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Character Analysis Of Rufus In Octavia Butler's Obsessive Love

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What is Love? Obsessive love can be issued as stalking or overwhelming texts to situations as serious as homicidal or suicidal thoughts or actions; however, obsessive love is not love at all as psychotherapist Susan Forward puts it. Yet, on the other hand, many psychologists such as Freud believe that environmental factors cause a neurological disability that makes one convinced that he or she is truly in love with the victim; for example, people who have had rejecting parents or problems with the separation process in their childhoods can lead to this problem. These actions and behaviors are blatant to the character Rufus in Octavia Butler’s Kindred. This researcher will examine how Rufus uses some of these distraught actions and behaviors …show more content…

As we all know the outcome of Rufus’s actions and behaviors towards Alice it is vital to understand what he did so people today can recognize such situations to provide a safe haven for those in need of this type of help. One disturbing comment took place when Rufus mentioned this after taking a whoopin’ from Alice’s husband Isaac, “I would have taken better care of her than any field hand could. I wouldn’t have hurt her if she hadn’t just kept saying no” (pg 123). This is mind boggling to think that a human being can be capable and willing to believe that rape is acceptable just because they feel that they can take care of that person better than the person they love. Obsessive love is written all over this. That’s not to even clarify the action of him hurting Alice because all she could say is no. This was only the beginning of the wrath to come in the next decade. Yet, people knew about how he felt towards Alice and nobody stood up for her due to her skin color and her classification at the time to be “property.” Consequently, shouldn’t property—land, human being, whatever—be kept to the best of our abilities. We don’t treat brand new BMW’s like an off road vehicle because the car isn’t made for off-roading and we sure as hell do not rape a teacher because we feel like we can take better care of her than her husband; brutally

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Using time travel, Octavia Butler creates a new view of racism in her novel, Kindred, by having Dana experience the life of a slave from an outsider's perspective. Though Dana’s present is far from a race utopia, it has drastically improved the problems of the past. In the past, Dana is surprised to find herself growing used to the injustices which surround her. Overall, traveling gives Dana first-hand experience at how slavery warped slaves’ perception of freedom.

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Though as Rufus grew up, he developed complicated romantic feelings for Alice. Rufus was afraid to admit to loving her, though he continued to force her into sleeping with him. The first time he brought Alice into bed was when she was married to a different man named Isaac. Rufus

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Octavia E. Butler characterizes Dana as instinctive to highlight the belief of how dangerous it is in the early 1800s. On her first trip to the past, Dana saves Rufus, a young white boy drowning in a river. After performing artificial respiration, ultimately saving his life, she is held at gunpoint: “I turned, startled, and found myself looking down the barrel of the longest rifle I had ever seen. I heard a metallic click, and I froze, thinking I was going to be shot for saving the boy’s life” (Butler 14). Dana finds herself in a life-threatening situation after her instinctive action of saving a boy from drowning.

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In Octavia Butler’s novel, Kindred, Rufus Weylin is one of the main characters who undergoes a lot of change throughout the novel, making him a round character. A round character is defined as a “major character in a story who encounters contradictory situations and undergoes transformation during this phase. Therefore, the characters does not remain the same throughout the narrative, making their traits difficult to identify from beginning until the end (LiteraryDevice).” The reader, along with Dana, follows Rufus’s growth throughout some major points in his life, from a young boy who forms a bond and friendship with Dana, to when he grows up to be a racist man who ultimately attempts to rape her. However, it is evident that Rufus’s ideology

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The Power of Love: Passion or Pride? Why do we hurt the ones we love? What causes our sweet, light hearted personalities to become black with anger and frustration? These questions are brought into focus in the short story, “The Scarlet Ibis” by James Hurst. In this short story, a boy tries to teach his handicapped younger brother to blend in and act normal.

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In most stories, all developing characters have flaws. Many problems are caused by a character’s personal flaw. They can also be what draws the reader in, and it can be what connects the reader to the character. A certain fatal flaw is the inability to let go. In the stories, “Helen on Eighty-Sixth Street”, “The Cask of Amontillado”, and “The Scarlet Ibis” all of the characters are related because of their inability to let go.

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William Shakespeare’s “My Mistress’ Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun” shows that ulterior motives for love can also refer to personality and non physical features of a person. Flannery O’Connor’s “Good Country People” and William Shakespeare’s “My Mistress’ Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun”, show that love can be influenced by an ulterior motive, through the use of specific word choice and storyline

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Relationships in which there is not mutual respect are destined to fail. Relationships in which one person’s autonomy is not valued are destructive. For example, when Dana travels back to the Antebellum South for the fourth time, she finds Rufus being beaten by a man as a woman watches from a distance, wearing a torn dress. Dana learns that the woman is Alice, and the man beating Rufus is Isaac, Alice’s husband. She convinces them to leave, and when nursing Rufus back to consciousness, learns that Rufus was beaten because he tried to rape Alice after she refused to marry him.

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