Summary By Octavia Butler

Octavia Butler uses symbolism to highlight how the irregular occurrence of time travel forces Dana to accept slavery and how her past will “live” in her presence. Dana is forced to assimilate to the past because she has no control over her fate, and her life in the past revolves around slavery. The fact that Dana quickly transitions from the past to the present shows that she is quick to accept this time of slavery even though she is not mentally prepared for it. After Dana is disturbed by the inhumanity that the children show by playing an auction game, she says, “The ease. Us, the children… I never realized how easily people could be trained to accept slavery” (Butler 101). Dana is disgusted by this auction game because even little children are taught to embrace slavery. As for Dana who

Octavia Butler uses the motif of “time travel” to convey the quick acceptance of slavery because when Dana travels back in time, she goes straight home and there is no time between the shift. Octavia Butler also uses Dana’s arm as a symbol to show that the past will “live” in her presence. During Dana’s final return to the past, she kills Rufus while his hand is still gripping on to hers and this causes her to lose her arm. When Dana returns back to her house, she describes her current situation, “I was back at home- in my own house, in my own time. But I was still caught somehow joined to the wall as though my arm were growing out of it- or growing onto it… my left arm had become part of the wall. It was the exact spot Rufus’s fingers had grasped” (Butler 261). This experience of hers, shows that the trauma from the past will live in her presence because she is leaving behind a “mark” symbolizing her trauma. Literally, part of her body is left behind in the past and now that she lost an arm, she will constantly be reminded of her