The Kindred Octavia Butler Character Analysis

In the excerpt from A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf argues that women writers face unfair educational, financial and social disadvantages. Throughout the excerpt, she hopes to persuade readers that in a patriarchal society, a woman must have privacy and financial independence in order to fulfill her literary potential. To accomplish this goal, Woolf effectively appeals to logos, pathos and ethos; however, her emphasis on establishing credibility most successfully persuades her readers.

In Kindred Octavia Butler highlights how Dana’s fear of the past will interfere with the present. Butler demonstrates how Dana tries to fit into the 1800s to accomplish her goals and not have consequences in the present. The patriarchy is shown in both time periods although it grows or manifests differently. In kindred Dana travels back in time to save Rufus her ancestor who always seems to get himself in trouble. Dana is trying to make a difference in the past but it is very hard when all she does is cause more trouble than anything else. Her husband is then left behind in the past for five years and that changes him and ultimately leaves a mark on him. Dana tries to make a difference and education the slaves in the past so that they can protect themselves but it backfires and Dana gets punished. This shows the patriarchy in both periods that a man is viewed as more powerful than women and is considered the man of the House. The past shapes the future. The past ultimately makes the future.

Teresa of Avila can be known as an autobiography of Teresa de Cepeda y Ahumada, or even as Teresa refers to her piece as a confession. Throughout this historical, religious confession, Dr. Raquel Trillia pointed out throughout her lecture how Teresa used strategies that many women must use in order to be viewed as a writer. These strategies are used so that a woman’s writing will be accepted, or at the most respected within the literature society. With that being said, the main theme brought forth during Dr. Raquel Trillia’s lecture about Teresa of Avila is how much women are struggling to be a part of the literature community and to be graced with respect from other (male) authors within the novel industry.

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.

Society has always forced its people to think in a certain way and make it the social norm. In Octavia Butler’s Bloodchild, Gan faces his real reality that causes him to sacrifice himself to bear alien children. Butler’s writing choices challenges the social norms and how people have to rely on the government to survive, but also helps her cope with a fear..

How can a young white boy not loved by his own father grow up to be just a corrupt as him? In Kindred, I read about the life of a young boy who is neglected by his slave-owning father. He grows up to his father's awful treatment of slaves and his mother. When his father dies, he takes over the plantation. Now that sweet and innocent little Rufus is long gone.

Women have always played key roles in literature, from the strong heroine to the damsel in distress. Common in works published before the 21st century, and even after, women are written as the caregivers, and the homemakers for their husbands. Literary women will often play the submissive role in society and in their marriages. These women react differently to their role; some remain submissive, some are rebellious, some are breaking free, and some go down as a result of their submission.

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.

“The Laughing Sutra” by Mark Salzman takes place during a historically tense time of world relations. While this book tells an enlightening adventure story, it also gives insight on world history and scary realities. “How to Read Literature Like a Professor” by Thomas C. Foster gives insight on reading reputable literature by giving readers cognizance on a writer’s process. In his book, Foster provides concrete instances and ideas that appear throughout the writing world. Foster brought up many relevant points, but in this case, geography and politics were greatly influential on “The Laughing Sutra”.

Woolf demonstrates how women writers have often failed in this because of our frustration and bitterness with a world that presented to us and our writing not welcome, or even indifference, but hostility (41). She makes it clear that if there is ever going to be a “Shakespeare’s sister,” we must---at least while we are writing---swallow that sense of having been wronged, for it stands as an impediment to our creativity. This is the mental freedom that women writers must attain.

“Do not let the roles you play in life make you forget who you are” by Roy T. Bennett. While reading two short stories “Neighbor Rosicky” written by Willa Cather and “A Rose for Emily” written by William Faulkner, we got to understand and see how the roles of women in the stories are portrayed in their families and in society. These women during their time period are thought to represent themselves as being capable of themselves and their families, always reacting to having company in a certain way, and by having feelings of love their own way, but each and every woman in the world portray their role in a different way.

1. Introduction The Great Gatsby is a perfect painting of 1920’s New York, the Jazz Age and the American Dream. Flappers in it are the best spokesmen of the time.

Literature reflects many aspects of human ideas, beliefs, and societies. It does not only enlighten readers, but it broadens their perspective by exposing them to large human questions that have troubled humanity for centuries. The readings exposed complex topics such as feminism during the 19th century and how women carry the same stigma until today. The Dolls House by Henrik Ibsen and The Yellow Paper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman made me think about my place in the world as a woman, and the significance of the movement to end sexist oppression. Literature gives the reader a chance to inhabit characters and make them feel connected to the author and the author’s work.

In Chapters Four and Five of A Room of One 's Own,, the focus on Women & Fiction shifts to a consideration of women writers, both actual writers and ultimately one of the author 's own creation.

Many female writers see themselves as advocates for other creative females to help find their voice as a woman. Although this may be true, writer Virginia Woolf made her life mission to help women find their voice as a writer, no gender attached. She believed women had the creativity and power to write, not better than men, but as equals. Yet throughout history, women have been neglected in a sense, and Woolf attempted to find them. In her essay, A Room of One’s Own, she focuses on what is meant by connecting the terms, women and fiction. Woolf divided this thought into three categories: what women are like throughout history, women and the fiction they write, and women and the fiction written about them. When one thinks of women and