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Octavia Butler's Kindred: Literary Analysis

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Recommended: Contrast dystopian and utopian society

Living on the cusp of a major technological revolution with many new high-tech devices being produced throughout world, one must look at the past and see admire the great progress that the world has made to reach this state in time. Considering that just 200 years ago human beings were being captured and beat into slavery we should look back at our past and learn from our mistakes before moving into the promising future. In Octavia Butler’s intriguing novel Kindred, Butler swirls the polar genres of time-travel based science fiction and historical slave narrative together in order to show her audience the progress that society has achieved by contrasting the struggles that slaves in America had to deal with compared to the many modern achievements …show more content…

The only problem is the year is 1815 and slavery is in full affect. Dana was in a time where patrollers would, as Dana would experience it, “slap me stunningly with one hand” (41) for no reason at all. Butler is using Dana as a fictional first-person point of view character in the early 1800’s. Butler writes her story like this to fit a historical slave narrative genre which she can eventually use to solidify her point of praising social advancements. Charles J. Heglar, an associative professor at Xavier University, categorizes the typical elements of a slave narrative to follow footsteps of one of the most iconic slave narratives, Fredrick Douglass’ narrative. Heglar says the “irreversible transformation from slave to freeman” was the fundamental part of the story, …show more content…

Jenny Wolmark, a renowned lecturer at the University of Humberside, suggests “that contemporary science fiction texts increasingly include both utopian and dystopian elements” (91). Butler include both a utopian and dystopian society in her novel. Traveling back into time towards slavery is considered a dystopian society, especially for a black person, as slavery existed. The utopian part of her novel is the present day time where Dana and Kevin are happily married and just bought a new home. The time travel science fiction aspect of her story where Dana inexplicably “fell, slowly it seemed, into a deep starless darkness,” (43) and returned back to present day 1976 to her unsuspecting husband, really helps fit push Butlers comparison of the two time periods. By mixing a time travel genre with a historical slave narrative Butler is also able to effectively keep the reader engrossed in her story. The time travel aspect appeals to a wider audience and allows her a gateway of addressing her main point of showing off the many social and technological achievements that humanity has

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Throughout the narrative, the author includes his personal stories about experiencing the violence of slavery first-hand. For example, on page 20, he writes about the first time he witnessed a slave, his own aunt, getting the whip. “The louder she screamed, the harder he whipped; and where the blood ran fastest, there he whipped longest…I remember the first time I ever witnessed this horrible exhibition… It struck me with awful force. It was the blood-stained gate, the entrance to the hell of slavery…” The author including his experience of his aunts whipping, in detail, appeals to the emotions of the reader.

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Graphic histories allow once bland, and sometimes hard to comprehend text, to transform into a detailed account of history through colorful images. The illustrations in the graphic history give reality to the emotional pain and physical torture slaves endured on the slave trade, and give a better perspective and raw feeling than what a simple paragraph of text gives. These images allow the text to come to life, which can help with feeling the emotions, fears, etc. of those going through the hardships of the transatlantic slave trade. The story of Thomas George and his wife Sarah is told in the primary sources. It once again is told, but also shown in the graphic history portion of the book, and fully portrays the raw emotion of both Thomas and Sarah.

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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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In the 1830’s an American slave Frederick Douglass escaped from slavery. Douglass soon after embarked on a mission to end slavery. The best way to end slavery were to “shine a light” on slavery and to tell a story to people that did not know. Northerners who read “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” were either against slavery or supportive of slavery. Douglass argues that slavery corrupted slave owners, and slavery was terrible for slaves.

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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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The Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass shows the imbalance of power between slaves and their masters. In his book, Douglass proves that slavery is a destructive force not only to the slaves, but also for the slaveholders. “Poison of the irresponsible power” that masters have upon their slaves that are dehumanizing and shameless, have changed the masters themselves and their morality(Douglass 39). This amount of power and control in contact with one man breaks the kindest heart and the purest thoughts turning the person evil and corrupt. Douglass uses flashbacks that illustrate the emotions that declare the negative effects of slavery.

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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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In life, humans have many different traits that describes themself. In the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, by Frederick Douglass shows life a slave in the nineteenth century. In the story, Douglass brings us back in time to show his experiences of the hypocrisy of human nature. Disputes with Douglass and his masters are seen throughout the story showing both the good and bad traits of human nature. American literature of the nineteenth century reveals that human nature embodies contrasting traits such as love and cruelty through the uses of literary devices.

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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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Frederick Douglass’s narrative provides a first hand experience into the imbalance of power between a slave and a slaveholder and the negative effects it has on them both. Douglass proves that slavery destroys not only the slave, but the slaveholder as well by saying that this “poison of irresponsible power” has a dehumanizing effect on the slaveholder’s morals and beliefs (Douglass 40). This intense amount of power breaks the  kindest heart and changes the slaveholder into a heartless demon (Douglass 40). Yet these are not the only ways that Douglass proves what ill effect slavery has on the slaveholder. Douglass also uses deep characterization, emotional appeal, and religion to present the negative effects of slavery.

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Maryland in 1815, like much of the south, was a hot bed for slavery plantations. For slave owners in particular, it was a benefit if your slaves were not educated, as they would be less likely to question the oppressive treatment, and not adequately be able to express the conditions under which they labored. In the novel Kindred by Octavia Butler, various aspects of education are intertwined throughout, effectively depicting how education and slavery do not go together cohesively. Specifically, in the case of Dana, the novels protagonist, her intelligence led to her owners feeling inferior, which prompted many verbal and physical attacks, an exploitation of her abilities, and the overriding attempt to suppress the education of other slaves

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“Yes, sir, he gives me enough, such as it is.” The colonel, after ascertaining where the slave belonged, rode on; the man also went on about his business, not dreaming that he had been conversing with his master. He thought, said, and heard nothing more of the matter, until two or three weeks afterwards. The poor man was then informed by his overseer that, for having found fault with his master, he was now to be sold to a Georgia trader. He was immediately chained and handcuffed; and thus, without a moment’s warning, he was snatched away, and forever sundered, from his family and friends, by a hand more unrelenting than death.”

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