Examples Of Discrimination In Kindred

Octavia Butler’s novel, Kindred, is written in science fiction, where the female protagonist, Dana, travels back in time to Maryland, during the period of slavery. Dana realizes the reason she is called to take part in the past is to help her family heritage last through another character in the book, Rufus. Dana must learn to adapt to the time of slavery and help Rufus when he is in trouble and may not survive, but she must do whatever it takes to allow him to survive. Dana experienced many hardships and struggles during her journey in the novel. Many of her experiences were based upon the facts of discriminations which were brought on by her race, gender, and education. Particularly her race hindered her ability to experience equality

Octavia’s novel, Kindred, perfectly fits under Chardine Taylor-Stone’s definition of Afrofuturism. In Stone’s literary criticism she once stated, “Black science fiction can provide a new language to address the increasingly complicated frameworks of discrimination” (Taylor-Stone). In Kindred, the female protagonist provides the reader with many struggles that she faced due to her race, as well as takes the reader on a journey by using science fiction to show her audience what many African Americans experienced in the past. In the novel the main character, Dana, first realized the biggest struggle she would have to overcome living during the time of the 19th century would be her race. Dana was a black female who would have to fit into society, in which she would have to become a slave. With Dana being an African American woman, life was more difficult. The trips she makes back to Maryland did not always come easy for Dana, but with her diligent and resilient characteristics Dana will fight her way through time travel. In the novel Dana stated, “I never realized how easily people would be trained to accept slavery” (101). During the novel readers travel with Dana to discover how she deals with everyone’s immunity to the unpleasant and wrongful acts that exists in slavery. She must try her best to figure out a way to break these habits

Butler’s intent for writing the novel was to stand up for Afrofutrism. Her novel was able to show the impacts that African Americans made in our society in history, by giving detailed examples of what slaves experienced. If our society is able to recognize these facts of history and “dismantle the frameworks of discrimination” (Taylor-Stone) then we will be able to acknowledge what African Americans have done to impact our society today. Octavia used her characters in the novel to help develop her story line to stand up for Afrofutrism. In the novel every aspect of each character helped link the story together. By using different personalities like Rufus vs. Tom she was able to try to show the readers how Dana was disassembling discrimination. Octavia’s choice of her plot in her novel was perfect for her to show how today society is mixed with the past and how discrimination still exists in both. Butler was able to get her message across to her reader that sometimes we need to realize what our ancestors went through to get us where we are today. Octavia’s novel is intriguing for readers and allows them to escape into a time warp and travel with Dana, while still learning about the historical past. Despite the struggles that Dana experienced throughout the novel that was brought on because of her ethnicity, Dana displayed strong characteristics of determination and never gave up. Although she was