Kindred by Octavia Butler Essay

Dana knew that she could always go home, only if she was in danger. If Dana wanted to go home for good, she would have to kill Rufus. “Then he brought up the fist of his free hand to punch me once, and again as the patroller had done so long ago. I pulled the knife free of him somehow, raised it, and brought it down again into his back.” (Butler 260). No matter what happens if she goes home, Rufus will always call her back to 1819. Dana was always free, but she was “free” limitedly her work wasn’t like other slaves. When she found out her purpose in

Octavia Butler, author of Kindred, is a renowned African American science fiction and contemporary writer. In her novel Kindred, Butler integrates the social stigmas of gender, power, and race not only in a modern day time period but also in 1800s. The beginning of the novel, Butler depicts a modern day African American woman named Dana. However, as the novel progresses, the readers learn that Dana has the ability to time travel to a slave plantation in Maryland in 1815. The primary reason Butler includes her main character to go against the laws of time is to illustrate both her juxtaposing feelings and experiences in the two different time periods and also to show how her experiences in the 1800s affect her in present-day and vis versa.

Science fiction is a genre in which the story is fiction but the topic is what could be.

Rufus simply wanted Dana to return to him and tried this as a way to bring her to him. He values Dana more than he cares for Alice, stating that she should look after Joe and Hagar now that their mother is dead. Rufus sees Danas actions towards him though tainted glass, she has been the most influential person in his life besides his father and now faced with the fact that she might not come back after this time he feels as if he has run out of choices. He wants her to be his new lover and possibly even a wife in a sense, but most of all he wants her loyalty to be to him and him alone. Having her disappear again would destroy him.

“I reacted to the child in trouble. Later I could ask questions, try to find out where I was, what had happened. Now I went to help the child” (Butler, p.13). From the day Dana first saved Rufus, their relationship and dependency on one another has grown stronger. Soon, Rufus returns the favor and becomes Dana’s protector.

Octavia Butler’s Kindred is initially set in the middle of the 1970’s - a time where the Civil Rights movement is coming to a close, and black and white people are starting to learn how to coexist with each other. A black woman named Dana is the main protagonist in this story, and she was just an ordinary, opinionated person married to a white man who shared her love for writing. That is, until she is literally transported into the past by a cruel twist of fate. The Antebellum South, in the early 19th century, is where Dana finds herself thrusted into: dirty, alone most of the time, and scared out of her wits. Not only does she not have the faintest idea of what has happened to her, she quickly comes to realize this is not a one-time trip.

Octavia E. Butler’s Kindred travels through time, alternating from present to past enabling one to obtain an understanding of what life was like for African Americans in the antebellum south and present day California. Butler incorporates personal events and challenges into the characters and the events that occur within her writing. She was born in Pasadena, California where she resided for the greater part of her life (Octavia). Butler’s parents gave birth to five children; she being the only one to survive infancy. Her father died shortly after these devastations, leaving Butler and her mother to support themselves by working on a plantation. Butler’s mother was a domestic which contributed to the understanding Butler showed towards the

By characterizing Sarah as powerless, Butler shows how women in the past were mistreated. Weylin likes to push his women slaves when he is angry to make them persist through life and make them have something to live for: “Weylin for instance had known just how far to push Sarah he had sold only 3 children left one to live for and protect” (Butler 169). Weylin had to “push Sarah” so that she would do more work for him. He did this by selling what was most precious to her. He left her “one” child to strive in life, so she could persist through her life in the plantation. With the burden of being far from her children, Sarah manages to become a strong woman. Rufus just like his father makes women slaves persist through hardships: “ Sent me to the field had me beaten made me spend nearly eight months sleeping on the floor” (Butler 245). Rufus has Dana beaten and sent to the field, so he can somebody making Dana persists through his anger and the

Lastly, violence in Kindred was used to show how the treatment of slaves was used to dehumanize and put down blacks. In a society where a slave owner had absolute power over its “property”, the importance of a slave’s life was greatly disregarded. Butler used this notion and violence to show how in the eyes of whites, slaves were subhuman. Thusly, they had no rights, and received extremely unlucky treatment. When traveling to the 1800’s as a black women, Dana stated that in that time “there was no shame in raping a black woman,

Literature sounds too stuffy and high-browed an descriptor for Science Fiction as a genre. Science fiction is meant to be fantasy, something that is not real and does not strive to meet the literary aspirations of those who would write meaningful prose. Not to say that science fiction writers do not want to something meaningful, but even though the genre may be filled with writers who are degraded by "real" authors as a breed, does not mean that there are not classics that have been recognized as achieving a literary mark. It can be argued, because of the use of literary devices, that there are those science fiction novels that definitely reach the level anyone would consider literature, and among these is a book from Phillip K. Dick called The Man in the High Castle. This paper examines what literary devices were used in this book to make it both a work of science fiction and a work of literature.

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

The Science Fiction/African American Literature Kindred by Octavia Butler is telling the story about Dana, a black woman, who was recently married and somehow gets transported to the antebellum South. Dana does get transported back in time to the slave quarters and each time the stays grow longer. With traveling to the past and coming back to the present there are issues that appear throughout the book. One issue that has been present throughout the book is how traveling back to the 19th century causes Kevin to lose touch with himself. Kindred starts with a very short prologue that leaves us with many questions about Kevin’s identity and actions.

For instance Rufus showed that he was not all bad or all good by how he treats Alice. “Rufe, did you manage to rape that girl (122).” In this quote Dana is asking Rufus if he really did just rape Alice after he was just in a fight with Alice’s husband. Also it show how ugly Rufus got when something did not go his way. “And I’m sure not going to bother her while she’s hurt like this (149).” This quote is taken from Kindred after Rufus buys Alice and has Dana clean her wounds for her. It also is showing that Rufus actually cares for Alice and is really a good person at some points. “I can’t stop you from raping a woman, Rufe, but I’m not going to help you do it either (163). Dana is yelling at Rufus after he told her to go and tell Alice to come to him that night and if she does not he will beat her. This is one of the biggest things in the book that show how much of a bad person he can be even with the nice things he

As depicted in, “‘You wouldn’t hurt me until something frustrated you, made you angry or jealous. You wouldn’t hurt me until someone hurt you. Rufe, I know you’” (256). In this quote, Rufus is trying to convince Dana to stay in his time. He is telling her he would not harm her. This shows how Dana has lost faith in her understanding with Rufus in which they need each other too much to hurt one another. It shows that because of Rufus’s impulsive behavior, Dana has lost trust in Rufus to not harm her. This quote shows that Dana and Rufus’s relationship has developed into one of no trust or general ground rules. It has developed as Rufus has aged. As a further matter, not only has Dana lost trust with Rufus, but Rufus has lost faith in Dana to keep him safe. Shown in, “Rufus wasn’t afraid of dying. Now, in his grief, he seemed almost to want death. But he was afraid of dying alone, afraid of being deserted by the one person he had depended on for so long” (257). In this quote, the person Dana is referring to as “The one person he had depended on for so long,” is herself. This quote shows that because of Dana coming and going into Rufus’s time, Rufus has lost faith in Dana. Rufus truly has depended on Dana to come and save him when he was in desperate need, and he

“God is Power—infinite, irresistible, inexorable, indifferent. And yet, God is Pliable—trickster, teacher, chaos, clay. God exists to be shaped. God is Change.” (Butler 25). In Parable of the Sower Octavia Butler introduces the concept of religion through her characters specifically Lauren. In a society that is crumbling, religion is seemed to be the only thing striving. The idea that although society could be falling apart many of the characters either cling to their beliefs, or shy away from them. Laurens creation of “Earthseed” proves that in a failing society, the concept of religion somehow still survives.