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Quotes From Kindred

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Kindred

In the novel Kindred, the author uses the source of time travel to travel back to the nineteenth century in the United States, to experience the lifestyle of enslaved African Americans by the Whites. Traveling back in time, the author uses Dana to revert to slavery, experiencing abuse and having to adapt quickly to the environment. Readers can experience both mental and psychical experiences the antebellum slaves experienced during this time, though treatment varied from master to master, the diurnal living of a slave was still difficult. Throughout the novel, differences of the modern and past time are illustrated to see how the society has changed with time and how it responds to the decision and the way of life of others. As …show more content…

This too was the effect on many African Americans education, because being smart and literate in this era was a threat to your master, because one could free themselves through writing. Through this time travel, Dana experienced many things that she would not have in 1976 and had to learn quick adaptation in order to survive a time her ancestors were not able to. Facts stated, Dana is married to a white man in 1976, which interracial marriages are not allowed during the time of her time travel. Therefore, the couple had to be secret about the situation, making it paint a picture as though Dana belonged to her husband in a way as it was expected during this time. This situation has led Dana to be vulnerable to abuse and feel the feeling of harm and terror “sweating, shaking, humiliated” (Butler 212); however, while experiencing these things, Dana learned endurance in protection of her surroundings, the actual meaning and rights of freedom, and appreciate the courage of her ancestors while upholding the respect towards them for the depraved things they had to deal

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Humility, one of the best virtues to have, gets used in many characters. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee valued humility and incorporated it into the positive characters of the book. She showed many people with non who acted like fools. Then she also had many characters who demonstrated it. She displayed the value of having humility and some of the best characters known for it today come from her book.

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The roles of “protector” and “protected” in stories is often tied with implications of racism, sexism or patriarchal traditions. From the white man’s burden to chivalry to motherly protection, societal and fictional stories are colored by hegemonic forces and norms. The stories Kindred and Dark Benediction complicate and reinforce these hegemonic forces involved in their means of defining of “protector” and “protected” as their protagonist protectors move through their stories and evolve in relation to their charges. In Kindred, Dana’s begins her story as a Protector fitting into the role of motherly, caring womanhood for her ward Rufus. However, the looming tension of racial hierarchies and sexual manipulation through her and Rufus’s relationship

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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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996 Words | 4 Pages

In the story “Kindred” by Octavia Butler the slaves hardly fought back. The book showed that the slave owners as a whole weren't the entire problem, society was. No matter how much the slaves fought against it in their personal lives it was still widely accepted and enforced. The slaves had virtually no rights and were seen as sub human even when they were freed. Every part of society was against them and fighting back did much more harm than good.

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642 Words | 3 Pages

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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966 Words | 4 Pages

Courage has gone through many changes. It has been altered throughout races, cultures, religions, sex, and time. However, the core values of courage has always remained parallel. It is difficult to explain in words the meaning of courage, like describing a color, but everyone knows what courage is, how it feels, and how to perform it. In Harper Lee’s

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670 Words | 3 Pages

Dana goes back in time during the slave days where racism was very common, and this piece of evidence shows how rude people of color were treated. Butler draws on that experience to convey the universal theme that racism happened frequently in the past, but it’s still occurring today. Through this novel, Butler speaks to the reader with the message that racism is something that continues, and will keep on continuing for a long time. The words“ job and white” show a negative connotation, and implies that people of color did not have very pleasant lives before. Dana experienced time traveling to the past, which lead to an external conflict of dealing with racism and slavery.

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1598 Words | 7 Pages

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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1804 Words | 8 Pages

Playing the Part No matter the century or the centuries to come there has and there always will be stereotypes. A stereotype is a fixed notion or image of a certain group of people. Stereotypes put certain characteristics on people or objects. Most stereotypes are racist and sexist; over time stereotypes may change to fit with the evolving society.

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458 Words | 2 Pages

Kindred Analytical Essay Question:Critically analyze the environment surrounding Rufus. How does his environment shape him? Positively? Negatively? Both?

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886 Words | 4 Pages

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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912 Words | 4 Pages

The John Griffin Experience In the 1950’s, racism was at its peak in the US. In the book Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin, he puts himself into a black man’s shoes to experience an everyday life of what it is like being of darker color. He takes it upon himself to seek medical treatment to change the pigmentation of his skin from white to black. After undergoing this treatment, he sets out to New Orleans to begin his life in darker skin.

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967 Words | 4 Pages

In the novel, Kindred, by Octavia E. Butler, a lot of ignorance and intelligence is demonstrated all through the book which in a way is dangerous. Kindred is a wonderful work of science fiction that catches the attention of readers by telling a story of Dana, a modern-day African-American woman, who is abruptly transported from California in 1976 to the antebellum South. Not only is Dana abruptly transported back in time but she’s able to experience first-hand the cruelty of enslaved black women and men in the 1800s. The experiences of Dana and the enslaved women in the novel were viewed as mostly women working in households.

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1843 Words | 8 Pages

In the midst of clarifying how time seems to travel at different rates in both places, Tom responds; “Who in hell ever said you were an educated nigger? You can’t even tell a decent lie. Six years for me is six years for you!” (Butler 200). It seems that whenever a nerve is struck, the anger taken out on Dana is projected at her intellect.

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853 Words | 4 Pages

Dana and Rufus’s Relationship Ever wonder what it's like to have a changing relationship with a plantation owner's son back in the 1800’s? Dana Franklin is a younger African-American woman married to Kevin Franklin who is a middle-aged man. Dana travels from California in 1976 back to the early 1800’s whenever Rufus is in trouble. Rufus is a plantation owner son and is also the father of Dana’s ancestor. Dana’s travels are random; she gets lightheaded and dizzy when she is about to travel.

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