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1-Page Summary of Parable of the Sower
Overview
Chapters 1—3
The Parable of the Sower takes place in Robledo, California. It’s a dystopian novel that follows Lauren Olamina on her fifteenth birthday. She lives in a walled community because there are so many homeless people and thieves who roam the streets outside. Her father is also a Baptist minister, but she doesn’t believe in God anymore and goes to church for baptism anyway. The neighborhood has been burned down by arsonists and looted several times; it’s dangerous to go out without protection. Lauren feels their pain because she suffers from hyperempathy syndrome—also called “sharing”—which makes her feel what others are feeling around her all the time.
Lauren’s neighbor shoots herself after the death of her family. The author thinks that Lauren is trying to form a new concept of God, because everything changes.
Chapters 4—9
In 2025, Lauren goes to the hills with a neighborhood group for target practice. They encounter a pack of feral dogs and shoot one dog. The dog’s pain is felt by Lauren, who is hyperempathic, so she decides that guns are important to own because they provide protection when police aren’t around.
A girl named Lauren wants to survive a disaster. She talks with her friend Joanne about how they need to make plans and emergency packs in case of an attack. Her friend exaggerates what she said, which causes Lauren’s parents to get involved. They tell her not to scare people, but they do allow her to teach the neighborhood kids about survival skills.
The community is unhappy when thieves steal from their gardens. They form a neighborhood watch to catch the thieves, but they keep coming back and continue stealing. Lauren, who believes that God is change, develops her belief system further by calling it Earthseed.
Keith, Lauren’s thirteen-year-old brother, sneaks out of the neighborhood to steal Cory’s key. He returns beaten up two weeks later. Two months later he disappears for nearly two weeks and comes back wearing new clothes that he won’t talk about. His father beats him severely when Keith returns with money in his pocket, which he gives to Cory. Then Keith leaves again without saying anything else about where he was or what happened during those missing two months.
Chapters 10—13
In 2026, Keith returns to the neighborhood after living in an abandoned building for eight months. He won’t say where he got his money, but later admits that he robbed and shot someone. In August of that year, Keith is tortured and killed by drug dealers. The community continues to deteriorate with more robberies being committed, until finally Lauren decides she will leave Los Angeles for Oregon or Canada in order to avoid KSF’s corruption.
Lauren’s father dies in November. She speaks at his funeral and begins to emerge as a leader in the community. She takes over her mother’s teaching responsibilities.
The day before Christmas Eve, a house is robbed. The next day, another house burns down with only one survivor.
Chapters 14—19
In 2027, the entire neighborhood is in chaos. Fires are burning everywhere and neighbors have become violent intruders. Lauren is one of the few people who escaped alive, but when she returns home she sees that her family has been killed. She gathers supplies and leaves with Harry Balter and Zahra Moss as they head north toward Oregon on a freeway. They meet hundreds of other people walking along the highway at night to avoid danger from predators like two men who attack them, but Lauren shoots them both dead before they can kill anyone else.
The survivors are running out of water. Lauren and Harry help scare off two men who were trying to rob a woman and her husband. They reach the ocean, where they improve their survival skills by making seawater drinkable. A couple they helped, Travis and Natividad, joins them along with their six-month-old baby Dominic. Lauren talks about Earthseed to her group; Travis is interested in it while Zahra remains skeptical.
