Role of Schools in The Marrow Thieves and The Binti Series

Education, in many works of fiction, is not quite significant in the imaginative narrative of speculations and events, including the coming of age of the protagonists. This phenomenon has, however, recently become quite recurrent in building the character plots in many books – including the Binti series by Nnedi Okorafor and the Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline. As Karen Mundy states in her article “The Binti Series and The Marrow Thieves,” the role of education is presented in a strongly contrasting manner between the two books. The coming of age of Binti in Okorafor’s novella series portrays education as a means of opportunity while The Marrow Thieves depicts in a more terrifying and heinous presentation. The role of education is not a straightforward theme brought out in the same way from the perspectives of the two books’ authors.

A brief description of The Marrow Thieves introduces us to the novel’s setting. The story begins with introducing readers to Frenchie – an eleven-year-old boy who grew up in Canada’s indigenous community of the Metis people. It is a narration of his ventures that lead him to Miig – a middle-aged man from the native Anishnaabe community. Miig takes him into his custody and becomes his surrogate guardian. Not so long before, Frenchie loses his father, mother and brother never to anticipate seeing them again. Recruiters had become notoriously famous for causing the disappearance of loved ones in this world that Miig’s followers had become accustomed to. The group of survivors tire throughout the novel to evade recruiters who had turned “residential schools” to facilities for “stealing” the marrow of indigenous people.

On the other side of the contrasting role of education, The Binti Series narrates the journey of a Himba girl. Binti, who is also a mathematician, learns to be a harmonizer through working closely with her father, a manufacturer of electronic astrolabes. The Himba are an ethnic group from the earth that do not stray from home on normal accounts. When Binti, therefore, gets accepted as the first of her people to Oomza University, an intergalactic academic institution, she decides to take off from home without the knowledge of her friends or family. She thus boards a ship heading towards Oomza and finds kinship among several other scholars and academics despite the prejudice from the Khoush. Unfortunately, their ship is attacked by Meduse – an alien race with a jellyfish-like appearance. The Meduse and Khoush are rivals and are known for their violence and warmongering tendency; the Meduse kill everyone apart from Binti and the pilot.

The Marrow Thieves puts readers in a horrifying post-apocalyptic world in which several of the non-indigenous population lack the ability to dream. The indigenous people, therefore, are hunted, kidnapped and brought to residential schools. It is here that the recruiters then extract the marrow from their captives and use them for the assimilation of dreams. The use of schools to perform this treacherous act is a depiction of Canadian history during the 19th and 20th century to forcefully assimilate children to the mainstream European culture. In a similar manner, the innate indigenous aspects of the victims in the novel are robbed off through their dreams that are contained in their marrow. The use of residential schools has been manipulated to evoke the horror that was also present in the real history of Canada in the 20th century when children were wiped clean of their native knowledge and experiences.

In The Binti Series, education and the exposure it has presented Binti to come in handy when she finds herself amidst a war. In the ship, after they are attacked by the Meduse, the edan she had found in the desert through her wits provides her mercy from being killed. Through similar wits and the elaboration of her prowess in critical thinking, she is able to manage several feats that prove to be liberating. The realm of education in the novel is quite significant in the events of Binti. This scenario holds true even in the appearance of the Meduse since they make war with Oomza University after scholars stole their chief’s stinger. The ample socialization among the scholars and academics in the novel, particularly in Oomza University, also allow Binti to broker peaceful terms with the Meduse. The consensus arrived at by the two antagonist parties also sees the admission of a Meduse, Okwu, into the University – showing diversity and integration in the education system.

In conclusion, the above analysis of the two fictional narratives is a holistic interpretation of the role education plays in speculative writing. Juxtaposition, both authors’ works, presents a seemingly contradicting function of education, however. In The Marrow Thieves, there is nothing positive about the schools found throughout the plot. They present schools with “blood-chilling detail as places that rub out memory and hope—they are a ruse for imprisonment and genocide.” On the contrary, The Binti Series sees schools and education as a unifying place that breeds understanding and consensus among intergalactic species. The contrast in this school system, therefore, suggests a myriad of functions that school and education play in our real-life existence and interaction.