Imago

Is Jodahs’s use of pheromones coercive or protective? How does its scent complicate the nature of consent in the novel?

The novel features two sets of siblings: the ooloi Jodahs and Aaor and the humans Jesusa and Tomás. How are these pairs similar and different? What do sibling relationships reveal about the nature of family and community in providing support and a sense of home?

How does the novel handle representations of disability? Is the Oankali’s impetus to cure all genetic conditions a utopian vision of health or does it succumb to a logic of eugenics and erase people with disabilities?

Compare how humans and Oankali conceptualize their relationship to mortality and their confrontation with death. What roles do religion and spirituality play for the humans, and do the Oankali have a counterpart? Some examples to consider are the First Mother’s shrine, Jodahs’s namesake, the village’s high mortality rate, Aaor’s “dissolution,” and Ahajas’s description of Oankali life after death.

How does Jodahs’s metamorphosis compare with Aaor’s? Is shapeshifting an asset or a detriment to the ooloi constructs? Consider comparing Jodahs’s assessment of its shapeshifting with the opinions of others such as Nikanj, Lilith, Jodahs’s younger siblings, and Jesusa and Tomás? Does Jodahs’s opinion of its body and appearance change throughout the novel?

Consider the novel’s various settings in Lo, the forest, the mountains, and the homeship. What do each of these places represent, and how does Jodahs define home?

How is sexual pleasure and erotic desire represented in the novel? How does the novel explore sexuality in relationship to biology, reproduction, sexual politics, the social construction of gender, and queer identities?

How does the novel explore and problematize the “woman-as-nation” metaphor that relegates women to the roles of nurturers and symbols of political loyalty? How is motherhood depicted, and what are women’s duties to their families and communities?