seriously. Despite this, Lauren’s quote in Chapter 7 shows her dogged perseverance toward her vision for the future and she eventually brings even the more skeptical of her comrades into the fold.

I’ve never thought of my problem as something that might do some good before, but the way things are, I think it would help. I wish I could give it to people.

For much of her life, Lauren and her family have seen her hyperempathy as a weakness and have urged her to keep it hidden from the world, as referenced in this quote from Chapter 10. They aren’t entirely wrong—Lauren is disabled by her hyperempathy in violent, high-risk situations, which could get herself or her companions killed. However, in a world where unnecessary, cruel violence is on the rise, slavery is rampant, and people are isolated into distrusting, tribalist groups, hyperempathy could be seen as a gift that would save humans from their brutal circumstances. If everyone was hyperempathetic, no one would be able to stand needless pain and death, and thus violence would be greatly reduced.

I’ll watch them, I’ll listen to them, I’ll learn from them. If I don’t, I’ll be killed. And like I said, I intend to survive.

While Lauren considers herself a teacher and wants to spread the philosophy of Earthseed to as many people as possible, it’s evident from this quote in Chapter 5, she also sees herself as a student. As she, Zahra, and Harry adapt to their new homelessness after their community is destroyed, Lauren explains that it’s vital that they learn everything they can from other street people about how to live out in the open. Learning is the ultimate way to adapt to change, and being adaptable to change is, in Lauren’s estimation, the most crucial trait of any creature that is to survive.

Most of us have had to walk away—or run—away from our unburned, un-buried dead. Tomorrow, we should remember them all, and lay them to rest if we can.

The events of Parable of the Sower are highly traumatic and violent. Everyone in the Earthseed community loses, or has lost, direct family members, and Lauren has lost her entire immediate family to violence. For much of the novel, grief must be put on hold as the group struggles to stay alive and focuses on the journey north. When they reach Bankole’s land, where they can finally put down roots, Lauren asks in Chapter 25 that the group take time to accept and mourn the deaths of their loved ones. The grieving ceremony is a hopeful sign that Lauren’s group of ragged, distrusting travelers has transformed into a supportive, purposeful society that knows the value of human life.

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