Summary Of Octavia Butler's Kindred

From the elbow to the ends of the fingers, my left arm had become a part of the wall. I looked at the spot where flesh joined with plaster, stared at it uncomprehending. It was the exact spot Rufus’s fingers had grasped. I pulled my arm toward me, pulled hard.”
With the killing of Rufus, Dana no longer had to be called back in time into the time of slavery. The author signifies these last few moments by the loss of her arm, which signifies her letting go of whatever happened in the past. Secondly, this excerpt emphasizes how “Whatever happens in the past, Stays in the past”. Because Dana couldn’t remove her hand from Rufus’s grip in time to leave, she lost her hand permanently. However, this price was a small one for Dana to pay, as she never

“Behind me, I heard Rufus say once more, “You just let him die.”
This specific scene of Tom Weylin’s death proved to be a turning point for Rufus. Before his father's death, he was a naive child often getting himself into trouble, which resulted in the calling of Dana. The author used his father’s death to show the change of his behavior and to capture his transition through adulthood. In Dana’s next travel to the 1800’s, Rufus’s behavior was more violent and rash, surprising Dana. However, in a conversation with Dana after attempting to rape her, Rufus’s angry behavior was seen to be a front to hide his sadness. 3. “ The boy already knew more about revenge than I did. What kind of man was he going to grow up into?” (Pg.25-26)
This quote could be seen as foreshadowing for the events that occur later in the novel. Seeing him grow up ever since he was a child, Dana observed how Rufus’s naive spirit was brainwashed by his era. Even though he was brainwashed by his society into thinking that white people were
Qureshi

Although slavery was considered normal in the 1800s, people today view slavery as a barbaric act of ignorance. Similar to slavery, the people of the past have done terrible things to other people simply based on their beliefs/nationality. Although one may wonder why people in the past would allow such a thing to happen, people today make the same mistakes today. Throughout the past decade we have labeled the whole Muslim religion with over 1 billion followers as a religion promoting terrorism, we have made fun of gays for their sexual orientation, and some Americans have still discriminated against African Americans living in our country. In the novel “Kindred”, a major theme presented is that we are “being conditioned to accept a societal practice.” We are blindly accepting all the information we gather about other nationalities by news outlets the same way that people learned everything they knew from the society they lived in in the 1800s. However, in the past 5 years, social media has given a voice to the crowd that the news outlets don’t display, and their voice has caused great social change. If we are conditioned to believe in only one source the same way that the people of the 1800s garnered everything they knew from their society without looking at different perspectives, mankind will always remain