The, The Fire, And The Rope

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

Beaten, bruised, broken bones and black eyes. Humiliated, discouraged and emotionally damaged. These are just a few of the things that Francine Hughes went through for over 12 years receiving abuse from her husband, James “Mickey” Hughes. Every nine seconds in the U.S. a women is assaulted or beaten (Schneider, 2000). Her story is a unique one in a sense, which she lived in a time where no one spoke publically about spousal abuse at all. Women were told that what happens in the house stays in the house and no one else should know about it. So for

Alice Walker used her writing to convey a message to African Americans. She used her character to show that although one might try to remove himself or herself from a race they will always be connected to it. The situation Dee is going through is generational issue for African Americans. They are always on a constant search to find their place in this world. Walker exemplifies this in

In contrast of “Everyday Use” written by Alice Walker, the use of her character Dee discovers a different and special way to make a description of what Baldwin calls the “ambiguity and irony of Negro life.” Dee really did not want to resemble her

Dana does not have absolute power or absolute vulnerability to power in the novel. She has less power than Rufus and slave owners, but she has more

On Dana’s expedition she discovers the true significance of freedom when she compares her own life to whos she’s surrounded by in the plantation of Tom Weylin. All the characters had a role that had an impact on Dana, one in specific was a girl named Alice who became Dana’s great-grandmother. Alice did not love Rufus because she was in love with Isaac, but she was owned by Rufus, which was a dimension for the 1976 mind frame of Dana. The author Butler incorporated a personal relationship between Dana and Alice that signalizes the reader on understanding the experiences black women had in the twentieth century, not just that, but a what black women went through in slavery. Alice presents a correspondence between the past and the present, informatory how they empower each other in areas such as sexuality, the importance of motherhood, and definition of oneself

After running away from her family Dana is very pessimistic about anything getting better, but throughout all of her tests and trials, she becomes

One similarity between Dana and Alice is that they both must become slaves on a plantation. In the novel Dana is a free and independent woman. After she time travels back to the early 1800s, she has to save Rufus from multiple situations to ensure that his daughter, Hagar, is born and her family tree stays intact. This means she will be spending a lot of time in 1800s Maryland. Dana must act as a slave in order to keep her identity of being a time traveler a secret. “We’re going to have to fit in as best as we can with the people here for as long as we stay. This means we are going to have to play the roles you gave us” (65). In this conversation Dana is telling her husband and 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.

Throughout the story, Walker personifies the different sides of culture and heritage in the characters of Dee and the mother (the narrator). Dee can be seen to represent a materialistic, complex, and modern way of life where culture and heritage

Danas fourth time traveling back to the 19th century, she was met with Rufus being beaten to death by Alice's Husband, Isaac. This incident foreshadows the raping of Alice by Rufus. For instance, Rufus went in town to buy Alice and once Dana saw that she states "… Rufus had done exactly what I had said he would do: Gotten possession of the woman without having to bother with her husband. Now, somehow, Alice would have to accept not only the loss of her husband but her own enslavement. Rufus had caused her trouble, and now he had been rewarded for it. It made no sense. No matter how

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

As Rufus’s character grows throughout the beginning he explains his sentiments of being a Black man in the United States during time of slow transition between black and white people. When he begins his relationship with a white southern divorced woman, Leona, Rufus begins to beat her and when Vivaldo, his closest white friend, confronts him he begins to act like he doesn’t care and is in his house where he has the power, not them, who are white (55). Rufus begins to show how having white people in his life gives him the satisfaction of having some power over them being

He had some friends that were slaves on the plantation like Nigel and Alice who also had treated him with respect. In this scene, Dana and her husband Kevin both journey back to the past to see a young boy curled into a ball on the ground from falling out of a tree. The married couple run over to the boy who is Rufus and by him is a young black child around twelve years old. Dana asks the black child,whose name was Nigel, what had happened to Rufus. He didn’t answer her right away, but instead he demands who she is and starts to get protective of Rufus. Rufus tells Nigel, “She’s alright and she’s the one who helped me put out the fire the one time”. After that little conversation Dana asks Nigel if he knew where Rufus live. He replies with a “yes”, and that he lived there too. She figures that he is probably a slave on Rufus’s father’s plantation (59-60). Finding out that Nigel is a slave and that he got protective of Rufus when he falls shows that there is a different type of bond between them; almost like brothers or best friends. This demonstrates that Rufus doesn't care about the color of his pal Nigel and that he wouldn't let anything exacerbate the situation even more. This scene reveals that skin color does not matter to young Rufus because he does not want to be like his

It was a chilly Wednesday morning on January 11th. When I woke up that morning, I would have never expected something so tragic to happen that night. I can remember it like it was yesterday. 9:30pm: I was was watching Roman Atwood's vlog called “We are in trouble” and the video was just ending and I was about to turn on the shower. That's when I heard loud bangs from my brothers room. I thought my brother and my dad were fighting so I was about to walk out of my door into hallway when my brother come running through our jack n jill bathroom. He comes running into my room and into the hallway naked. Yes I was very shocked also, I looked at his hand and saw little pieces of skin hanging from it and then saw that his stomach, chest and right are was also burnt. He ran to our guest room and grabbed the fire extinguisher but sadly that was old and wouldn't work. 9:40pm: I went to the balcony that overlooks the family room and I yelled “TRENT'S ROOM IS ON FIRE” five times. I ran back to get my brother and grab a pair of basketball shorts for him.