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Kindred Theme Essay

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The novel "Kindred" raises the question of the limits of human morality, particularly in the face of a society that condones slavery and encourages hate crimes against black people. In the story, “Kindred” the reader experiences the harsh setting of a society with slavery from the perspective of a black woman named Dana who experiences and watches horrid actions being committed against her fellow kind. The author uses a wide, detailed variety of southern gothic elements such as violence, broken characters and decay to fully bring out the themes of Family & Love, the History of Slavery, and the Corrupt influence of power. The title, “Kindred” itself means Family, which is the main theme the author wants to convey with her realistic details …show more content…

The author makes good use of broken characters to compare their relationships with their family and help the reader understand each complex character more realistically. Dana’s supernatural powers to time travel help give insight into how much Dana values Kevin, her husband as she ventures with and away from him. The broken characters such as the slaves in the Weylin household, despite their harsh broken setting, are held together by family bonds, but if they happen to rebel or enact any action that goes against the Weylin family, their family can be sold off. This is shown on page 238, “He went. That was all. Innocent-completely innocent. But three days later, a trader led Sam away in chains.” After Sam was sold away, his wife inveighs heavy words to Dana as Sam’s interaction with Dana was the reason he was sold. As shown, broken characters are a very important element in representing the …show more content…

Rufus, despite his somewhat innocent beginning, is the character that portrays the corrupt influence of power the most in the story. Early in the story, Rufus is shown as a vulnerable boy who struggles to understand life as the son of a slave owner. But later on, due to Dana’s time travel supernatural powers, she can witness the evolution of Rufus as the power of being a slave owner gets to him. “I saw him growing up. Getting harder, meaner, more determined to have his way.“ (Page 90) As Rufus grows older and older, more and more signs of Rufus’ transition from an innocent mindset to the same one as his quick violence, the abusive father shows. This becomes evident in his relationship with Alice as he resorts to violence when Alice attempts to run away from the household with her husband. After several hate crimes with Alice it eventually reaches the point where after having kids with her, he threatens and eventually sells their children off. Rufus is a product of his environment and a great example of what the corrupt influence of power can do to a

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Octavia Butler’s novel Kindred is a science fiction time travel novel, but Kindred is not like other science fiction novels. The book is told in first person by the main character Dana, a modern day black woman as she travels between her time 1976, and the antebellum South. When Dana transports to the antebellum South she is forced to endure slavery and the violence and abuse that comes along with it. As we read further into the book we see Dana’s life and relationships change because of the time travel. Dana is first introduced to us a Dana's last visit to the past brings us full circle; when she must murder Rufus to fend off his attempt to rape her, he grasps her arm as she is sent forward in time, anchoring her arm in the past.

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Despite this, Rufus does still have some redeemable traits in his later life, agreeing to free some of the slave children after Dana’s urging. However, Rufus still continues to see black people as inferior, trying to scare Alice into loving him by pretending to sell their children, and later trying to force himself onto Dana for the first time in the whole story, showing that while Rufus is not as cruel as his father, he cannot be molded by Dana into a person that sees all people as

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Kindred has a more overt portrayal of slavery than The Nickel Boys, given the time period and storyline. The main character, Dana, describes being whipped for running away from the Weylin plantation. She states, “He beat me until I swung back and forth by my wrists, half crazy with pain. This was only punishment and I knew it” (Butler 176). Dana knows that while she is being cruelly punished for attempting to escape, she was still somewhat lucky to be kept alive since she still had a life to go home to.

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He is constantly being pressured by gang members to join their group, and he is exposed to the harsh reality of drugs and violence. Despite the challenges he faces, Rufus remains hopeful and determined to make a better life for himself.

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In the 1800s, America was controlled by slavery. It was eventually abolished after the 13th amendment in 1865. Still, it took a lot of effects for this to be including slave revolutions, the civil war, and eventually for the 13th correction to come ratified. Because of these events, there were differences between the 1970s and the 1800s. These events cause pressure and tension between the characters because if it wasn’t for these events, slavery could still live, and Dana and Rufus would not have had as numerous problems.

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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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Although Rufus is initially presented as an innocent, unknowing child, he quickly becomes the focal point of Dana’s narrative. He is a symbol of nurture and change, actively showing how one’s environment and the people they meet shape their future. From being treated as a son to facing cruelty and abuse, Rufus’s life is characterized by the many roads he takes that lead him further away from his original nature. With every negative force he faces, Rufus grows more corrupted and cynical. The second time Rufus is presented in the past he and Dana had time to talk in his home.

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(25-26) ” It’s clear that Rufus’s parents’ two opposite approaches to raising him are conflicting and damaging, resulting in Rufus getting the wrong message as to how he is allowed to behave. While Rufus’s mother gives him all he wants regardless of his poor behavior, his father on the other hand neglects him and resorts to violence to discipline him. The use of violence and sense of entitlement build up in him and worsen as he ages.

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Is the novel Kindred relevant to teenagers today? The novel is not relevant to any teenager in today's society as the novel's main focus is time travel and slavery. The novel's plot is Dana a black woman who is celebrating her 26th birthday with her husband in her home in california living in the 1970’s who gets transported to the past to save a little boy from drowning who she soon finds out is her ancestor who she must protect in order to be born. Some might argue that Kindred is relatable to teenagers today because it's important for teenagers to learn about their ancestry and what life was like during slavery for example Dana mentions how Tom Weylin was a ordinary man that did bad things because his society said it was okay some could

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In Kindred, Dana’s narrative entirely revolves around the slaveholding American narrative of Rufus which illustrates the second fiddle notion of Dana’s identities. The fact that she can only time travel when white man, Rufus, mortally needs her demonstrates that her entire story regardless of time is dictated by the White Man (Butler 12). Furthermore regarding time fragmentation, the imagery of Dana’s body being in a constant state of scars, bruises, and general crisis in 1976 and 1819 while Rufus’ body and life continues in a progressive linear state depicts how the white historical narrative continues to strut along time whereas the black, female, American narrative continues to be an unhealed wound discarded alongside white-American-male chronology. This notion is expressed when Dana puts her bodily pain to the side in order to sexually usher love and welcoming to Kevin’s five year journey in Antebellum south (Butler 190). Essentially Dana’s body politics do not exist in a state of paradox because through Butler’s textual portrayal of embodiment, she was and still remains as an

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Situations are defined by choices. Small actions in one moment of time alter the future of what happens forever. In Kindred by Octavia Butler Dana, the main character, is a black women born in 1976, who time travels back to the early 1800’s in order to save her relative, Rufus, a white boy who is the son of the owner of the plantation. Along the way she also meets her other relative, Alice, a slave born free, but enslaved since she helped her husband run away. Alice is owned by Rufus, who is convinced that he is in love with her.

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This analysis of agency would be useful for a person pushing for more freedom of expression or freedom of speech. All in all, Bast’s successfully supports his perspective of agency through his evaluation of Kindred, and the comparison of the human instinct of expression to Dana’s want to create change with her time traveling powers constructs a powerful parallel between the novel and Bast’s article. The novel Kindred, however, serves to create an important message about society on its own, as well. Octavia Butler’s Kindred is a science-fiction novel that depicts the life experiences of a young black woman named Dana, who is given the task of traveling back in time to the era of slavery to save her ancestors, but is unjustly oppressed and has most, if not all, of her rights stripped away from her simply due to her race and gender. As a result, the most prominent overarching theme of the novel is the inequality of power and social status given to people of varying gender and race, and the struggle that those people must go through to gain as much freedom and equality as possible.

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Harming not only slaves but free blacks as well in the novel, when Dana is transported back to the moment right after Rufus rapes Alice: Dana attempts to express how she felt about Alice’s right to refuse Rufus sexual advances and he replied, sarcastically saying “‘She must have thought she was a free woman or something”. In the novel, shows the oppression of black women. Dana asks Rufus: “‘...your father whips black people?’” and he replies “‘when they need it’” (Butler 26).

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and he felt he could not live without Alice by his side. From this it makes Rufus come off as a deplorable person, but he was only portraying the way people acted around him. It really comes down to was Rufus really that bad of a person, or would he have been very different person with better morals, if he grew up in a time period with an environment that would not shape him in such a twisted manner? In the beginning of Kindred, Rufus is seen as a fool hearted young boy, but as the novel progress we see Rufus turn into a cold heated man shaped by the environment he grew up

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The Progressive Movement, which took place in the late 19th and early 20th century, started as social reform and morphed into a political platform. Religious groups, reporters and political activists all rallied around causes that they believed effected people who were weaker than those in power. Progressives wanted to improve social welfare and reform corrupt corporate and government practices. On the local, state, and federal level; progressivism provided the stage for public advocacy. The Progressive Movement is responsible for many of the reforms that affect our health, safety, and voice in the government.

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