Well that changed quickly. It took about four months for the community to slide from (the illusion of) security to the mess it's in now, with a large number of inhabitants dead or left homeless, and thieves ransacking the place. At the end of chapter 13, Wardell Parish complains that "everybody's dead," and though he's talking about his family, his statement reflects the state of affairs in the community and also the country. Parable doesn't seem as prescient as 1984 did - sure, it's entirely possible that technology companies are constantly watching us like Big Brother, but at least people aren't just randomly shooting others in the streets so often that nobody bats an eye anymore. I'm still wondering, though, how did this happen? Butler hasn't really given us any explanation about why society disintegrated to anarchy. I honestly can't imagine what sort of apocalyptic event could lead to this, yet still leave the government intact. I suppose that we outperformed Butler's society, because the book starts in 2024 and whatever happened to unravel society probably took more than three years, but I'd still like to know why Lauren's world is such a mess that, in four months, everybody dies.
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