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Human Emotions In Kindred By Octavia E. Butler

725 Words3 Pages

Kindred is a novel about many different themes and human emotions. This novel was made by Octavia E. Butler and is about a woman, Dana who is called back in the past by an ancestor whenever he is in danger. This novel explores many different feelings and ideas such as Yearning. Kindred explores Yearning in various forms such as the slaves from this era wanting freedom, the people wanting power, safety, and their home, and the feeling of yearning longing for something a change in their lives that they cannot control. The novel Kindred explores Yearning in people that were slaves in forms of love, freedom, and family. On page 36 of kindred a man that is Alice's dad is a slave that left without a pass and got beat for it while he just wanted …show more content…

The slaves are often warning Dana to be careful how she talks as it is dangerous to be educated or free since in this society black people are oppressed and enslaved. “Sold them. First, my man died - a tree he was cutting fell on him. Then Marse Tom took my children, all but carries. And, bless God, Carrie ain’t worth much as the others ‘cause she can’t talk. People think she ain't got good sense.” This quote is an example of an enslaved woman who has had her children sold. She is grateful her kid is considered a defect since they took all her other children and sold them as they have no rights or freedom. This woman longs for her kids, she yearns for their safety and freedom as she misses them and it pains her. Yearning is a feeling that extends to anything like freedom, love, and …show more content…

Tom Weylin along with his family fits into that category of yearning, Tom Weylin is a businessman that wants to own and feel powerful. On page 80 Dana is warned about the risks of being an educated person around Tom Weylin, how he is insecure about his own education and doesn’t like someone like a slave, someone he sees as below him being smarter than him. Tom Weylin runs a plantation and longs for that feeling of power and ownership he makes sure to not let his slaves feel freedom or get any ideas of freedom to keep his power and tyranny. “Weylin stood whirling his whip and biting his thin lips. Suddenly, he brought the whip down across the slave's back.” This quote is an example of Weylin using harsh methods of punishment for just talking back and liking it. Kindred depicts yearning and longing for different things in different

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Along with that, birthing a child at that time was unhygienic let alone safe, which posed a major risk to both the child and the mother. Dana got treated horribly, not only by Weylin, Rufus’s dad but also by other enslaved people. They would say that she acts and gets treated as though she was white. Along with that nobody was ever friendly towards her, except Rufus, Nigel, and Alice occasionally.

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Kindred is a story about the past intertwining with the present. Dana, a black woman from the 1970’s, is taken back in time to the antebellum South. She gets sent to Rufus, the son of a plantation owner, to protect him time and time again. Each time she travels back to the South, she remains there for a longer period of time with a higher risk of death accompanying her stay. She ended her long spell of being trapped in the South by murdering Rufus, thus making it impossible for her to return to the past.

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From the elbow to the ends of the fingers, my left arm had become a part of the wall. I looked at the spot where flesh joined with plaster, stared at it uncomprehending. It was the exact spot Rufus’s fingers had grasped. I pulled my arm toward me, pulled hard.” With the killing of Rufus, Dana no longer had to be called back in time into the time of slavery.

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For Kindred, Octavia Butler took a different approach on comparing two different worlds. Instead of choosing a simple path to describe two different times, she mashes them together to face reality and show how one relationship could’ve been like the other if they had met in an earlier time. This book shows that you can be from two different times but still be the same just based off your race. Dana and Kevin are from the 1970’s where racism still exist but blacks are free. Rufus and Alice are from the 1820’s where slavery still very well exists and the trading of slaves is still going on.

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Octavia E. Butler's novel Kindred tells the tale of American slavery from a more modern-day perspective through time travel. The novel includes many themes and recurring motifs, but it also includes many different characters with different motivations and personalities that all go through some sort of character development. No one character follows a certain archetype commonly found in a lot of other literary works, and it makes the story engaging and more realistic. First off is Dana, the main character of the story. At the novel's start, Dana has experience with doing hard labor to barely make a living, but her development starts after she travels back to the Weylin plantation.

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Analyzing Character Development: Dana Octavia Butler’s novel, Kindred, provides a unique look into slavery in the antebellum South through the eyes of Edana Franklin, a black woman living in the late 20th century, who is suddenly sent through time to the early 19th century where she is suddenly faced with the task of protecting her ancestor, Rufus, from many dangers in order to ensure her existence in the present. Dana begins her adventure with no knowledge of how or why she has been given this responsibility and, as a result, must adapt to her new and unfamiliar surroundings. As the novel progresses, the reader sees Dana’s internal battle with herself as she decides whether or not Rufus is worth saving, or if she should let Rufus die

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White people, be it men or women, constantly exert their power over black people, taking their humanity piece by piece. During the 19th century, it was often found that black people did not have any rights; little, if any, were truly free. Those that were not free were forced to slave away at some plantation, owned by a white man that had complete power over them. Black people were forced to care for the children of the whites, they had to do strenuous field work, cook, clean, etc. Although white people seem to have a great deal of power during the 19th century, Octavia Butler's novel Kindred demonstrates that they depend utterly on the labor and bodies of black people because that is how they implement their power and superiority over them.

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