The Transformation Of Human Life In Kindred By Octavia Butler

The title of this book comes from the inspiring words spoken by Sojourner Truth at the 1851, nine years prior to the Civil War at a Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio. In Deborah Grays White, Ar’n’t I a woman her aim was to enrich the knowledge of antebellum black women and culture to show an unwritten side of history of the American black woman. Being an African- American and being a woman, these are the two principle struggles thrown at the black woman during and after slavery in the United States. Efforts were made by White scholars in 1985 to have a focus on the female slave experience. Deborah Gray White explains her view by categorizing the hardships and interactions between the female slave and the environment in which the

“He was a quiet , soft-spoken man who wore old-timey clothes, fedoras, button-down wool coats, suspenders, and dressed neatly at all times, regardless of how dirty his work made him” (Mcbride 6).“His father was a black man, a railroad brakeman, and his mother a Native American, so he had a lot of indian in his face: brown skin, slanted brown eyes, high cheekbones and a weather-beaten outdoor look about him..” (Mcbride 120).The writing is figurative by the use of similes and metaphors. “In running from her past, Mommy has created her own nation, a rainbow coalition that descends on her house every Christmas and Thanksgiving.” (277)“Her grits tasted like sand and butter, with big lumps inside that caught in your teeth and suck in your gums.”(McBride 67) . “Ma cried, and she wailed and wailed, the sound of her cries circling the house like a spirit and settling on all the corridors and beds where we ay, weeping in silence.”(McBride 128) Allusions are used to give a timeframe of the time period by talking about issues.“She actually liked Malcolm X. She put in nearly the same category as her civil rights heroes, Paul Robeson, Jackie Robinson, Eleanor

Being the member of African American community, Dana maintained serious reservations for the whites. But she is astonished to find his community members praising and admiring the ways adopted by his ancestors Tom Weylin and his son Rufus. However, she is surprised to note that the black community rebukes and censures Tom and Rufus in their absence and mock at the ways adopted by the Weylins while crushing the Blacks. (The Storm, XI)

As Boss Tweed used to say, “The way to have power is to take it.” Therefore, it is not surprising that the characters of Kindred by Octavia Butler fight throughout the book to gain power from each other. They all use methods ranging from violence to influence to gain even a slight amount of power from each other. Even Alice and Dana who are enslaved women during the 1800’s are able to use their words to influence their owners and the powerful white men in society. Like other black women during this time period, they use their bodies and other unconventional methods to slowly gain power over their owners until they are able to influence them to do what they want. Henceforth, Butler wants to demonstrate to the reader that, even during the antebellum south, enslaved women were able to use their influence, resilience and courage to eventually gain power over their owners.

Slavery is a disappointing example of inhuman behavior, a dark past in our history books. Two stories demonstrate the cruelty of slavery while living on a plantation. “Harriet Tubman” and “The People Could Fly” give two different encounters on the topic of slavery. “Harriet Tubman” is a biography and “The People Could Fly” is a historical fiction. Both would make one wonder, what is there to live for when freedom does not exist in your life? The two different genres of books are able to give readers an understanding of how heart-wrenching and depressing life of a slave was. Both show the family of slaves taking care of one another. They show the family bonds even though the slaves are going through harsh conditions

Anne Moody’s autobiography, Coming of Age in Mississippi, depicts the various stages of her life from childhood, to high school, then to college, and ends with her involvement in the Civil Rights Movement. In the novel, Anne tells the reader her story through events, conversations, and emotional struggles. The reader can interpret various elements of cultural knowledge that Anne Moody learned from her family and community as a child. Her understanding of the culture and race relations of the time period was shaped by many forces. Anne Moody’s family, community, education, interactions with various races, and her experiences outside of her hometown, shaped her into a devout activist for equal rights. As a child, the most important

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,

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.

In the novel Kindred, by Octavia Butler, the main character Dana is exposed to the brutality and exhausting existence inflicted on slaves in the 1800’s. Through intentionally suppressive measures, slave owners used a series of methods to control and manipulate an entire race of people into submission. Dana describes this process as dulling and her experiences haunt her as she is slowly broken down. “See how easily slave are made?” (Butler 177) her thoughts say; this is Butler attempting to illustrate how it was nearly impossible for the enslaved people to change their situation and fight for freedom. Contemporary people didn’t understand why the slaves didn’t rise up and revolt against the whites, so Butler puts Dana through conditions that eventually show her and the audience it wasn’t that easy. The slaves were too tired to revolt, too broken to fight back, and too connected to each other to leave; thus giving the repulsive entitled whites the ability to continue their disgraceful contempt for human decency. By means of labor and sensational punishment, family ties, surveillance that included slave hierarchy; dreams of revolutions and freedom were overpowered and even Dana becomes complacent accepting the role of slave.

Secondly, the discrepancy between times moves the drama in the plot along, in particular, Dana’s relationship with Rufus. Once Dana learns that her purpose is to protect the life of Rufus, in order to continue her own family line, she takes on the maternal role. She teaches him the lessons of discipline and respect for others that have been considered the parents role:

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.

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

In Octavia Butler’s novel, Kindred, she challenges humanity, moralities, and racism. By sending Dana through time, it highlighted the similarities and differences between characters and symbolic meanings. The theme of this novel is answering the question to “what if” a black woman, raised with rights, had to endure slavery? What tactics would she use in order to survive? Many people cannot imagine the agonies slavery has caused, not only to blacks, but everyone including loss of freedom, family, loved ones and self. The interracial couples in the novel, Dana and Kevin; Alice and Rufus, symbolize a larger issue of segregation that divides of our nation. The antagonist, Rufus, changed throughout his life as Dana tried to teach him

Octavia E. Butler uses her novel Kindred, to communicate how influential one’s environment can be in shaping their thoughts and actions. One’s environment is composed of their conditions and surroundings, and the most significant of these is language. The society in which Dana lives differs greatly from Rufus’s society; therefore, the way these characters use and view language differ. Language dictates the way one thinks, and whether or not they think critically. How one thinks is directly related to how one perceives the world and one’s perception is their reality. Even Dana and Kevin, who live in the same time period, perceive the world differently. They may live in the same time period, but their realities differ because of who they are, a black woman and a white man. Butler makes Dana and Rufus’s impact on one another central to story. Rufus sometimes deviates from the societal norms of his time because his environment has been influenced by Dana, who is also affected by her new surroundings. She begins to lose the ability to stand up for herself. Ultimately, however, Rufus does not change his prejudice, bigotry way of thinking, and Dana does not allow herself to succumb to complacency. Butler consciously made these decisions; she wants readers to recognize that while these characters influence one another, they do not do so enough to overpower the more significant aspects of their respective environments, such as language. One’s environment determines how much

Valerie Martin’s Novel Property is an engrossing story of the wife of a slave owner and a slave, whom a mistress of the slave owner, during the late 18th century in New Orleans. Martin guides you through both, Manon Guadet and her servant Sarah’s lives, as Ms. Gaudet unhappily lives married on a plantation and Sarah unhappily lives on the plantation. Ms. Gaudet’s misserableness is derived from the misfortune of being married to a man that she despises and does not love. Sarah, the slave, is solely unhappy due to the fact that she is a slave, and has unwillingly conceived to children by Ms. Gaudiest husband, which rightfully makes Sarah a mistress. Throughout the book, Martin captivates the reader and enables you to place yourself in the