Is a person more a product of his own environment or his genetics? It is really hard to answer this question until you trace the behavior and actions of a person in society during a certain period of time. Author, Octavia Butler, explores this idea in her novel Kindred. The novel’s protagonist Dana narrates her experiences as a black woman who travels back in time from 1976, California to Antebellum South in Maryland. She does so in order to save her white male ancestor Rufus Weylin. She becomes a witness to how a vulnerable little boy turns into a selfish, malevolent and cruel slave master. In every chapter of the novel, Dana has been transported to a certain period of time and observes significant changes in the behavior of Rufus, due to the influence of the environment. Therefore, Rufus is more of a product of Nurture, rather than Nature. His father, Tom Weylin, is influential in how Rufus …show more content…
It’s significant that he is influenced by his abusive family and the world where slave owners treat people like personal property. Dana, the protagonist of the novel, travels back in time to save him when he is in life threatening danger since he is a little boy. It becomes clear for her that he is her ancestor and she really is trying to influence him to become a different man, unlike his father. Rufus doesn’t live up to her expectations and becomes even worse than him. He becomes a crueler, filthier and more selfish person as the years go by. Instead of being grateful to Dana for saving his life, he continually causes harm, and then he just feels sorry after the damage is done, as he uses to do with his mother. Despite all Dana’s efforts and struggles to influence him, she fails and he becomes what he becomes. Rufus is unable to overcome the influence of the slave holding society of the Antebellum South. He obviously becomes the product of this culture and