Overview. Octavia Butler’S Kindred Focuses On The Perspective

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

Character’s relationships with power change a lot over the course of Octavia Butler’s Kindred. One of the most important character changes in the book is Kevin Franklin and Dana’s relationship, and how is changed after living in the 1800’s. Kevin is introduced in the book as Dana’s middle aged husband who she met while working in a “slave market”. Both of them are inspiring writers looking to make a life out of their passion. Before both Kevin and Dana are sent back into slavery time their relationship is very normal. Their marriage is very stable, although they go through different problems surrounding power. Kevin is very dominant towards Dana and at times believes he is better than her. Kevin constantly asks Dana to type out drafts of his

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

The phrase “art imitates life” can be used to describe many works of literature. Authors and the stories they write are often influenced by the changing world around them along with the evolution of new perspectives and ways of thinking regarding a subject. While this may sound simply like a common literary trope, it is of great importance and significance in many genres of literature. None has this been more apparent than in both the anti-slavery and women’s empowerment movement of the early to mid-1800s. Two major influence authors in their respective subjects, Frederick Douglass and Fanny Fern, were heavily influenced by the changing societal trends of the time of which they expressed through their writing. Douglass’s speech in particular “What to a Slave is the 4th of July?” was heavily influenced by Douglass’s own personal experience as a slave as well as the rising prominence of the abolitionist movement in the United States. By referencing the contradictory nature of the Constitution relegating personal freedoms exclusively to white, property owning males, Douglass bluntly references the systematic inequalities faced by people of color in the United States. Never would the works of an African American author, especially one challenging the established institution of slavery, gain so much attention if not for the anti-slavery movement and shifting perspectives surrounding it.

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.

Two-hundred years is a sizeable gap of time that allows plenty of room for change. American society had been rapidly changing from the early seventeenth century to the late nineteenth century, but despite this, the roles and rights of women have remained locked in place. There were many factors to consider as to why women were not allowed to flourish in their time and exceed these boundaries, and while some accepted it, there were many that opposed and faced these difficulties head on. Two female authors, one from colonial times, and one from nineteenth century America, have written about the obstacles and misogyny they’ve overcome in a male dominated literary career. Despite the two-hundred-year gap between the lives of Margaret Fuller and Anne Bradstreet, they both face issues regarding the static stereotype that women are literarily inferior and subservient handmaids to men.

Octavia Butler’s novel Kindred is categorized as science fiction because of the existence of time travel. However, the novel does not center on the schematics of this type of journey. Instead, the novel deals with the relationships forged between a Los Angeles woman from the 20th century, and slaves from the 19th century. Therefore, the mechanism of time travel allows the author a sort of freedom when writing this "slavery narrative" apart from her counterparts. Butler is able to judge the slavery from the point of view of a truly "free" black woman, as opposed to an enslaved one describing memories.

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.

By employing themes such as psychosexual fantasies, race, gender, and violence, artist Kara Walker reconstructs and explores the history and effects of American slavery on American culture. Although being called names like notorious, revolting, anti-progressive, and shameless, she continues to be a pioneer of bringing the unspeakable aspects of American slavery that are not commonly discussed and are left out of the history books to the foreground of public discussion.

Slavery is a contradictory subject in American history because “one hears…of the staid and gentle patriarchy, the wide and sleepy plantations with lord and retainers, ease and happiness; [while] on the other hand on hears of barbarous cruelty and unbridles power and wide oppression of men” (Dubois 2). Dubois’s The Negro in the United States is an autoethnographic text which is a representation “that the so-defined others

Octavia Butler is one of only a few African-American science fiction writers, and the only African-American woman to earn popular and critical acclaim predominantly in the genre of science fiction. Her writing has earned science fictions top literary honors, including the Nebula Award, the Hugo Award, and the Locus Award. Octavia Butler was born on June 22, 1947 in Pasadena, California. Her young adulthood was an amalgam of misery and motivation; she supported her family by working as a domestic. Often accompanying her mother to work, Butler witnessed the racial and economic indignities common to the African-American working poor, particularly women. Class, gender and racial inequalities would play a central role in her writing. Butler 's most popular short story to date is "Bloodchild". The frightening futuristic dilemma in "Bloodchild" involves humans who have had to escape to another planet for survival. Butler skillfully reverses the troupe of animal captivity and breeding to make humans the other. By placing the animal like creatures in control but also making them dependent on the earthlings, Butler uses symbolism to emphasize on the main themes of Gender roles, Interrelation and the lack of Freedom in society.

Authors of fiction often write about the human condition as a way to connect with a broad range of readers. Unlike factual textbooks, fiction gives characters feeling and emotion, allowing us to see the story behind the basic details. In many cases, readers gain a new perspective on a period of time by examining a fiction novel. In Kindred, by Octavia Butler, the near death experiences of Rufus Weylin transports a 20th century African American woman named Dana to the ante bellum South to experience exactly what it’s like to be a slave. Through her day-to-day life on the Weylin plantation, the reader begins to understand just how complex slavery is and how it affects both the slaves and the plantation owners; thus, giving new

Sometimes people have no choice but have to do something they normally don’t do in order to survive. So what is survival? According to the dictionary, survival means the state or fact of continuing to live or exist, typically in spite of an accident, ordeal, or difficult circumstances. Octavia Butler also explores the word “survival” through the character of Dana Franklin in the novel, Kindred. The main character, Dana Franklin, travels back in time to the antebellum South and takes the role of slave and rescues her master, Rufus whenever he gets in trouble. She also meets a variety of people. When Dana wants to go back to her home, she has to take the risks first. In Kindred, Octavia Butler uses the problems Dana experiences in her time

Kindred is not a typical science fiction novel. This novel illustrates the historical period of slavery through the eyes of a modern day black woman, Dana, who has been forced to live the life of her ancestors. Throughout the novel, Dana travels back in time to a Maryland slave plantation to repeatedly save her white ancestor, Rufus, from dying. Dana sees Rufus as a despicable young man who has no respect for others, but, despite this, she constantly feels the need to nurture and protect him. Throughout Kindred, the relationship between Dana and Rufus can be described as highly complicated.

Having established an abolitionist position through other works and reviews (Ferguson 84), Wollstonecraft proceeded to complicate her prior references to mothers and daughters as slaves by folding abolitionist rhetoric into her arguments for women’s rights (Ferguson 83). By comparing the dehumanisation of women to the brutalisation of “the poor African slaves” (Wollstonecraft 96), Vindication draws a distinctive parallel between the experience of colonised slaves and the relatively privileged classes of white European women. This strategy creates “new political possibilities” through a suggestion of “collective opposition” (Ferguson 92). However, it also co-opts black women as “sexual victims” to underline her arguments about male sexual power and implicate white women in the “resistance” black female slaves (93). This is a problematic engagement with female experience because it reduces one group of women to “shadowy figures” that are only “ushered in” to support the argument for the emancipation of women occupying positions of privilege over colonised slaves (93). This creates a rhetoric which uses the racial, colonial, and gendered injustice suffered by enslaved black women living as a metaphor for free white women’s subordination without interrogating the privileges held by white women over people of other races, especially those living in