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Kindred By Octavia Butler Sparknotes

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Recommended: A Sound of Thunder (Short story by Ray Bradbury) about the protagonist

Madi Kelley
ENGL- 2413
Response 5 Time travel is a very well-known science-fiction topic that many are drawn to, perhaps due to the mystery of time travel and what could be discovered, or perhaps simply to experience a time that you do not belong to, or just as simple as wanting to figure out who it works. The possibility of time travel opens up many questions about what would happen if someone was able to travel back in time such as, what would happen if you let an ancestor die that was not supposed to die yet or tell someone anything about the future or their life, or something even as minuscule as moving a chair could throw the whole future for a loop. However, by using time travel could historians learn more about the motives of …show more content…

In the sci-fi history novel “Kindred”, author Octavia Butler does not shy away from the cruel and twisted past that was, she builds upon it and adds themes of suspense, drama, thriller, and a hint of romance in with it to keep it from becoming almost history book. Butler uses the time travel theory that states if an individual was to time travel and kill or impair an ancestor in a way that no longer results in their lineage then they will no longer exist and fade away. Logically this makes the most sense of the vast amount of time travel theories, due to the fact that if the ancestor that contributed to that individual’s lineage is impaired from the decision that lead to their existence, however far down the line that is, will simply cause them to no longer exist, now if they slowly fade away or disappear instantly is up to cinematography and drama but the logic is sound. Another theory that stems from that is from the short story “The Sound of Thunder”, by Ray Bradbury, which is about the protagonist who travels back in time to hunt a dinosaur for sport, the main idea of the story is to illustrate how delicate time travel is, “It fell to the floor, an exquisite thing, a small thing that could upset balances and knock down a line of small dominoes and then big dominoes and then gigantic dominoes, all down the years …show more content…

History as the world knows it could be completely altered, what we thought we knew could be all wrong. For example, a historian traveled back in time to the 1840s and was able to interview a slave owner and they were able to uncover why slave owners chose to own slaves in the first place. Perhaps it is a power high for the slave owners, they could enjoy having living beings beneath them that were scared for their lives, to obey their every command, this could make them feel like they have the power of life or death and thus help give meaning to their life. On the contrary, the slaver owner could choose to own slaves because it is what their father did before them and his father before him, a generational duty, and if the slave owner declines the ownership of the slaves, they are disgracing their family name and could be ridiculed by society. However, the idea of a psychological void that is caused by neglect, witnessing slaves being whipped and beaten at a young age, or a mix of other possibly traumatic experiences could lead to a need to be in charge over living beings in the sense to fill a void. Regardless of the reason why slave owners truly chose to own slaves, what is in the history books is not the whole truth of slavery, and those of us in the modern age may never learn the

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