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Book 1, Chapter 4
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Dawn, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Humanity, Evolution, and Genetics
Motherhood and Leadership
Consent and Autonomy
Sexuality and Gender
Summary
Analysis
A hole opens in the wall of the room, letting in some of the first color that Lilith has seen in a while. It’s Jdahya’s ship, and as Jdahya explains, the ship is alive, with the walls of Lilith’s isolation room being made of the ship’s flesh. Lilith is surprised to find that she is afraid of leaving the room at first. At last, she gathers the courage to step through the hole in the room. She looks back and sees that her room had been just a small part inside of a massive fruit tree.
The novel draws several comparisons between Lilith’s isolation room and a womb, which is also a kind of “room” where the walls are made of flesh. In this context, Lilith’s decision to leave the room is like a birth for her, as she goes out into the wider world of the Oankali ship for the first time. Fruit is also a product of reproduction and a symbol of fertility, so it makes sense that Lilith’s “womb” room is in a fruit tree.
Themes
Lilith asks about going back to Earth, but Jdahya says she wouldn’t survive there for long. Lilith’s genes have been modified to get rid of the potential for cancer. Jdahya tells Lilith that she has work to do, and she will learn about it by living with Jdahya and his family for a while. She will learn how to Awaken other groups of humans who will need to learn survival skills. Lilith and the humans won’t be able to use the most advanced technology from Earth, but they’ll be able to use simple tools for food and shelter. The humans are not fully immune to diseases but have strengthened immune systems.
This novel, which is about the potential rebirth of humanity, frequently draws on one of the most famous stories about the original “birth” of humanity: the Biblical story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. (The name Lilith likely comes from a mythological figure who was supposedly the first wife of Adam, before Eve.) The future for humanity that Jdahya describes, where people live simply in an environment without diseases, resembles an Eden-like paradise. While this might sound ideal, Lilith’s challenge becomes to determine whether she can trust the things that Jdahya and the Oankali promise.
Themes
Lilith notes that humans used to treat animals a similar way to keep them healthy—when the ultimate goal was to eat them. Lilith can’t read Jdahya’s reaction but she thinks he might be laughing. He tries to reassure her, and she says that at least she’s willing to learn whatever he wants to teach. She doesn’t feel well versed in wilderness knowledge, but Jdahya explains that that might be for the best, now that new species and mutations have changed what plants are like on Earth.
As Lilith correctly points out, humans take special care of livestock, not for the animals’ own good but because humans want something that the livestock can provide. While Jdahya laughs at the idea that Oankali want to eat humans (and while human-eating aliens are a staple of pulpier sci-fi novels), Lilith nevertheless senses that the relationship between the humans and the Oankali is not as equal as Jdahya claims.
Themes
Lilith asks more about the ship, which Jdahya says is both plant and animal, with a capacity for intelligence that is currently dormant. Jdahya’s ancestors grew his current ship, and he is helping to grow another one. Eventually, like an asexual organism, the ship inhabitants will split into three groups, with Jdahya and his family going down to Earth. He will never see the other inhabitants on his ship again, although perhaps his descendants will recognize their descendants, since some memories are passed on genetically in his species.
The number three is important to the Oankali: Just as their ship splits into three parts, they also mate in groups of three, with one male, one female, and one Oankali. This once again could be interpreted as religious symbolism (evoking the Holy Trinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). But while religions that believe in a Holy Trinity often emphasize the benevolence of God, this passage instead uses religious imagery to emphasize how the Oankali are mysterious overseers of life who have intentions that may be beyond human understanding.
Themes
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Jdahya explains to Lilith that the “trees” on the ship are not actually trees but structures that provide resources and support the ship’s shape. Naked gray Oankali walk among the “trees,” paying Lilith no attention. Lilith asks why Jdahya doesn’t go back to his home world. He says that’s not an option and that he and the others left so long ago that it might no longer exist. Their world was like a womb, but eventually it came time for them to be born.
The lack of a home world is a key difference between the Oankali and the humans. Jdahya has no desire to return home and doesn’t even know if that home exists anymore. By contrast, Lilith and most of the other humans feel an irresistible pull back toward Earth, even though the war has changed it into a planet she might no longer recognize.
Themes
Jdahya says that the Ooloi noticed that humans have two genetic characteristics that are useful on their own but deadly together: they are both intelligent and hierarchical. Jdahya says that ignoring the deadliness of this combination would be like ignoring the cancer in Lilith’s body. Lilith asks what Jdahya and the Oankali hope to gain from humans. Jdahya explains that what he’s interested in is genetic material—and that the Oankali are willing to give humans some of their own genes, hence why they call themselves traders.
Lilith is often skeptical of the observations that the Oankali make about humans. In this passage, however, the criticism of humanity’s hierarchical structure ends up being central to the novel. The novel makes scornful references to the human leaders who bear the most responsibility for leading the planet into nuclear war. Lilith’s challenge later in the novel will be how to create a new society that has organization and structure but doesn’t recreate the destructive hierarchies of Earth.
Themes
Jdahya makes clear that what he and the Oankali are planning is closer to genetic engineering than sexual reproduction. He reveals that another meaning of “Oankali” is “organelle,” and Ooloi can see and manipulate DNA with precision. They are using Jdahya’s cancer cells to experiment on themselves, seeing if it is possible to learn how to reshape themselves to make their forms look more familiar to new races.
The Oankali’s relationship with cancer is perhaps the ultimate sign of their alienness. While cancer is a destructive force for humans, it is something that is inspiring and full of possibility for the Oankali. While it is possible to view this in a positive way—that even things that seem bad may have a constructive purpose—it is also possible to take the much darker interpretation that the way the Oankali spread themselves across the universe is like a form of cancer.
Themes
Jdahya admits that the ultimate goal is similar to cross-breeding, where human children will become more like Oankali and vice versa. Lilith doesn’t like the image of young humans with Medusa-like snake hair, but Jdahya says the Oankali are committed to carrying out the “trade.” Lilith wishes Jdahya hadn’t found her, but he says it’s too late to undo the past now. Jdahya makes Lilith an offer, saying he’ll only do it once: if Lilith wishes, he can sting her, and she’ll die quickly and painlessly. He does not want to do it, but is offering it for Lilith’s sake. Lilith strongly considers this but ultimately turns down the offer.
Book 1 of the novel ends with Lilith making the important choice to live and try to make the best of her situation rather than accepting Jdahya’s offer of death. While Jdahya seems to be offering Lilith a choice about whether to collaborate, the fact that the only other option is death means that she doesn’t have much of a choice at all. Lilith’s determination to live, in spite of her skepticism of Jdahya and the fact that everyone she knew is dead, is a testament to humanity’s innate will to survive.
Themes
