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Identity Theme In Kindred

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Survival:Putting Trust in Others In the novel Kindred, the main story centers on the struggles and hardships the main character, Dana Franklin faces as she is stuck in the Antebellum South, a world that isn’t so accepting of her. She desperately tries to return to her own time in Los Angeles 1976. The fact that Dana is a person of color and is stuck in the Antebellum South makes her subject to cruel, bitter treatment by white slaveholders. In Kindred, Octavia Butler describes survival as putting trust in others and making decisions one might regret otherwise; Dana’s personal decisions affected not only herself but others including Rufus, Alice, and Kevin. In one of Dana’s trips back to the Antebellum South, Dana and Kevin were separated in a different time with Dana returning without Kevin. When she returned back to the Antebellum South, she had to rely on Rufus in order to communicate with him and waited nearly a year to see him(equivalent to a few hours in their own time).In page 162 of the novel, Dana quoted-”I had to talk to Rufus into letting me write another letter.” Octavia Butler incorporates this into the theme by saying that sometime one must put their trust into someone they’re unfamiliar with or are unaware of. During Dana’s fourth trip back to the Antebellum South; Dana attempted to …show more content…

In the novel, the main character Dana is stuck in a time where she is prejudiced because of her skin color and has to rely on those around her to survive and find a way back home.Butler wrote this idea in Kindred as a way to display the central theme of the story. In Kindred, Octavia Butler describes survival as putting trust in others and making descisions one might regret otherwise; Dana’s personal decisions not only affected her, but Rufus, Alice, and Kevin as

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