Kindred, By Octavia Butler

“Bloodchild” is a story that pushes the limits of humankind, creating blurry interpretations of good and evil that challenges everyday societal norms. Octavia Butler takes a traditional action-filled story and twists it into an unexpected and intensified tale. Through this heightened piece of work, the most compelling argument can be found from the structure of the narrative itself. From the first-person narrative, readers are able to receive first hand perspective in which no omniscience of any sort can be detected. Readers can acquire the character’s actions, thoughts, and interpretation of the things that happen to them. “Bloodchild” is a story of an alien planet where the Terrans are enslaved by an alien race called the Tlic. Gan, the protagonist, has been promised as a host for the alien embryos in which the story will later reveal a deeper meaning underlining the sacrifice.

Throughout American literary history, nearly every form of literature has covered the topic of slavery and black oppression in America. From William Lloyd Garrison’s abolitionist papers to Harriet Beecher Stowe’s controversial Uncle Tom’s Cabin to Alice Walker’s The Color Purple, the exploration of the black position in America has been a theme that engrossed generations. In the past century, as science fiction has established its place in the literary genre, authors such as Octavia Butler have become increasingly popular. In her short story "Bloodchild", Butler extends the discussion of oppression in America into the science fiction genre. In this manner her story, "…like almost all science

In the Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler, the main character, Lauren Olamina, leaves behind Christianity, a religion that she identified with her whole life and creates a new religion known as Earthseed. Earthseed is a naturalistic way of faith, based on the idea that God is changeable, therefore life, too, could change. Lauren Olamina creates Earthseed because she believes that it is what her people need in order to not only alter their chaotic and misguided ways, but to live a pro-active and positive life.

The novel under the title Kindred is a magnificent literary piece created by renowned African-American fantasy writer and novelist of contemporary times Octavia Butler. This superb piece encompasses the most burning issues and problems faced by the African-American community. The novel throws light on the pathetic condition of the black slaves and vehemently condemns domestic violence and slavery inflicted and imposed upon the black stratum of the American society. The novel also discusses atrocities and hatred exercised upon the African Americans on the basis of racial and ethnic discrimination prevailing in the society. Butler points out the communication gap between spouses and family members, which adds to the misery of the black

Rufus Weylin; a character first perceived as a young, curious and innocent boy, turns in to an over-obsessive and miserable tyrant. In Octavia Butler 's novel _Kindred_, the book revolves around the horrors of slavery in the United States in the early eighteen hundreds. White characters are given absolute power and control over black characters, and treat them like animals, making them live a long life of misery and unhappiness. As _Kindred_ unfolds, it becomes clear that Rufus turns in to a stereotypical slave owner and abuser. With every trip that Dana makes back to Rufus, there is a clear distinction of changes in his personality. He becomes more evil, over-obsessive and cruel as he gets older. In fact, he becomes very much like his

After watching the documentary “The Walk” with Judith Butler and Sunaura Taylor that we watched in class together as a whole. It made me wonder about how Taylor put the idea of being handicapped as a political meaning, rather than just a social or medical way of living. In the documentary, the two women talk about the vast ways that handicapped people face today in the world. Throughout the semester we have learned how not just handicapped people like Taylor a person with a physical impairment are treated differently but also women, and people of ethnic minorities have been and are treated differently like her because of who or what they are.

Neer the very beginning of the novel Dana is experiencing her second return to the past and is greeting her relatives when the father of Alice, her great great… grandmother, is being dragged away because he is presumed to be a runaway slave of the slave master, Tom Weylin. After that mess with Alice’s father clears, the patroller questions Dana as to who she is. When she can’t answer, the patroller drags her out of the home, and she tries to escape with no success. “The man tackled me and brought me down hard. At first, I lay stunned, unable to move or defend myself even when he began hitting me, punching me with his fists. I had never been beaten that way before - would never have thought that I could absorb so much punishment without losing consciousness.” After she is brutally beaten for a while, she scrambles and musters up the strength to bring a limb down onto the man’s head and runs fast and far away from the unconscious man who almost killed her. Although Dana’s tenacity might have come as a surprise to the readers, Butler also does a fabulous job of revealing how Dana is even surprised by her capability and how she can survive through her power as well as her

Have you ever been told that you and a friend are practically the same person? Something similar to this happens to Dana and Alice in Octavia Butler’s novel, Kindred. In Butler’s novel, Dana is a young black woman living in 1976. Next thing she knows, she time travels back to the antebellum South. Dana is given the task of saving her several times great grandfather, Rufus Weylin, from multiple life threatening situations. Along the way she meets her several times great grandmother, Alice, who is a young free black woman. In her novel, Kindred, Octavia Butler compares and contrasts Dana and Alice to show the theme that people will do anything in order to survive. Both Dana and Alice have to become slaves on a plantation, run away for a life of freedom, and tolerate the treatment of Rufus.

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 the novel Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler paints a picture of a dystopia in the United States in which the current societal problems are overly exaggerated into the worst-case scenario. Butler describes a world plagued with high unemployment rates, violence, homelessness, a flawed police system, and a crumbling education system. Butler focuses the story on the poor and the homeless by only giving characters with this background a voice in order to show the reader that society’s views and stereotypes of these groups are flawed. Butler shows the lack of attention they receive and over exaggerates the problem in order to show the extreme consequences if it is not properly addressed.

First published in 1979, Octavia E. Butler’s Kindred is a unique novel, which can be categorized both as a modern-day slave narrative, and as a science fiction time-travel tale. In the novel, Butler uses time-travel as a way to convey W.E.B. Du Bois’ theory of double-consciousness. Dubois’ theory is based on the idea that people of color have two identities, both struggling to reconcile in one being. His theory about the complex nature of the African-American experience directly relates to Butler’s use of Kindred’s protagonist, Dana, and her experience time travelling as a modern-day African-American woman, and her experience of a pre-abolition, nineteenth-century slave.

In Kindred, Octavia Butler’s character Dana is pulled back in time against her will to the 1819 each time her ancestor Rufus is in a life threatening situation. There is no time machine or and no warning of her time travel, save a dizzy feeling and disappearing surroundings. Yet as she rescues her ancestor Rufus, she finds herself in precarious situations on a regular basis because she is an African

“Better to die fighting for freedom then be a prisoner all the days of your life” (Bob Marley). It all begins with Dana Franklin and everything she has to do in order to both save her ancestry as well as keep love and freedom in her life. It is 1976 in Maryland and Dana Franklin is a black woman married to a white man named Kevin Franklin. One day after moving houses, Dana begins to feel dizzy and faints. When she wakes, she realizes she is no longer in 1976 and must save a boy, Rufus Weylin, from himself everytime she is sent there. Dana is constantly sent back to 1815, a time where people with her skin color resort to lives of fear and taking orders, but all Dana truly wants is to have love and freedom. In Kindred, Octavia Butler

I read a historical fiction novel about racism called A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines. Gaines was a was an African American man who was born in 1933 and grew up on a plantation in Louisiana. He earned 50 cents a day picking potatoes at the age of nine. By the age of 15, he moved to California with his aunt and that’s when his passion for reading grew stronger. Disappointed to find that none of the books he read had nothing to do with the world he knew, he decided to write some stories himself (Magnier). Therefore, the main themes of his works come from his childhood. His first few famous novels were published around the 1970’s: Of Love and Dust (1967) and The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (1971); Gaines received the U.S. National Book Award for A Lesson before Dying in 1994. The purpose of this book is to show people how it felt to be put in the shoes of a black man in the southern states of America in the 1940’s.

Setting is an important feature of novels. This narration takes place in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1960. A time that saw the segregation of black people and the dominance of white people in the southern United States. In this novel the setting of 1960’s Jackson, Mississippi exposes significant themes such as racial discrimination, social partiality. The setting also supplies decisive insight into character inspirations and views.