105 pages • 3 hours read
Dawn
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BetaSymbols & Motifs
Motherhood
Content Warning: The guide discusses suicide, rape, and sexual assault, which are present in the source text.
Motherhood is a motif that appears in various forms throughout the novel. The title Dawn references motherhood and the role Lilith will have in bringing about a new beginning. Humanity was only saved through the intervention of the Oankali, so this is the dawn of a new era, a new way of life for humans, and a new way of thought about what makes human beings human. It is even the dawn of a new version of humanity, as humans are genetically altered to create a hybrid species with the Oankali.
Linked to this motif is the title of the first section of the book, “Womb,” symbolizing Lilith’s new life. She is Awakened from her suspended animation plant, wet and naked, just as if she were born from her mother’s womb. She is also ignorant of everything in this new world, just like a newborn baby.
The title of the third section of the book, “Nursery,” also relates to the motherhood motif, as it progresses the birth analogy. The nursery is the large room where Lilith Awakens the other humans, the place where she cares for them and teaches them how to live in this new world, as she would babies in a nursery. This emphasizes her role as a maternal figure and the new hope she brings for humanity’s future.
Lilith’s baby symbolizes another new beginning: the rebirth of a new, more evolved human species. Lilith was a mother on Earth and lost her child. When Lilith serves as the “mother” of the newly-Awakened, it does not go as she hoped. Now she may truly be a mother again, though she does not accept this role and fears that she will be the mother to a “monster.” Regardless of her feelings, this baby will be the first Oankali/human hybrid and represents the next phase in human evolution.
Fruit
The banana that Jdahya brings to Lilith in her isolation room is the first recognizable human food that Lilith has seen since the beginning of her captivity. For her, it symbolizes home and the familiar. In the midst of all the strangeness of her surroundings and her circumstances, this sweet taste of Earth is a revelation to her. Jdahya also gives Lilith an orange, which she welcomes as another familiar piece of home. Impulsively, Lilith breaks apart the orange and offers to share it with Jdahya. This is a gesture of friendship and acceptance and shows that Lilith is beginning to lose her horror of Jdahya and is starting to see him as a friend.
Fruit also has symbolic meaning for Lilith’s mythical role as the “first Eve.” In the biblical creation myth, fruit symbolizes knowledge, temptation, and the consequences of disobedience. In the Garden of Eden, God forbids Adam and Eve from eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The fruit represents the lure of forbidden wisdom and the human desire to transcend divine boundaries. When Eve and Adam eat the fruit, it signifies their choice to seek knowledge and autonomy, leading to their expulsion from Eden. This act of disobedience introduces sin and mortality into human experience, making the fruit a symbol of the pivotal moment that defines humanity’s relationship with free will and its consequences. The humans play out this dynamic with the Oankali, who are the gods against whom the humans continuously rebel as an expression of The Human Desire for Freedom. Lilith must manage her own reactions toward the Oankali as well as those of the other humans who are under her care.
Human Aggression
Throughout the novel, the humans’ aggression is contrasted with the restraint and peacefulness of the Oankali. This motif influences how the Oankali interact with the humans and conveys the novel’s questions about humanity’s ability to coexist with other species.
The first example of human aggression is the nuclear war that destroyed most of humanity and made Earth uninhabitable. The novel’s premise is that humans could not control their aggression enough to coexist with one another, and now a more advanced alien species has to alter their DNA to help them reestablish life on Earth. For the Oankali, human aggression is a desirable trait because it’s something they don’t possess. However, unlike humans, they are advanced enough to moderate it; aggression will help the Oankali thrive.
Human aggression manifests in the sexual assaults that occur in the novel. Some of the human men prove incapable of controlling their sexual desire and desire to dominate, forcing themselves on the women. For example, Paul attacks Lilith, trying to tear her clothes off, and when she resists, he beats her until she is unconscious. Paul doesn’t see Lilith as a person with free will but rather as an object: “They said I could do it with you. […] And you had to go and mess it up!” (96). Peter’s attempted rape of Allison is another such example. He and Gregory try to drag Allison off to Gregory’s room while Jean and Curt block Lilith from intervening, saying it is Allison’s job to mate with the men. Thanks to her enhanced strength, Lilith fights them off, calling this “caveman” behavior. The men’s inability to see women as anything more than sexual mates who must submit to them exemplifies the aggression that led to humanity’s downfall.
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