Inclusion vs. Exclusion Theme Analysis

The first half of the book takes place within Lauren’s gated community, and this immediately brings to light the importance of exclusion. As the United States becomes increasingly brutal and apocalyptic, people are more and more desperate to close themselves off from the violence and destruction taking over the country. Whereas the very rich are able to live safely within highly-securitized communities and can flee dangerous areas via helicopter, middle-class people like Lauren and her family attempt to secure themselves within gated communities. However, it is made clear throughout the book that these attempts are inevitably futile. Part of the reason for this futility is practical; people like Lauren’s family simply do not have the resources to effectively secure and defend themselves from the violence that exists beyond the neighborhood gate.

The other reason why attempts to find safety through exclusion are doomed to failure is because, as Lauren points out in her diary, excluding people from a community breeds violent resentment among the excluded. Simply the fact that Lauren’s neighborhood exists puts the neighborhood in danger. Although the reality is that almost everyone in the gated community is poor and unemployed, the fact that the community is sequestered off from the outside world creates the impression that the people living within it have wealth or resources that they want to safeguard. The violent destruction of Lauren’s neighborhood—and the massacre of its residents—is thus presented as an inevitable (if deeply tragic) event.

The book’s account of how the United States descended into an apocalyptic state also emphasizes the connection between exclusion and destruction. Lauren indicates that the history of racial and socioeconomic inequality in the US led directly to the dystopia of the 2020s, suggesting that excluding groups of people based on their race, gender, and class from mainstream society creates a climate of violence and destruction.

Despite the problems associated with exclusion, however, the book also suggests that exclusion is often necessary—both as an essential (if unreliable) way of staying safe, and as a way of building community. Exclusion and inclusion—rather than cancelling one another out—work together in order to form social units such as Lauren’s family, her neighborhood, and the Earthseed community. Throughout the narrative, Lauren describes the difficulty of navigating the line between exclusion and inclusion in order to form bonds and stay safe. In the neighborhood in which Lauren lives at the beginning of the novel, the residents support one another and share resources, thus helping each other to survive through a structure of mutual dependence.

However, this policy of inclusion and support is flawed by the fact that not everyone in the neighborhood is trustworthy. Lauren admits: “There are other people in the neighborhood whom I don't like. But I don't trust the Payne-Parrishes. The kids seem all right, but the adults. . . . I wouldn't want to have to depend on them. Not even for little things.” Even within the hyper-inclusive environment of her gated community, Lauren maintains a carefully exclusionary attitude in order to keep herself (and the people she does trust) safe. She carries this same attitude forward after the neighborhood is destroyed, using it to decide who to trust on the walk north and who to include in the growing Earthseed community.

Themes of inclusion and exclusion are also explored through Lauren’s hyperempathy, a condition that means she feels other people’s pleasure and pain. As a result, Lauren does not have the same psychological and bodily boundaries that naturally separate people from one another. This forces her to be especially vigilant about who she excludes and includes—both in the sense of building the Earthseed community and in her personal proximity to other people. However, as much as having hyperempathy can be dangerous for Lauren, it is also part of what makes her such a strong and exceptional person. She is (literally) personally implicated in other people’s wellbeing, and is automatically disinclined from violence. For this reason, early in the novel Lauren mentions that she wishes she could live in a community among other people with hyperempathy. This dream in part becomes a reality when the formerly enslaved Emery, Tori, Grayson, and Doe join the Earthseed community, as all four of these characters also have hyperempathy.