What is the significance of Jodahs’s first-person perspective? What contribution does Jodahs’s voice give to the novel’s theme of autonomy? How does Jodahs’s point of view relate to questions of representation and the ways the Oankali have been talked about by humans?

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?