Dawn Analysis

The theme that I am going to be analyzing for my section of Dawn relates to trust. This is kind of complex and I guess it can’t just be described as trust but also has to do with judging people. I use the example of judging people because of the way the Oankali judged Lilith and the way that Lilith has to judge the people she is responsible for waking up. I use trust with the example that the humans have to trust that the Oankali are not just taking what they want and setting them up for failure. This theme is very complex and requires a deeper look.
I think the two intertwine with each other in a couple ways. The most important is how trust is used for judging people. When Lilith is trying to select who she will wake up first she has to trust that the Oankali gave her an accurate dossiers or “short biographies made up from transcribed conversations, brief histories, Oankali observations, conclusions and pictures” (Butler 116) to work from. She also has to trust that the people will behave as they have in the past and follow the same tendencies as before and as noted in the dossiers. We can see this when it comes to how Lilith has to judge Tate Marah. Lilith has to trust the Oankali dossier that claims “Tate Marah was bright, somewhat flexible, and not dangerous except to perhaps the ego” (Butler 125). Lilith has to trust this so that when she awakes Tate, she will not act savagely and try to kill her.
We also can see the trust aspect from another light. This was is trust in the Oankali. Can the humans trust that the Oankali are actually helping them or are they just going to teach them these skills and turn them into slaves? Can they trust that when they genetically alter them that they are doing it for the “greater good”, or are they changing who they are? Are the changes actually helpful? As to whether or not the changes are helpful, we can look when look at a conversation between Lilith and Joseph. Joseph asks if she tried to prevent it and she replies “when Nikanj and his mates offered me as much as they could offer, I didn’t even have to think about it. I welcomed it” (Butler 157). So in this sense it seems that the changes are helping the humans, at least Lilith.
The Trust may be circumstantial, but it is a theme that deserves looked at. Although they may not want to trust, they don’t really have a choice. The way I see it they can either trust, or go with the “learn and run” approach. This theme is just one of many that can be found in the book, and one I thought important enough to look at.