Lauren is a total protagonist. Within the first few pages, she establishes herself as a strong individual. At age 7, she tells her [step]mother she prefers the stars rather than the city lights. To her mother, city lights symbolize “lights, progress, growth…The stars are free. I’d rather have the city lights back myself, the sooner the better. But we can afford the stars”. Yet Lauren puts no price on the stars. She lies back, knows the constellations, seeks meteors. I find it interesting that the stepmother tells Lauren “stars are windows into heaven…Windows for God to look through to keep an eye on us” and then Lauren turns out to be a deeply spiritual character in the book – she even creates her own religion Earthseed. I think this first chapter says a lot about how the book is going to span out: Lauren rathers stars, which means lack of cities and communities, which means danger and isolation. But Lauren is ok with this sparse yet dangerous outer wall world. She studies how to use native plants to her advantage. She knows how to shoot a gun. She comes up with the idea to make a grab and run pack. All this is foreshadowed from page 5, “the neighborhood wall is massive, looming presences…crouching animal, perhaps about to spring, more threatening than protective” . Seven year old Lauren is subconsciously ready to establish herself as survivor/leader.
Through chapter 10, Lauren slowly becomes more forceful in her survival beliefs by expanding her knowledge, toning her hyper empathy and creating a pack of crucial tools and materials. Her Earthseed sermons become more of God being of the natural environment, change and invidiual mental behavior than just an omnipotent source.