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Dana's Experiences On The Weylin Plantation

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Dana's experiences on the Weylin plantation provide a solid portrayal of the discrimination that slaves had to face. An example of this is when Dana is observing the lives of the kids on the Weylin plantation. As she watches the kids go about their daily work she remarks on how easily they have come to accept their status as slaves. Dana exclaims, “I never realized how easily people could be trained to accept slavery” (Butler 101). This shows how slavery was able to continue for centuries in the United States. The children born into slavery knew no other way of life, and were often taught from a young age to accept their inferior status as people of color. This normalization of slavery made it easier for white people to justify their ownership …show more content…

When Dana and Kevin are discussing getting married, Kevin brings up that his sister would not accept the fact that he is marrying a black girl. Kevin states, “That she didn’t want to meet you, wouldn’t have you in her house—or me either if I married you” (110). Kevin's sister does not accept the fact that Kevin was going to marry a black girl and would go as far as to not let him in her house because of it. This is an example of how an issue that was present during slavery continues to pass on through generations that now affects Dana in her present life as well. The idea of a white person marrying a black was frowned upon during slavery, Kevin's sister is a prime example of how this stigma was still around in the nineteen …show more content…

Dana's journey into the past forces her to confront the harsh realities of slavery and the inhumane treatment of Black people. Through her interactions with Rufus and other characters, Dana grapples with questions of morality, empathy, and the basic principles of humanity. “I could recall walking along the narrow dirt road that ran past the Weylin house and seeing the house, shadowy in twilight, boxy and familiar . . . I could recall feeling relief at seeing the house, feeling that I had come home. And having to stop and correct myself, remind myself that I was in an alien, dangerous place”(190). This quote shows that once Dana travels back to the plantation, she has to constantly correct herself because of how the basic human activity was so different in each time period. The fact that Dana has to correct her normal behavior because of how inhumanly she was treated shows how Dana has to adjust between the two time

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Interracial coupling is a topic that is shown throughout the book, we see it with Dana and Kevin, and somewhat with Rufus and Alice. For Dana and Kevin their marriage is not as unusual in their time as it would be in the antebellum south, they get a little criticism from their families and from people at work, but they’re relationship is not that big of a problem. When Kevin travels with Dana they have to act as a white man with a free black woman would, so that they can survive and be accepted in the antebellum south. If Kevin were to treat Dana the way he did at home, he would not be respected or accepted in slavery time. I think Butler chosen to write the book this way because we see how the relationships between races have changed between then and

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She gets taken away from her home in Southern California and via time travel magically transported to 19th-century Maryland. Throughout the book, Dana time-travels back to the early 1800’s and the slavery days of the southern United States where she discovers the truths about her family history and the harsh reality of being an African American woman at that time. Dana’s first time being transported back to this time period was on her 26th birthday. She and

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Many colored individuals were forced into slavery and each and everyone of the slaves had a different experience with their master. The slaves were treated as if they were nothing, a piece of property that the white people owned. They were not allowed to learn how to read or write; only needed to know how to do their chores and understand what their master was saying. They were just an extra hand in the house that had no say or existed in the white people world. The slaves’ job was to obey their master or mistress at all times, do their chores and take the beating if given one.

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Both Rufus and his father are products of the environment and the time in which they live. They both conform to survive in an environment that requires little compassion for the slaves they own. Tom Weylin recognizes the threat that Dana’s education poses and punishes her for taking the spelling book and reading (Butler 106).

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Moreover, this violent encounter left Dana defenseless until she “[discovered] the thing [she hit her] head on.” By instinct, she “brought it down hard on his head,” giving her the ability to prevent the rape from proceeding. The danger for black people that is common in the 1800s led to the need for Dana to be instinctive to protect herself. Thus, the characterization of Dana as instinctive helps reveal how dangerous the 1800s is for black people and

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What do you think it was like to be a slave in the 1800’s? The paper is about what life is like to be a slave. Dana is not a good representation of a slave because she is from the 1970's, she is very educated, and she dresses like a man. Dana is from 1976 and she lives in California. The book Kindred is based on slavery in the 1800's.

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In the novel when Dana is first time traveling to the past she mentions how “I had seen people beaten on television and in the movies. I had seen the too-red blood substitute streaked across their backs and heard their well-rehearsed screams. But I hadn't lain nearby and smelled their sweat or heard them pleading and praying, shamed before their families and themselves. I was probably less prepared for the reality than the child crying not far from me.”. Dana explains how she had seen reenactments of a time and place that she was in but now that she was there it was much different than she'd seen.

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Similarly, Rufus doesn’t ever take in to account Dana’s emotions, so the beatings and slave trade which are normalized in the 1800s are not normal for Dana, but Rufus ignores her feelings and does what he wants in order to keep power over her (Butler 214). Both Kevin and Rufus simply think that Dana is not used to the situation or is

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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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Kevin claims that Dana is his wife; Rufus squeals and says, “Niggers can’t marry white people”, “It’s against the law” (Butler 60-61). The Deep South had banned interracial marriages until 1967. Although interracial marriage was unheard of, miscegenation was common but it “often led to complications in the South. Sometimes white men loved their black concubines more than they did their white wives” (Blassingame 84). Many of the white wives would file for divorce if this happened and they would also take out their anger on the black woman involved.

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Dana was a positive part of Rufus’s environment because she was the one who really helped him through the good and the bad. Dana tried to help Rufe reach a realization that slavery was clearly wrong and tried . But in the end not much changed. “What’s he done to you?” ‘Sent me to a field, had me beaten, made me spend nearly eight months sleeping on the floor of his mother’s room, sold people. . .

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Kevin and Dana understand each other very well. Not only it’s related to Dana and the other characters, but it’s also related to our society as a whole. It’s related to our society because the salves in the south treat her as a kindred spirit. Kindred spirit means a person whose interests or attitudes are similar to one 's own. And the salves think that she’s

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In the novel, Kindred, by Octavia E. Butler, a lot of ignorance and intelligence is demonstrated all through the book which in a way is dangerous. Kindred is a wonderful work of science fiction that catches the attention of readers by telling a story of Dana, a modern-day African-American woman, who is abruptly transported from California in 1976 to the antebellum South. Not only is Dana abruptly transported back in time but she’s able to experience first-hand the cruelty of enslaved black women and men in the 1800s. The experiences of Dana and the enslaved women in the novel were viewed as mostly women working in households.

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Although, Dana Franklin is a traumatized Afro-American female subject, Octavia brings into focus the consequences of power mechanisms that humiliate the "Other" and place him at the bottom of the social hierarchy. In the antebellum South, Dana becomes an easy target of rape and the mere acknowledgement of her vulnerability as a colored woman arouses a feeling of shame. Through the narration, Dana 's efforts to protect her integrity are kept in check by the menace of sexual or physical violence by a white man. Therefore, her home in twentieth-century California becomes a point of vulnerability, and her marriage to a white man is experienced as shame. On other hand, her decision to resist Rufus 's attempt of rape shows that she keeps her integrity.

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Dana and Rufus’s Relationship Ever wonder what it's like to have a changing relationship with a plantation owner's son back in the 1800’s? Dana Franklin is a younger African-American woman married to Kevin Franklin who is a middle-aged man. Dana travels from California in 1976 back to the early 1800’s whenever Rufus is in trouble. Rufus is a plantation owner son and is also the father of Dana’s ancestor. Dana’s travels are random; she gets lightheaded and dizzy when she is about to travel.

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