Education In Octavia Butler's Kindred

Maryland in 1815, like much of the south, was a hot bed for slavery plantations. For slave owners in particular, it was a benefit if your slaves were not educated, as they would be less likely to question the oppressive treatment, and not adequately be able to express the conditions under which they labored. In the novel Kindred by Octavia Butler, various aspects of education are intertwined throughout, effectively depicting how education and slavery do not go together cohesively. Specifically, in the case of Dana, the novels protagonist, her intelligence led to her owners feeling inferior, which prompted many verbal and physical attacks, an exploitation of her abilities, and the overriding attempt to suppress the education of other slaves

Her education works as a sort of scarlet letter, allowing her to stand out, which is not always beneficial to her well-being. Kevin explained the complex that Tom was experiencing; “Weylin doesn’t like the way you talk. I don’t think he’s had much education himself, and he resents you” (Butler 80). Dana feels as though it is her obligation to continually make the trips to the plantation not only to keep Rufus alive to make sure her lineage remains, but in order to experience the hardships that her ancestors withstood. By going through this process however, she did make people uncomfortable because she did not fit the stereotypical slave prototype. The white people viewed slaves as sub-human, and a black woman who was mentally superior was not something they would have encountered before. Dana explains what Margaret, Tom’s wife, may have been feeling; “I don’t think Margaret likes educated slaves any better than her husband does…. He can barely read and write. And she’s not much better” (Butler 82). The absence of education on plantation life is a topic that is deeper than it would appear on the surface. It is a significant part of the stigma that has haunted the African American culture to this

After Dana attempts to escape the plantation, she is eventually corralled by both Tom and Rufus, at which point Tom utters; “Educated nigger don’t mean smart nigger, do it?” (Butler 175). Whenever they were given the chance to poke fun at Dana, it made sense for them to target her mentally, to try and assure themselves that she was not capable of various acts of defiance. As the novel progresses, there comes a time when Dana must try and explain the logistics of her travel to Tom; a seemingly impossible task. In the midst of clarifying how time seems to travel at different rates in both places, Tom responds; “Who in hell ever said you were an educated nigger? You can’t even tell a decent lie. Six years for me is six years for you!” (Butler 200). It seems that whenever a nerve is struck, the anger taken out on Dana is projected at her intellect. Dana was not usually found in the field doing manual labor, but on one particular trip with the new overseer Evan Fowler in charge, she was expected to contribute. When he noted that she wasn’t chopping effectively, Dana increased the grip on her knife in anger to which Fowler exclaimed “Try it and get it over with. I thought you was supposed to be smart” (Butler 211). Once again, the underlying issue of her education comes into play. Unlike her counterparts, Dana is more gifted than the white