Stereotypes In The Kindred

The next time Dana was sent back to save Rufus’s life is when he fell off a tree and broke his leg. The mysterious time traveling keeps happening in the book repeatedly. Another reason Dana has more power than Rufus is because whenever she is transported back to the 1800’s Rufus’s life always depends on Dana saving him and helping him until her life is in danger or their connection from the present to the past dies. If one of them breaks the other's trust Dana could abandon him allowing him to die but both of them need each other to survive. At the end of the book Dana has the power to kill Rufus because he always needs somebody to do his “dirty” work and his bad business so he doesn’t get blamed for all of horrible things he did. Ironically, his desire to possess Dana forever comes true. In her final return home in 1976, she loses her arm at the exact spot where Rufus had grabbed onto it. The arm stays in the past forever with

Language has an effect on everyone; it can be used to help and to hurt others. .In Octavia Butler’s Kindred, Dana, one of the main characters, can time travel back the Antebellum South to different points in her ancestor's life. Rufus Weylin her ancestor owns slaves. Octavia Butler uses Dana’s place in the Antebellum South to show how language affects the slaves and their owners. In Kindred, Octavia Butler uses Dana’s experiences in the Antebellum South to portray the strength of language and it’s ability to empower and celebrate others or to control and manipulate others. In doing so, Butler shows how language can be used to both debilitate and celebrate the slaves and how language can also be used to strengthen the slave owners and to humble them.

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

Multiple stereotypes about African Americans arose from slavery during the 19th century including: The Uncle, the Auntie, Sambo, the coon, and the pickaninny. However, there were other stereotypes, including the Mammy and the Jezebel, that were specifically directed at black women. These degrading stereotypes are illustrated in Octavia Butler’s novel and comic book, Kindred, by attributing female characters with various traits that typically accompany these stereotypes. Thus, this essay will discuss the ways in which each prominent female character either embodied or challenged the characteristics that coincide with those two stereotypes. Sarah is a character who most obviously typifies the Mammy stereotype.

Dana is trying to win back her power by pressing the issue that she has the power to save Rufus or not so he should be wary. Rufus acquires more power when his father dies and his increasingly coercive behaviors to dominate Dana and his love object Alice convince Dana that she’s not able to change his ideologies. However, Dana is changing too; getting in touch with dual feelings of fear and

Kindred is written as a first person narrative from the point of view of Dana, an African American woman born around 1950, who is repeatedly seized from her quiet life as a writer in 1976 and thrown back in time to the early 1800s. Each time Dana blacks out, she soon finds herself transported not only to the past, but also 3000 miles from her home in California to the Wyelin Plantation in pre-Civil War Maryland. Dana soon deduces that the purpose of her trips is to ensure that her family lineage does not cease to exist by sparing the life of Rufus, the white plantation owner’s son, who would eventually become the father of her distant grandmother, Hagar. Additionally, during each of these journeys, Dana is forced to earn her keep on the plantation as a slave because of her African American heritage. Though this is an unacceptable shock to her, Dana is forced to acquiesce to the requests of her new master and understands that she has no other option if she wants somewhere relatively safe to stay until she is able to return home. Dana says herself that a slave has only one purpose on a plantation, “What’s a slave for, but to work?” (Butler, 79), and therefore she works just as hard as the other slaves in order to fit in and not draw attention to herself. Throughout the novel, Butler chronicles every aspect of Dana’s time on the

     Dana and Rufus might look like friends from the outside, but Dana’s feelings for him are quite different from what we think of them. To begin with Dana sees Rufus as a child needing or relying upon her protection. For instance, when Dana saved him from drowning in the river. Secondly, she views him as a man of his time. In another words Rufus’s personality is the way that any other man would have been in that period of time towards his slaves. Lastly, he is a ruthless and vicious slaveholder, which Tom Weylin’s fault. Just as Tom’s behaviour on the slaves and on his son. Finally, I will explain in more details how Dana’s feelings for Rufus are in the following

There are many moments throughout Kindred where Dana is harming the other slaves by bending to Rufus’ will. One major example of this is when Dana goes back to Rufus’ time and sees him getting beaten up by Isaac. She stops Isaac, and tells him that

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.

Much of Rufus’ goodness can only be considered remarkable when observed in the context of the time period in which he lives. Unlike Dana, Rufus is raised in a world where the majority of black people are slaves and white men are superior to blacks and women by law. Rufus himself ends up assuming the role of a plantation owner once his father dies. That said, there are a handful of actions that Rufus commits willingly that can be seen as “good.” His more staunchly kindhearted moments occur when he is young and impressionable, like when he tries to save Dana from “[getting] in trouble” with his father and other whites by helping her assimilate into life as a slave; here in particular, Rufus warns Dana that she must refer to him as “Master”. He is “concerned, even frightened” for Dana, solidifying the notion that his advice is not for his own benefit but for hers (30). As a slave owner’s

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

Kindred has clearly identified who the power and policy favor towards. Dana, the protagonist and narrator of the novel has faced several issues regarding life during this time, she must continue to save her family, but the only way she can is by saving Rufus’s life numerous times. Rufus, a cruel white man, is a powerful slave owner who was the father of Dana’s ancestors. She goes back into the past many times through the story and when she does she has to keep her identity as a strong and free black woman in a world where women and all black people are utterly ignorant to higher authority. For example, after Dana saves Rufus’s life, he diminishes another piece of her dignity, stripping her to a point where she must hold in her anger. Butler, shows how black people are treated after conceding a good deed. The novel discusses atrocities and

We have the ability to completely block out things and people we are not focused on. They become invisible and we can only see the things that align with what we are focused on.

Once upon a time a beautiful young girl by the name of Anastasia lived in a small village in England with her family. Anastasia was 20 years young and she blossomed with creativity. Anastasia’s physical appearance was very attention getting. She had long, blonde, wavy hair. She had beautiful blue eyes that were as blue as a robins egg. Sometimes when she would walk in town men would stop and stare at her. One time when she was walking to the farmer’s market, a boy on a bicycle was watching her and he ran into a telephone pole! Anastasia did not look for attention but a lot of it was drawn towards her because of her beauty. People would pay close attention to her when she was out and about, but when she was in her hometown people would talk

Dana?s master Rufus treats her much the same. Once he grows into a young man, he too becomes obsessed with her and makes every attempt to seduce her. He is often kind and sweet but once rejected he becomes enraged and violent. Dana recalls,