The Meaning of the Title

With the many harrowing events that impact the main character of the book and the general feeling of suspense, it is easy to overlook the fact that the title of the novel actually comes from a passage in the Bible known as the Parable of the Sower, one of many allegorical stories that Jesus used to communicate his message to a general audience:

“A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. Whoever has ears, let them hear.”

Essentially, the different types of soils in the story represent different types of people, and the seed represents the message of Jesus. What does this parable mean to the novel then? Similar to Jesus in first-century Roman Palestine, Lauren is also someone who is trying to spread a new religion in a time of social unrest, and eventually build a new community around it, knowing that not everyone will readily accept her religion's teachings. 

The metaphor of seeds is also relevant because in a different analogy separate from the one in the parable, Lauren is like a seed who fell onto bad soil, which is the dangerous community she grew up in, but she decides to challenge her fate and find a better place to grow. In fact, she even names her new community after a seed, calling it "acorn." 


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