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Discrimination Exposed In Kindred By Octavia E. Butler

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Kindred by Octavia E. Butler highlights the issue of racial discrimination and brings out the horrors that are attached to it. The book was written in 1979 and became super popular because of the issues still prevalent today. It reveals the story of a black woman, Dana, who travels back in time and becomes a slave, she then has to face the authorities that a white man had back then. Dana is pulled back and forth through time to protect an ancestor, Rufus. Dana struggles throughout the 1800s as a slave while having to work harder than she ever has, while also trying to protect him. Dana experiences the typical slave life and realizes that being a woman in the 1800s was an obstacle. Dana had to deal with sexual harassment, emotional abuse, …show more content…

I believe the use of symbolism is a key strength. There were many different symbols used, like Whips, reading, and Dana’s arm. Whips symbolized the power a white man had. They want the slaves to fear them and want a sense of control. As Dana explains in "The Fall," Part 6, "The whip was heavy and six feet long. I wouldn't have used it on anything living." (96) The whites use the whip to have power and control over their slaves. These men use violence to get what they want and they lash out on the slaves for only their convenience. Reading is also another symbol used throughout the novel. It symbolizes both danger and freedom. If slaves knew how to read, then they would understand that there is more to life, and would want to escape even more. Dana says “ One of the reasons it was against the law in some states to teach slaves to read and write was that they might escape by writing themselves passes. Some did escape that way.” (49) Owners feared that if their slaves knew these things then they would use it against them and try to get away. Lastly, Dana’s arm being hurt symbolizes the impact of slavery and how it affected people’s lives and even America’s society as a whole. Dana makes it back to present time with Kevin, but she didn't make it back all together. Dana’s time as a slave has followed her and will affect her for the rest of 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 is young, intelligent, middle class writer and in interracial relationship different, almost extraordinary, for a black woman in the late '70s. This novel was to try to make people feel the past as well as understand the history of the slavery experience. Butler wanted us to be in their skin, mind emotions and to feel like we were them in the past. Dana didn’t agree with the plantation life, Dana sees how the Whites act towards the Blacks. The goal was to keep Rufus alive whenever she was pulled back in time.

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Throughout the narrative, the author includes his personal stories about experiencing the violence of slavery first-hand. For example, on page 20, he writes about the first time he witnessed a slave, his own aunt, getting the whip. “The louder she screamed, the harder he whipped; and where the blood ran fastest, there he whipped longest…I remember the first time I ever witnessed this horrible exhibition… It struck me with awful force. It was the blood-stained gate, the entrance to the hell of slavery…” The author including his experience of his aunts whipping, in detail, appeals to the emotions of the reader.

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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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‘’ No words, No tears, No prayers, from his glory victim, seemed to move his iron heart fro his bloody purpose.’’ (page 5). Douglass appeals to the mournful emotions of the audience by expressing how the overseers gave no mercy or cared about the effect of whippings to the slaves. Douglass use of parallelism displayed how slavery was

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Slavery was a long, slow process of dulling. Slaves had the constant fear of physical violence, the threat of losing the ones they love, and endured a life of always being treated as subhuman. One way that slavery dulled those in its grip was the constant fear of physical violence. Their masters could hurt or kill them at any moment and there’s nothing they could do. Dana explains how whippings were

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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.

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The theme of chapter 3 is Knowledge and Ignorance. Knowledge and Ignorance is the theme of chapter 3 because their owners always felt above them and could whip a slave at any time for any reason. On page 17 of the Douglass autobiography, Douglass says that, when it came to slaves, “They never knew when they were safe from punishment.” The slaves had no clue when someone with a whip would come up to them and start attacking them. The slaves had a lot of work, and if a slave made a small error, they could easily be found out.

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Situations are defined by choices. Small actions in one moment of time alter the future of what happens forever. In Kindred by Octavia Butler Dana, the main character, is a black women born in 1976, who time travels back to the early 1800’s in order to save her relative, Rufus, a white boy who is the son of the owner of the plantation. Along the way she also meets her other relative, Alice, a slave born free, but enslaved since she helped her husband run away. Alice is owned by Rufus, who is convinced that he is in love with her.

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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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Through his story, Douglass proves that slavery has negative effects on slaveholders. He uses imagery, flashbacks, and characterization to persuade the reader of the true nature of slavery. His deep thoughts and insights of slavery and the unbalanced power between a slaveholder and his slave are unprompted for a social establishment. Douglass insists that slaveholding fills the soul with sadness and bitter anguish. In addressing effects of slavery on masters cause one man to rethink his moral character and better understand the laws of humanity.

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Stowe appeals to our emotions and relies on our hearts to express to our heads how wrong the violence of slavery is by making readers empathize with her characters, still acknowledging that although violence is a tool used by those who are evil, it can also be used when necessary for freedom. Both equate slaves taking violence back to use for their own defense as justified, reasonable, and necessary in the fight for freedom and self-ownership. Each display violence as a tool of oppression slaveholders take pleasure in using to keep slaves down and stop them from asserting their rights, intelligence, or power. Although through different means, each appeal to readers to sympathize with the slave and take

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From this, derives a bond with the reader that pushes their understanding of the evil nature of slavery that society deemed appropriate therefore enhancing their understanding of history. While only glossed over in most classroom settings of the twenty-first century, students often neglect the sad but true reality that the backbone of slavery, was the dehumanization of an entire race of people. To create a group of individuals known for their extreme oppression derived from slavery, required plantation owner’s of the South to constantly embedded certain values into the lives of their slaves. To talk back means to be whipped.

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Today, oppressed women around the world still face difficulty regarding their personal survival, and the survival of their children in their communities. Butler, however, does a tremendous job in presenting the struggle of a woman with their limited ability to help themselves and their love ones. Another key contribution to women oppression is young men and the examples that they have in their lives. Rufus the boy/men from Kindred doesn’t respect the females slave, not even his mother. “He had spent his life watching his father ignore, even sell the children he had had with black women.

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Frederick Douglass writes his narrative to educate the reader on the horrors of southern slavery. Douglass writes with the purpose of turning the reader against slavery and fight for abolishment. Throughout Frederick Douglass’s narrative he crafts figurative language such as imagery, repetition, and similes to shed light on the horrors of slavery and to get people to fight against slavery. To give the reader a detailed picture Frederick Douglass utilizes imagery. Douglass uses imagery in great detail when describing the beating of Aunt Hester, Before he commenced whipping Aunt Hester, he took her into the kitchen, and stripped her from neck to waist, leaving her neck, shoulders, and back, entirely naked.

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