Analyzing T'Gatoi's role in Bloodchild

Sentence Analysis:

“It was an honor to have T’Gatoi in the family but it was hardly a novelty.” (Butler, 53)

Octavia Butler’s “Bloodchild” portrays the odd and disturbing relationship between a human boy, Gan, and an alien (Tlic) creature by the name of T’Gatoi. T’Gatoi is the motherly, commanding alien creature of the story's world who takes a parental role over Gan. The sentence, “It was an honor to have T’Gatoi in the family but it was hardly a novelty.”, depicts how although T’Gatoi was a familial aspect of their life, there was something not entirely conventional in the way she was associated with them. The sentence reflects T’Gatoi’s long-standing involvement with Gan’s family and foreshadows how their relationship isn’t necessarily moral to most people’s standards or appropriate in any way. The seemingly innocent phrasing of the excerpt copies the manipulative persona of T’Gatoi and how she uses her closeness to Gan’s family to get what she wants. T’Gatoi’s relationship with Gan is often described as predatorial or an example of grooming because of the carefully crafted bond she has created in order to use Gan’s body as a host for her eggs. Although the sentence doesn’t contain expansive wording and has minimal detail, it is an integral part of the narrative because of the story's involvement surrounding T’Gatoi’s connection to Gan’s family and provides a gateway to the main theme of the story as it is a discussion of a relationship.

The sentence, placed at the beginning of the short story, illustrates the questionable relationship that is going on between T’Gatoi and the entirety of Gan’s family. The placement of the sentence is late enough that it allows for initial story building to take place, such as setting and early character development, yet early enough to set the tone for T’Gatoi’s association with Gan’s family. Seemingly sweet through its familial wording, the line gives way to a story that showcases how having T’Gatoi be so intertwined in their family isn’t a luxury, but rather a curse. The sentence allows for critical thinking and analyses of what T’Gatoi’s relationship with Gan and his family actually means, as it makes it clear that their correlation with each other isn’t necessarily standard, although customary to Gan. It marks a turning point in the story for a more in-depth discussion of how T’Gatoi is so close with Gan’s family and why he was chosen by her to be groomed and prepped for the hosting of her eggs.

Many details can be drawn from the text by pulling back some layers to reveal the depth of T’Gatoi’s involvement in Gan’s family's life and T’Gatoi’s role in general. The word “honor” in the sentence explains how in the alien world/society it is seen as an honor to be so intimate with the Tlic, especially one as powerful as T’Gatoi. Privately interacting with her as she takes over this sort of motherly role for Gan is unique and uncommon among other people in their community. Although at first, that may sound endearing, in reality, it is to prepare Gan for grooming and later the insemination of T’Gatoi’s eggs, which is a long and eventually grueling and painful process of inter-species sex, which could technically be considered bestiality. In their world, this is viewed as an honor because it's as though Gan is “good enough” to carry T’Gatoi’s children and continue the confusing cycle of life that occurs among humans and Tlics. Furthermore, the phrase “in the family” has more layers than may first be perceived upon initially reading, because of how it ties into the Tlic-human intermixed family tree. T’Gatoi is connected to Gan’s family by blood in many ways, as Gan’s father housed T’Gatoi’s body until it was time for her birth. Later on, T’Gatoi built a lifelong friendship with Gan’s mother, Lien, who then later married Gan’s father, and T’Gatoi’s “human houser”. Eventually, T’Gatoi will insert her own eggs into Gan, and use him as the human body to grow her own baby alien creatures. Not only does this familial intertwining of a complicated and cross-species family tree seem odd, but it also appears to include questionable concepts of incest. 

Following “in the family”, Butler finishes the sentence with the phrase, “but it was hardly a novelty”. These final words of the sentence explain that T’Gatoi isn’t new to their family and she isn’t a stranger to them. T’Gatoi has groomed and prepared Gan with her sedative stinger and intoxicating egg to prepare him for intercourse, in which she forces him to assume the role of a host for her eggs. Although T’Gatoi initially explains that she could do this to anyone in his family, it is implied that Gan has been the chosen one for this process ever since he was born and that T’Gatoi has been watching over him and slowly preparing him for his “duty”. This concept of the forced alien-egg-child bearer is incredibly unsettling and shocking, feeding into the story's horror/science fiction quality.