The slave narrative argument certainly is compelling; something in it resonates with modern society, which has developed an obsession with absolving itself of the sins of slavery; thus, if we can look at a story and identify it as a slave narrative and then discuss the extensive literary merit of the work, we feel like we are cleaning up our act. We dance around like cheerleaders for the underprivileged, the wronged, the minority, and if we cheer loud enough, people might forget the mistakes of the past. Following this line of thought, I believe the slave narrative interpretation, as well as many gender dominance interpretations I will discuss later, to be eisegetic – meaning that the reader is imposing his or her own views or ideas on the text rather than taking ideas out of the text itself. The explanation for this phenomenon is at least threefold; I’ve already discussed what I feel is the first motive, that is, the aforementioned quest for atonement. The second cause is that many people begin with the fact that Butler is both black and a women and therefore must be writing about enslavement, whether literal or figurative, based on race or gender. This assumption is completely extra-textual. The third and final force at play is the influence of culture and its expectations: contemporary society is looking for people who are writing about slavery. Our society understands slavery as an experience and sympathizes with the reaction to that oppression; however, Butler is talking about something more profound than slavery. She is dealing with the methods by which humans simultaneously ensure survival and maintain personal identity and, in the process, she is telling a unique love story.

Further evidence against the slave narrative interpretation beyond the argument that it is an eisegetic reading of the text is abundant. Perhaps the most important point is that Butler herself has repeatedly and emphatically stated that she is not writing about slavery in “Bloodchild.” To the contrary, she has explicitly stated that she is writing about symbiosis, as well as writing a love story, a “pregnant man story,” and creating a twist on traditional invasion stories. No doubt someone will object that literary criticism should not be limited by the author’s words about a work because that itself is an extra-textual influence and the reader should be free to interpret the text however he or she reads it. This is quite true and neither I nor Ms. Butler disagree; in an interview with Steven Potts for the journal Science Fiction Studies, Butler said that “what a reader brings to the work is as important as what I put into it, so I don't get upset when I am misinterpreted. Except when I say what I really meant was so-and-so, and I am told, ‘Oh, but subconsciously you must have meant this.’ I mean—leave me alone! I don't mind attempts to interpret my fiction, but I am not willing to have critics interpret my subconscious. I doubt they are qualified.” It is important to note that Butler specific uses the term “misinterpreted,” meaning that she does not affirm any veracity of interpretations other than her own. I feel that the author’s intent is just as much a part of the story as the story itself; how else can the reader fully appreciate the story and all of its nuances without being aware of the artist’s intentions? Thus, I defer to the author’s own words as the definitive foundation for any interpretation of the story.

Finally, and most importantly, the story itself presents many obstacles to the slave narrative interpretation; these same obstacles are the strongest supports of the symbiotic interpretation and will be discussed thoroughly in the next several sections. None of this is to say that there is no value in the slave narrative interpretation; reading a text in multiple ways allows for a much fuller understanding of the text as a whole. However, there is not enough ambiguity within “Bloodchild” for there to be many equally viable interpretations. The most exegetic (the opposite of eisegetic, meaning that the ideas are coming from the text itself rather than entering the text from outside) interpretation of this story is the symbiotic narrative.

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