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The Significance Of Time Travel In Kindred By Octavia Butler

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Many scholar and theorist debate the existence of time travel, many believed that the existence of time travel is true. However, the consensus of time travel is improbable. But many authors and writers use the idea of time travel, even though they know it's not possible, as a narrative technique or as a tool to carry out a thought or a message. Octavia Butler utilizes this technique enables time travel as a tool to send a message to us, the readers. Through the novel Kindred, readers are able to imagine a world where the main character, Dana, and her husband, Kevin Franklin, are able to travel through time. As a result, Octavia Butler is able to employ time travel as a tool to show the readers that people can adapt to their environment by changing …show more content…

Having both Dana and Kevin live in both the past and the present shows that people can adapt to their environment by changing themselves physically and mentally to survive. With Dana and Kevin, Octavia Butler is able to highlight the differences between the past and present. One key difference that Octavia Butler includes with time travel is slavery. In the present, Dana would never see slavery with her own eyes and would consider it almost a myth in her time. But as she as Dana goes to the past she is baffled and taken back by the sight of the slavery that encompasses her. She, like most people, is disgusted by the acceptance of slavery, especially when she sees slaves that are children pretending to sell each other off at a fake slave auction. “Now here a likely wench,” called the boy on the stump. He gestured toward the girl who stood slightly behind him. “She cook and wash and iron. Come here, gal. Let the folks see you.” He drew the girl up beside him. “She young and strong,” he continued. “She worth plenty money. Two hundred dollars. Who bid two hundred dollars?” (Butler 99)
Even though a slave auction is considered normal and even promoted in the past, if a slave auction would be held in the present, the people attending would most likely be arrested and incarcerated for many years unlike the past. Through Dana, we, readers can see the struggles that slaves went through every day in the past compared to the present

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Butler chose to use direct over indirect characterization for this aspect of Dana’s identity because of its importance to the plot of the novel. If Butler had done this directly, the readers would take longer to realize,

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I was always so intrigued with the ideas of time travel and because of this, I got sucked right into the book and just could not put it down. There were some flaws in the book though… I could figure Each sentence is dissected, and all the source websites from where the content was copied are displayed. out most of

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Traveling through history In Octavia E. Butler’s Kindred, the author tells the story of a twenty-six-year-old African American woman named Dana. Dana is a writer who lived in Southern California during the 1970’s. She is married to a white man named Kevin who is a writer along with Dana.

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In addition, Octavia E. Butler illustrates that change in human beings stems from the people, places, and the situations that surround them. The people depicted in Kindred change and develop so much throughout the book, the most prominent

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Butler uses foreshadowing to expand the significance of the historical timeline between the 1810s and the 1970s, so the reader can understand how time travel impacts Dana. Foreshadowing can be defined as a warning or indication of a future event. For example, if someone feels like something is wrong with someone, and there is, that indicates an event that will happen in the future. In the story, Butler also uses foreshadowing on page 121, Rufus states “He is going to pay.” (Butler,121) Butler uses foreshadowing in this quote to show that white people have the power to punish slaves.

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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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The novel Kindred by Octavia Butler examines issues of racism and slavery throughout America by depicting an African American woman named Dana who, through forced time travel, finds herself in the antebellum south. This story focuses on the violence, exploitation, and abuse of black people in the past. However, through Dana and Kevin's relationship, the novel speculates on the systemic impact racism has systemically on contemporary society. This is highlighted through the struggles present within their interracial marriage and how their dynamics parallel the racism present throughout the book. Kindred explores the ways in which systemic racism has affected and continues to impact society.

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People think she ain't got good sense.” This quote is an example of an enslaved woman who has had her children sold. She is grateful her kid is considered a defect since they took all her other children and sold them as they have no rights or freedom. This woman longs for her kids, she yearns for their safety and freedom as she misses them and it pains her. Yearning is a feeling that extends to anything like freedom, love, and

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This means that Dana and Rufus are distant ancestors. As Dana continues to save Rufus, she gets to know him a little better, especially when it comes to their differing beliefs. Throughout Kindred, Butler uses a specific tone to highlight Dana and Rufus’s opposing views, mainly about slavery and their inequitable relationship. Rufus threatens Dana with something she needs while also keeping slavery alive on the plantation. Ultimately, this shows how relatives, in this case, Dana and Rufus, often have different views, but still find ways to forgive each other for their actions.

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A normality in the literary world is that texts deeply nestled in the crosshairs of biopolitics, gender, nationalism, and other identity particularities often fall victim to one sided and dogmatic cultural critiques. Critic after critic find difficulty regarding how to analyze and essentially read a novel where intersectionality is intrinsic to its framework such as Kindred, because it does not fit the fairly common singular literary theory mold. This notion is articulated and defended in “"Some Matching Strangeness": Biology, Politics, and the Embrace of History in Octavia Butler's "Kindred"” where Robertson explores Butler’s usage of Dana’s body to confront universal truths and to cement the idea that Dana is in a historical paradox due

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Smith examines the concept that in times of affliction people can become different in the consecutive ways. People ransacking the general store, Willow being in the hospitality of Kas and Finn and Ken Butlers murder. Exposure to a pernicious virus can turn a

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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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Today, oppressed women around the world still face difficulty regarding their personal survival, and the survival of their children in their communities. Butler, however, does a tremendous job in presenting the struggle of a woman with their limited ability to help themselves and their love ones. Another key contribution to women oppression is young men and the examples that they have in their lives. Rufus the boy/men from Kindred doesn’t respect the females slave, not even his mother. “He had spent his life watching his father ignore, even sell the children he had had with black women.

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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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As the past and future impose upon the present state, time reveals itself to be more of a rounded body which interacts in a way that defies the limitations created by the segmented chronicle. This way, the narrator remains constrained by the straight experience of his present state and the ability of change to happen in his memory, while time functions in a unpredictable way. Individuals are vulnerable against the principles of time, and ultimately the novela suggests that the power of the present, allows the individuals to change the meaning given to the past and

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