Kindred By Octavia Butler: Character Analysis

The central character in the novel Kindred by Octavia Butler is Dana, an African American woman who lives in Los Angeles, California. Throughout the novel, Dana travels through time multiple times to pre-Civil War Maryland. Readers first witness Dana being transported when she is assisting a young boy in a river bank in Los Angeles. In the instance Dana is met with the re-memory of her ancestors. As she is transported back to the South, she arrives every time to save the life of a younger white boy who is named Rufus Weylin. Rufus’s survival becomes imperative because in some way it becomes the very reason why Dana’s survival also comes into account. Throughout the novel Dana realizes the cultural difference in the time in which she lives and that of her ancestors.
As stated previously, before Dana travels to the past she lives in Los Angeles in 1976. Dana is married to a white man named Kevin. Shockingly, in the 1970s interracial relationships were not punishable as they were in the 19th century. The time travel then defines and provides a meaningful explanation to the way Rufus and Dana interact with each other throughout the novel. Within the encounters that Dana has with Rufus she learns the correct way of

Unfortunately, the pair are caught and are beaten, and Issac is mutilated. Rufus buys Alice because she is being sold at the slave market due to her attempt to escape. Rufus brings Alice back and has Dana care for her. Dana continues to care for Alice but Alice has no interest in loving or being with Rufus. Alice’s feelings toward Rufus angers him because he saved her and had Dana look after her, so he believes that she should love him. Again, another cultural difference, especially in regard to the time period, how Rufus is expectant of Alice to give unrelenting love, but he has previously raped