Examples Of Patriarchy In Kindred

The Personal and Embedded Societal Racism and Patriarchy of Rufus Weylin
The science fiction novel Kindred, written by Octavia Butler highlights the lasting effects of the hierarchical system of slavery in the United States. The main character, Dana Franklin, a black woman living in 1976 Los Angeles who suddenly travels back in time to her ancestors’ years of the early eighteenth century, experiences the embedded institutional racial controversies practiced daily. She watches one of her ancestors, a white man named Rufus Weylin living in Maryland, grow to be a product of institutional patriarchy and racism - a slave owner. His father set a violent example for him, causing him to grow to be an unprincipled man. Using his power Rufus neglects

Rufus is a selfish person who craves what he never received as a child, and he exploits the power of being a slaveholder to manipulate those who he builds a connection with in order to safeguard himself.
Rufus is embedded into nineteenth century society as a product of his time, though he is too stubborn to change his arbitrary practices. Over the course of Kindred, Rufus endures childhood, teenagerhood, and slave ownership. Though Dana is guiding him hoping to change his ways, he proceeds with them. Alice, a black girl born into The Weylin plantation, was friends with Rufus as a child. 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

His possessive behavior towards Dana grows stronger when other people pay her the same affection. This was apparent previously with Kevin, and similar with a slave man that was interested in Dana, Sam. Rufus went to the extreme by selling Sam once he noticed their interactions. She spoke, “Sam didn’t do anything, you sold him for what you thought he was thinking,” He replies,“He wanted you,” (Butler 256). At this point, Rufus has not shown any romantic affection towards Dana, though once Alice dies, he does. He had the power to completely rid his plantation of Sam, and he did just so. White people living in the Antebellum South believed black people were to be treated as animals. Black people were tortured, whipped, worked to the bone, and unjustly harassed for just surviving. Rufus used the norms of the time to justify his patriarchal actions. He speaks about Alice and Dana as if they were objects. His words were, “If I lived, I would have [Alice]. And, by God, I had to have her.” As he walked towards Dana he stated, “You’re so much like her, I can hardly stand it,” She replies, “Let go of me, Rufe!” As he continues, he mentions the relationship he saw between the two of them. He states, “You were one woman. You and her. One woman. Two halves of a whole,” (Butler 257). Rufus has always noticed their similarities, though only pointed them out when it was of utmost convenience