Dana Made Margaret Feel Inferior

Willy undermines her authority with the boys. He denies any negative comments out of her mouth when their children are discussed. He interrupts her. He shouts at her. Linda reacts with veiled hostility to Willy?s disrespect. She laughs at the idea of planting a garden, pointing to Willy?s past failures at growing a garden. Every time Linda pokes at his failures, she is retaliating against Willy?s failures and the fact that she has been pulled into Willy?s dead end dream against her will.

She has been made a slave merely by her skin color, agreement to act a slave with her spouse Kevin, physical violence she witnesses and experiences as well as her lack of any rights of citizenship. To further complicate her lack of power, the once accepting young Rufus is now older, threatening her with black mail, disrupting the power dynamic she once had. During one power struggle she softly argued, “I won’t bargain away my husband or my freedom! [Rufus argued that] You don’t have either to bargain [and Dana exclaimed] Neither do you” (142).

The Johnson family has many problems throughout the household. Mrs. Johnson has a harsh and difficult life; however, her daughters does not make it any better. Mama does not have a lot to show for, but what she does have she appreciates and cares for it very much. The biggest problem would be that Dee does not respect her heritage and does not want to live at home. Their home was not that nice, there were many things wrong with it, but that is where it shows your culture and heritage of your past. Dee left home because she did not like the way her mama was living, she went off to college to try to better herself. Maggie, the youngest daughter, is a very dull and unattractive girl. Walker writes,

Dana has always been an independent woman. So the injustice and inhumane treatment just acted as fuel for the disagreement. Dana was so tired of this that she was willing to put her life at risk. When Tom Weylin found out that Rufus never sent the letters, he personally sent a letter to Kevin. Tom said Kevin sent a letter back saying he would come back for Dana.

During this time, she still lived in Aunt Martha’s attic. The only way to watch her children was through a hole in the attic. The attic represented all the thing that kept slaves from being free. She was unable to sit or stand, which represents how slavery limits slaves to reach their full potential and live a meaningful life; at the same time, Linda used this space as a way to be free. She was still unable to escape the attic because of the risk that Dr. Flint would find her. One day, Mr. Sands got married and Linda sadly realized that he would never free her children. When he took one of her children to Washington, D.

Dr. Flint demands to know the father of Linda's children and doesn't fail to remind her that they were just another set of his properties. Dr. Flint proposes a deal to Linda that is if she stops all communication with her children's father and live in the cottage he has made for her, she will be free. Linda decides to dissent with Flint's proposition and work in Dr. Flint's son's plantation. One night, after a hard day of labor, Linda finally decides to runaway from

Early in her life, after she was put to work, Jacobs wanted nothing more than to be a free woman. Evidently her feelings are altered after she becomes a mother. While Jacobs still desired her freedom, the safety of her children is now more important. She writes she “…would ten thousand times rather that my children should be the half starved paupers of Ireland than to be the most pampered among the slaves of America”. This results in her making decisions that may have hurt herself, but also protected her children such as when she ran away to hide in her grandmother’s house. Jacobs was afraid of what would happen to her when her children were sent out into the fields to be “broken in”. She knew she could not escape to the north with two small children, so she decided that rather than escape on her own she would hide nearby. She went to her grandmother’s house and hid knowing that if she disappeared the Flint’s would sell her children rather than keep them. As she told a trusted friend: “…they would never sell them to any body so long as they have me in their power.”. Ultimately she is correct and the children are sold to their father Mr. Sands, but it costs Jacobs her physical health as she is bitten in the leg by a poisonous snake and injures her back while hiding in the garret of her grandmother’s shed. It also causes her great fear and stress as getting caught would not only mean punishment for her, but anyone who helped or was presumed to have helped hide her. Linda’s philosophy that her children’s wellbeing is more important than her own allows for events to take place that lead to her children’s eventual freedom from

This also illustrates how Dana believes she can have a lasting effect on Rufus, to steer him away from the ways of his father. However, she only has a limited period of time to shed her 20th century mentality on him. And, Rufus’ change is not gradual relative to Dana, because every time she returns, she finds Rufus years older, and acting that much more like his father.

In one of her first interactions with Rufus, Dana chooses to hold onto potential knowledge and certain details of her time-traveling in order

After many trips back to the 1800’s, Rufus eventually takes his father’s place when he deceases. Dana believed this would make her time in the Weylin household less taxing, but she quickly realized that Rufus made her want freedom more than Tom Weylin did. Soon after Tom Weylin passed, Rufus sent Evan Fowler, the slave overseer, to send Dana to work in the fields. He believed Dana let his father die and

Linda in ousted in the limbo as she tries to live in both the reservation society and her past, new by overcoming the

Meanwhile, one of the worse challenge I imaged occurred for Linda while living under the authority of the Flints’ was the tolerance which Mrs. Flint

This was the third time Dana had been called to help Rufus, yet Rufus held full trust in Dana. The quote depicts to readers that at this point in the novel, Rufus found stability in Dana and trusted her to not only be there for him, but to help him through difficult times. Because of the way which Rufus is pleading for Dana to stay with him, grabbing her arm in hopes of keeping her near him, readers can see how much Rufus is counting on Dana, without any hint of distrust. Because of the way Rufus so openly depends on Dana, Dana in turn, truly likes Rufus, and is willing and eager to help him. This creates a stable and faithful relationship on both ends. However, Rufus and Dana’s relationship started changing the fourth time, Dana was called back in time. The author expresses this by having Dana think, “If Rufus could turn so quickly on a life-long friend, how long will it take him to turn on me?” (123). This quote takes place right as Rufus tried raping his long time friend,

Many conflicts has emerged during the time when Dana was transported back into 1776, the period where slaves thrived in the South. Dana was considered a slave due to her slightly dark skin, and therefore she struggled to play the part of a slave, even though her only motive for traveling back in time was to assure the existence of her family lineage by helping Rufus, her white ancestor, survive as he recklessly gets injured, nearing death’s door several times. With the help of her white husband, Kevin, who accidentally gets transported to the past with her, Dana’s life becomes more safe, stable, and secure, until a deadly whip from Tom Weylin caused her to teleport back into her own time, leaving her husband in the traumatic period of history

She wanted to be a role model for her children and at the same time, she wanted to become friend with them. Helen valued education, and she wanted Julie to go to college and have a successful life. However, after she found out that Julie had secretly being together with Tod, the poor, unambitious man. She was disappointed, betrayed, sad. Julie moved out of Helen’s home. Later, when Helen found out that Julie and her husband Tod had nowhere to live, she let them move in with her. She is a permissive parent, yet, she cares about her children, provides them as much support as she can. Helen stayed calm when Gary told her he wanted to live with his dad for a while. I can see her heart was bleeding when she heard her son’s words. She gave Gary his father’s phone number anyway, and Gary talked to his dad over the phone and figured out the cruel fact that his dad didn’t care for them anymore. Helen wanted to comfort Gary but he refused to talk. I felt Helen’s guilt and desperation at that moment. After she broke into Gary’s room and found out that Gary was carrying the bag that contains pornography, she immediately asked Tod’s help to talk to Gary. She had a chance to talk to Tod and had learned that Tod came from a broken family. She had a better idea of who Tod was and his help to Gary gained Helen’s respect. Helen supported Tod and helped her daughter Julie overcame the tough situation in marriage. Helen