Messages Exposed In The Novel Kindred By Octavia Butler

In the science fiction novel Kindred by Octavia Butler, she uses many different aspects of science fiction and nonfiction to show how different modern times are from the past, more specifically during the slave era. The novel has many ways of relaying many different messages to us, whether through actions by characters, thoughts readers are able to hear from characters, and conversations they have with each other. Butler is able to expertly use these ways, with different characters, to convey one of the big messages of the novel. That message is social influence and how it can affect someone’s actions and feelings. Three characters that are great representations of this are Sarah, Dana, and Rufus. Throughout Kindred, characters are affected

When Dana is talking to Sarah about what she says about the other slaves, Dana then brings up how when the time comes for her to stop working and leave she will and Sarah does not take kindly and brings up what happens to runaway slaves. In the novel Butler writes, “You need to look at some of the n***ers they catch and bring back,’ she said. ‘You need to see them—starving, ’bout naked, whipped, dragged, bit by dogs … You need to see them.”(Butler 171) From these lines said by Sarah, the audience sees how skewed her vision of escaping is and how the years of being in an environment where the only enslaved people that she sees come back are the ones caught. Even after this Dana expresses how she would want to see the enslaved people who made it to the North and are free. In another line, Butler has Rufus give us some backstory on Sarah and tell us about events before Dana

If you hadn’t gone, she might not have run away!’

I rubbed my face where he had hit me when I begged him not to sell Sam.

‘You didn’t have to go!’

‘You were turning into something I didn’t want to stay near.’ Silence.

‘Two certificates of freedom, Rufe, all legal. Raise them free. That’s the least you can do.”(Butler 309)

As aforementioned, Dana has been a big influence on Rufus and Dana uses that influence to get him to free his children and to make up for his actions. Thanks to this quote the reader sees how social influence affects someone’s actions as Rufus would end up getting the certificates of freedom for his children. Rufus is a character with many different influences acting on him, which have affected how he acts and feels about certain things. Dana is a special character for influence as she not only gets influenced by other people but also seems to influence herself at times. In a conversation with Kevin, Dana is arguing how she might be able to change how Rufus thinks about slavery especially while he is a child. Butler writes, “It still might not work. After all, his environment will be influencing him every day you’re gone. And from what I’ve heard, it’s common in this time for the master’s children to be on nearly equal terms with the slaves. But maturity is supposed to put both in their ‘places.’”(Butler