In the short story “Bloodchild” by Octavia Butler, we are shown a relationship between something similar to an alien and a human family. In my opinion, the relationship that these creatures have with the humans very closely resembles slavery. Although the author did not intend on portraying this kind of dynamic for her story, there are many parts that hint towards slavery, such as the lack of respect to autonomy. This is shown at the beginning of the story when T’Gatoi practically forced the mother to eat what was left of her son’s egg. Another example of this is when T’Gatoi uses her body to cage in the mother and then proceeding to sting her and draw a drop of blood.
It is clear in the story that T’Gatoi has a significant amount of power over the family and this is proven by how the family obeys her every request. For example, when she asks the daughter to take off the mother’s shoes, the daughter immediately does it, despite being drunkenly tired from consuming the egg. It was also clear in the story that the mother truly has no say in who the creature chose as the host for their children because the mother had other kids available, yet T’Gatoi preferred to wait for the brand new baby so that she can take part in all phases of development. Throughout the story, you can notice pretty quickly how much power T’Gatoi has over the family and their bodies because when she asks the mother to sleep/stand, she feels like she has no choice but to listen.
Another example of how the story gives off that dynamic of “slavery” is the fact that the humans each have their own armband with their name along with the name of their “owner.” This is kind of similar to how you would put a collar on a dog to show you have ownership over them, which is what I interpreted from the situation. T’Gatoi also punishes the family when they don’t do as she says, and this is shown when she knocks the son across the room for trying to argue with/talk back to her about how he’s never slaughtered an animal before. Overall, there is a significant amount of evidence throughout the story that proves there is some kind of slave and slave owner dynamic between the two parties.
