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None Of Us Are Free Analysis

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Kindred and “None of Us are Free” “None of Us are Free” can be connected to Octavia E. Butler 's Kindred through the slaves´ teamwork. In the novel, characters such as Alice and Sarah show the themes of unity and compassion that are in the song. Since “None of Us are Free”calls on its audience to stand as one, there are many similarities that can be found within Kindred, a novel about Dana´s struggle to help her kin and the slaves. The slaves care for each other, feel the same hopelessness, and can empathize. The song “None of Us are Free” and Kindred by Octavia E. Butler both convey a message of solidarity for the oppressed to urge them to look out for each other through their hardships. “None of Us are Free” and Kindred emphasize understanding …show more content…

From “None of Us are Free”, “there are voices sill calling across the years . . . and they will until we all come to understand,” (Line 3, 6). In Kindred, Dana’s slave ancestors call across the years both literally and metaphorically. Literally, she is called when Rufus needs help, but through her trips she also helps Alice and the other slaves. Metaphorically, the voices of Dana’s ancestors call across the years because Dana and other African Americans still suffer racism and prejudice in their time. In Kindred, when Dana and Kevin are having a conversation, a man starts to harass their interracial relationship, calling it “chocolate and vanilla porn” (Pg. 56). In many ways, people of color and females are suffering, and they will until the world understands their struggles. Kevin, at first, dismisses Dana’s feelings when both of them are transported back to Rufus’ time. It is not until he spends five years trying to free slaves and evading authority that he can understand. “None of Us are Free” and Kindred discuss the everlasting effects of the past and how problems can never be solved without

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In Octavia E. Butler’s novel Kindred, Dana battles an external conflict of time traveling to the past, and experiencing what it was like to be a slave. Dana ultimately resolves this conflict by killing her ancestor named Rufus to return to her present time; however, this choice also illustrates her true character as both scared but brave. Dana’s decision to kill Rufus because she did not want to live in a time where slavery and racism occurred also reveals the universal theme that racism was very common in the past, and it still occurs till this day. When traveling to the past Dana struggles with an external conflict of racism and slavery.

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Butler used this to set the tone for the past travels as well as the present. In the past, clearly blacks are not respected. On her first trip back, Dana had just saved Rufus from drowning and was not only referred to as a nigger by Rufus’s mother, Margaret Weylin, but even had had a rifle pointed at her by his father, Tom Weylin. Dana is not used to being called by racial slurs, and surely does not understand why she would have her life threatened for saving Rufus, in her time she is not judged on her skin color. These scenes helped me to feel how frustrating it must have been and is today for blacks to experience racism, they don't even see them selfs as anything different from anyone else, but some people seem to view them as evil animals with

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