An Analysis Of Dana's Last Trip Home By Octavia Butler

222 Words1 Pages
Initiating the prologue, Butler’s diction comes off as concise, yet suitably descriptive to capture the brutal lifeblood of Dana 's subsequently disclosed, time-traveling experiences in antebellum south. Depriving readers of sufficient framework, Butler divulges her audience into the simple fact that Dana had "lost an arm on [her] last trip home. [Her] left arm." Although the cause of amputation is later revealed near the conclusion of the book, its premature presence in the narrative constructs a mystery to be solved— one that travels through reader 's minds time after time. Who caused this (literal) disarming? Under what circumstance could this possibly be justified? Along with the loss of "comfort and security”, the account of Dana