Literary Analysis Essay on The Fifth Season

Introduction

The Fifth Season is a book by the American fiction writer Nora K. Jemisin. The book features three women. Essun, who is a secret orogen, in search of her lost daughter. Then there us Syenite, who is a Fulcrum trained by orogen but is continuously questioning her knowledge of the world. Finally, there is Damaya, who is a young orogen that is being taken to the capital for training. Orogenes are mythical beings with the ability to stop earthquakes and volcanoes. They also can create these phenomena. Their powers attract hate from the people of stillness who view the orogenes as a threat. While the lives of these three personalities are interspersed, they represent the same person, Damaya, who is imagining herself in three different lives. One of the most standout features of the book is the culture of bias and racism towards the orogenes from the rest of society. Therefore, in the literary analysis of The Fifth Season, it is essential to analyze how racism in the society and culture that is such a vital part of the story reflect a unique aspect of the lived experience of black people either in the United States or internationally.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

Racism as a cultural aspect of the society in the book reflects the lived experiences of black people in America through their shared experiences. The orogenes had been very useful to the people of Stillness. Their ability to stop earthquakes and volcanoes had saved the lives of many people in society. Despite their service to society, they receive hate for the people that they serve to protect. The orogenes is similar to that of the black people in America. During the founding of the American nation, a considerable part of the economy depended on slave labor. According to National Geographic, "Most European colonial economies in the Americas from the 16th through the 19th century were dependent on enslaved African labor for their survival "(par.3). That means that colonies such as the United States needed slave labor in order for them to survive. Furthermore, the land was vast, and it would have turned out to be useless without sufficient labor to exploit.

That goes to show that the contribution made by the black people in the United States is similar to that made by the orogenes to stillness. However, like their counterparts in the story, the black people always found themselves on the receiving end of criticism and hate from the rest of the population. Most of the Americans chose to reward the black people by giving them hatred and even sometimes going as far as to inflict physical harm upon them and their family rather than showing gratitude for the work done by the black people in providing a firm foundation for the economy to grow,

In the story, the character Essun lost one of her daughters to her husband, who killed her because he had determined that she possessed orogenic abilities. Based on the reaction that the act received from the rest of society, it seems that the husband's actions were not unorthodox. The murder of orogenes was considered very ordinary and the government was unlikely to take action on the perpetrators of such acts. The murder of orogenes resembles black people's experiences in the United States. During the early days of founding the nation, the murder of a black person was less likely to be persecuted because it was a common occurrence. In modern America, black people are still facing persecutions from gun violence and police shootings. The sad part is that even though these cases go to trial, a good number of the perpetrators continue to be free. According to Edwards et al., male African Americans are 2.5 more likely to get shot by the police compared to their white counterparts(16794). That statistic highlights the racial problem in America because black Americans are a minority in the United States. That places the African American community in the same category as the orogenes in the story because both groups are a minority group that is facing persecution.

A good part of the hate against the orogenes comes from fear. Although the orogenes are useful in stopping earthquakes and volcanoes, they also have the power to create them. That makes them a threat to the rest of the people of Stillness who view their powers as a threat to their existence. It is that fear that causes the people of Stillness to persecute some of the orogenes. The fear is so great that some people even kill their own children ones they find out that they have orogenic powers. The experiences of the orogenes reflect a similar aspect of the lived experiences of blacks in the United States of America. Some part of the racism in the United States was driven by fear. The fear of competition, fear of cultural erosion, and even fear of diseases (O'Shea 15). Such fears can push people to have racial views or prejudice against people of other races. In the early days of the American nation, some people feared that the end of slavery would threaten their economic stability. According to them, slavery, as well as racism, was integral in keeping their societies prosperous. That was especially the case for the Southern States, which were relying on agriculture. Other people felt that the presence of African Americans is a threat to the white culture. They feared that allowing black people the same rights as the white majority would threaten the existence of the white race. These fears, as part of the racial prejudice, are present in The Fifth Season through the orogenes experiences.

However, the people of Stillness were not the only people living in fear. The orogenes lived in more fear than the rest of the population. In the story, the character names Essun is an orogene but she has to keep it a secret even from her husband because of the fear of persecution. Her two children also have the same abilities but Essun goes to great lengths to prevent their father from finding out the truth about their abilities. The black Americans could not hide their real identity unlike the orogenes who could conceal their powers from the rest of the population. However, the experiences of the orogenes are similar to that of the black community in America in that both groups lived in fear of persecution. African Americans had to endure centuries of persecution and torture from the white population. They were viewed as outcasts and they would get severely punished for as much as looking at a white woman. These injustices were underlined by the case of 14-year-old Emmett Till, who was lynched for allegedly flirting with 21-year-old Carolyne Bryant (PBS par.5). Just like orogenes, these persecutions do not get punished by the government. The perpetrators get to walk scot-free.

The story reflects a unique reflection of the historical experiences of black people in the United States and internationally through the constant desire to control the orogenes. When a person is discovered to be an orogene, they only have two options. They are either killed or taken to the Fulcrum, where they will be trained to use their powers for the benefit of the rest of the people of Stillness. That aspect is displayed when Damaya's parents discover her abilities. In typical situations, the parents would have killed her.

Nevertheless, for some reason, Damaya's parents cannot bring themselves to execute her, and therefore decide to send her to Fulcrum. It was the only way for her to remain alive since, as a trained orogene, she gets to remain useful to the government. However, even at the Fulcrum, she finds out that she has to do more than undergo training in order to remain alive. The same is seen of the black people in America, who only had two options of remaining alive. They either had to work at a white man's plantation as slaves or die. Their death would either come from getting killed by other white supremacists or hunger since they were not allowed to own property run or run a business, things which would have provided them alternative means of making an income. In the story, the orogenes do not have a say in the essential issues such as whom they choose to conceive. The orogene Syenite has been forced to conceive a child with a powerful orogene known as Alabaster. The two dislike each other but they both do not have an option as that is the will of the state. The situation exemplifies the historical experiences of black people in America as they did not even have a say when it comes to matters of their bodies. Black women suffered centuries of rape and other forms of sexual abuse. They would frequently get pregnant against their own will just as was the case with Syenite.

Also, some of the orogenes are forced into obelisks, which despite being termed as training centers, are concentration camps where torture and lobotomy rein rampant. Moreso, the orogenes that end up in these get denied the basic needs, such as the freedom of movement and end up getting trapped inside until they die. All these are seen as necessary measures to maintain control over the orogenes. Similarly, the historical experiences of the black Americans involved them being forced into plantations, which in a way resembles the obelisks in the story. Just like the obelisks, the blacks were tortured and confinement. They were not allowed to leave these plantations without their masters' permission. Therefore, in a way, the experiences of the orogenes inside the obelisks reflect the experiences of the blacks inside the plantations.

The Fifth Season reflects the right amount of racial prejudice against the orogenes. A lot of the experiences of the orogenes is similar to that of the blacks in the United States and the rest of the world. The hate from the rest of the population, fear of persecution, the lack of control and choice over one's life, and lack of basic needs are all conventional aspects of the lives of the black people in America. Even the government that is supposed to protect the orogenes is involved in their oppression, in the same way, the police institution and the judiciary, which are supposed to be involved in the protection of black people actively participate in their oppression and persecution.

Works Cited

Edwards, Frank, et al. "Risk of Being Killed by Police Use of Force in the United States by Age, Race-Ethnicity, and Sex." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 116, no. 34 June 2019, pp. 16793-16798., doi:10.31235/osf.io/kw9cu.

National Geographic. "How Slavery Helped Build a World Economy." National Geographic, Discovery Networks, 3 Jan. 2003, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/1/how-slavery-helped-build-a-world-economy/.

O'Shea, Brian A., et al. "Infectious Disease Prevalence, Not Race Exposure, Predicts Both Implicit and Explicit Racial Prejudice Across the United States." Social Psychological and Personality Science (2019): 1948550619862319.

PBS. "Getting Away with Murder." PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, 2019, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/emmett-biography-roy-carolyn-bryant-and-jw-milam/.