Bloodchild Questions

1. What is your reaction to the text you just read?
I found the text to be very intriguing, given that it's a story about giving birth to a child, but the setting is different and it's a role-reversal angle to it as well. It seems in part to be a story about slavery, given the angle that aliens have used terrans (human) in the past simply as bodies to fill their children with rather than letting them live freely. In the present day in the story, terrans are allowed to raise a family and be on their own, but Tlics, the aliens that have allowed them to live on this planet, keep them under their wing, so to speak. Also, it seems to say something about gender roles in our society, given that it's a masculine male trying to act tough but one that has to give birth to an alien child.

2. What connections did you make with the story? Discuss the elements of the story which you were able to connect.
In terms of being able to "relate" in some way to the text, I wasn't able to connect with much of it, other than Gan's struggle to try and decide if he wants to do something (give a painful and dangerous birth to an alien child) for his family's sake or if he doesn't want to go through the suffering. Obviously I can't relate to that completely, but the struggle of choosing to do something for you or your loved ones is a universal conflict we find ourselves in.

3. What changes would you make to adapt this story in another medium? What medium would you use? What changes would you make?
As a film major, I feel obligated to say that I would adapt this story as a film. I would focus on the fact that the story is where humans are deprived of their humanity and reduced to a single function - supplying life to this alien race. Starting off with Gan and making it a giant buildup to the "birth" while showing these other factors at play could lead to an intense and scary adaptation of this dystopian future displayed in Octavia Butler's short story.