Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -… [254]

I suspect that the only good this will do will be to chase away the people who live on the sidewalks and streets nearest to our wall. Is that good? The street poor will be back, and they won’t love us for sicking the cops on them. It’s illegal to camp out on the street the way they do—the way they must—so the cops knock them around, rob them if they have anything worth stealing, then order them away or jail them. The miserable will be made even more miserable. None of that can help Amy. I suppose, though, that it will make the Dunns feel better about the way they treated her. — , Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -…, 254

Note

The self-interrogating question ‘Is that good?’ interrupts the analysis mid-sentence and refuses to be answered; the parenthesis ‘(the way they must)’ quietly converts illegality into necessity. The final dry turn — the cops will at least make the Dunns feel better about their parenting — is the chapter’s coldest sentence, and its compression is the point.