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Analysis Of Octavia Butler's Kindred

1881 Words8 Pages

Jenna Caddy
Mrs. Cross
AP Literature and Composition
15 May 2023
Kindred
AP books earn their classification by fitting certain criteria that make the novel have meaning beyond the surface level. These novels contain stories that carry a significant message with them, sometimes more clear than others, to bring attention to the importance of an issue. Octavia Butler, for example, uses the story of an African American woman and her white husband traveling back in time to antebellum South to create a novel criticizing the inherent oppressions of society. Due to her efforts to create a meaningful novel, Octavia Butler’s Kindred classifies as an AP book due to the novel’s ability to access multiple time periods as the book transitions between two …show more content…

Though Dana is highly educated in her own time, her studies of history do nothing to prepare her for the reality of living in the time. Harriet Tubman, being that she had suffered through a lifetime of the oppression of slavery, was able to use her own intelligence of her experience to escape and aid others in doing so. This comparison between the educated and uneducated shows the importance of experience aiding in a true understanding of a situation. “Butler’s Kindred suggests, in fact, that ignoring the similarities between the past and present is not only pointless but dangerous” (Mitchell) due to the persistence of racism in society. Dana understands racism as she deals with it in her relationship with Kevin in her own time; however, her knowledge of history’s systematic racism only aids her in understanding how to deal with her antagonists, not how to escape from their oppression. Dana is able to appease her tormentors, but she never truly escapes as she had not lived in the time long enough to fully comprehend every aspect of it, specifically because she was said to have acted like she was white. While she feels somewhat at home on the Weylin plantation, …show more content…

The novel mostly takes place in antebellum South where the institution of slavery still existed. Though Dana deals with racism in her own time, her oppression intensifies when she travels back in time to the extent that she is now perceived as an object. Her view of herself was forced to alter to adhere to the times that she found herself in when she claims, “To slaveholders and patrollers, I was just one more [slave], worth so many dollars. What they did to me didn’t have much to do with me personally” (Butler 179). Dana had to become aware of her situation in the sense that in the eyes of her oppressors, she was not a person but property. Butler uses this notion of objectification to emphasize the severity of racism in the antebellum South. Butler utilizes the story of an African American woman in the antebellum South to spread the message about the cruelty of slavery from a perspective that sees the torment for what it is as Dana’s own race automatically puts her at a disadvantage against white people, like Rufus and even her husband, in the past society. She is viewed as property by default being a black woman while Kevin earns respect simply by being white, acknowledged by assumption as her

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Octavia Butler’s novel Kindred is a science fiction time travel novel, but Kindred is not like other science fiction novels. The book is told in first person by the main character Dana, a modern day black woman as she travels between her time 1976, and the antebellum South. When Dana transports to the antebellum South she is forced to endure slavery and the violence and abuse that comes along with it. As we read further into the book we see Dana’s life and relationships change because of the time travel. Dana is first introduced to us a Dana's last visit to the past brings us full circle; when she must murder Rufus to fend off his attempt to rape her, he grasps her arm as she is sent forward in time, anchoring her arm in the past.

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Dana's Character In Kindred By Octavia Butler

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As someone who helped raise Rufus, she hoped that eventually he would be able to see black people as human beings and treat them better than his father and other racist white men during this time period, but society’s influence on his life overshadowed Sarah’s and Dana’s influences. Once Dana realizes that Rufus is a man of his time, affection becomes replaced with weary acceptance of who he is, and she begins to anticipate the day when should would no longer be able to forgive Rufus’s trespasses. Here, Butler is able to highlight the futile position of the mammy figure in the lives of the white family member. Though she takes care of them and attempts to subversively create a more humane generation, the institution of slavery and American culture

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Kindred By Octavia Butler: Literary Analysis

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A normality in the literary world is that texts deeply nestled in the crosshairs of biopolitics, gender, nationalism, and other identity particularities often fall victim to one sided and dogmatic cultural critiques. Critic after critic find difficulty regarding how to analyze and essentially read a novel where intersectionality is intrinsic to its framework such as Kindred, because it does not fit the fairly common singular literary theory mold. This notion is articulated and defended in “"Some Matching Strangeness": Biology, Politics, and the Embrace of History in Octavia Butler's "Kindred"” where Robertson explores Butler’s usage of Dana’s body to confront universal truths and to cement the idea that Dana is in a historical paradox due

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Racism Exposed In Octavia E. Butler's Kindred

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Dana goes back in time during the slave days where racism was very common, and this piece of evidence shows how rude people of color were treated. Butler draws on that experience to convey the universal theme that racism happened frequently in the past, but it’s still occurring today. Through this novel, Butler speaks to the reader with the message that racism is something that continues, and will keep on continuing for a long time. The words“ job and white” show a negative connotation, and implies that people of color did not have very pleasant lives before. Dana experienced time traveling to the past, which lead to an external conflict of dealing with racism and slavery.

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Rufus no longer understands the difference between friend and master at the loss of Alice. Dana was able to make the selfish decision of killing Rufus, rather than submitting herself, for the good of herself, not the good of anyone else. She could not stand to become like Alice, a slave at the hands of a master; thus, her determination to escape stemmed from her will to remain independent. She knows as soon as she lets herself submit to the will of this society she cannot be viewed as a person, but a tool. Dana represents the women in the current day and age that would do anything to protect their own freedom, even at the

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Dana realizes that if she is stuck in the south she might as well be working. She was offered a tutoring job, Kevin disagrees with her decision. Dana says, “I’m here. And I am supposed to be a slave”, she is trying to fit in with the black stereotype. Dana pretends to belong to Kevin while they are in the Weylin’s house to prevent blowing her cover.

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Dana Franklin is a strong, independent woman who has made a name for herself as a published author. She is beginning a new marriage with a white man Kevin , an unusual relationship in 1976, but even more unacceptable in 1819. Suddenly, at a time when she is most happy unpacking in her new home, she is pulled by the force of Rufus Weylin into the past to save his life. Dana then faces the horrors of living as a slave and being an object of Rufus’ obsessive need for her. Dana, learns that she has the strength and the courage to face the worst the South can throw at her.

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