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Book 4, Chapter 8
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
The other humans continue to avoid Lilith. She has the option to leave but wants to stay in the Earth-like training room for as long as she can. Slowly, her feuds with some of the other humans begin to fade, and she teaches Wray how to make a special fish trap that she invented. Lilith has neural link sex with Nikanj, Ahajas, and Dichaan, thinking at first she has no more need for humans, but one day, she feels something when she touches Victor’s hand while chopping wood. Nikanj says it could find another mate for Lilith, if she wants.
Rejected by the humans, Lilith considers whether she could exist for the rest of her life among the Oankali, as Fukumoto apparently did. But while the Oankali can provide pleasure to Lilith, their neural link sex can’t create the type of intimacy that comes from physical touch, even something as simple as Lilith touching Victor’s hand while they are chopping wood.
Themes
One day, Lilith gets back to camp and finds that the other humans are gone. Nikanj explains that they’re headed back to Earth. Tate left behind a message to Lilith about wanting to apologize for her behavior earlier. Nikanj was afraid that if Lilith stayed with the humans, she would eventually be killed by them.
This passage marks the beginning of Lilith’s ultimate turn away from the Oankali. Going back to Earth was important to her, and while she sometimes voiced doubt about her mission, the fact that the Oankali didn’t even give Lilith the option to go back to Earth shows how they don’t respect her desires or autonomy.
Themes
Nikanj explains that the humans going back to Earth will escape the Oankali, as Lilith taught them. But eventually, they will have to come back, being unable to have offspring without the help of Oankali. Nikanj reveals that Lilith is in fact pregnant with Joseph’s child, a girl who will also be the child of Nikanj, Ahajas, and Dichaan. Ahajas is similarly pregnant and will have a child that is a sibling to Lilith’s daughter. Lilith is overwhelmed and fears her child won’t feel human, but Nikanj insists that whatever the child is, it will contain part of Lilith.
Nikanj explains to Lilith that the Oankali have made the humans dependent and unable to continue their species without Oankali intervention. On top of this, it made Lilith pregnant without her knowledge or consent. As much as Lilith has trusted Nikanj in the past, this passage is a breaking point, one that puts all of Lilith’s previous interactions with the Oankali in a new light and confirms their fundamental lack of regard for human autonomy, as well as their willingness to take advantage of Lilith’s ability to be a mother.
Themes
Lilith is still worried, feeling that her child is the beginning of the end for humanity. Nikanj insists that Lilith’s child will be better than humans or Oankali. Although Lilith can’t go to Earth, Oankali promises her that she can lead future groups of humans in the training room. Lilith vows to learn as much as she can about the Oankali and perhaps find a way to help some fertile humans slip through the training process, allowing them to continue populating the human race. Nikanj leads Lilith out of the training room through a secret exit.
While the Oankali previously tried to make Lilith a metaphorical mother figure to their new human civilization, in this passage, she now learns that she might be the biological mother to a new hybrid species that spells humanity’s end. While Lilith could become hopeless or accept her fate, she instead shows the same determination to survive that she’s demonstrated throughout the novel, focusing not just on herself but on whatever she can do to ensure the survival of the human race as a whole.
Themes
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