Themes In Kindred

Are the ideas of racism, love, and hate learned habits or born characteristics? This ties into the idea of “nature vs. nurture”, which questions what human characteristics are naturally occurring as opposed to the result of environmental factors. The idea of nature vs. nurture comes up multiple times in the book Kindred by Octavia Butler, in which the main character, Dana, travels back to the late 1800s in the deep south where she must deal with a wide array of hateful, racist, and loving characters. She is forced to become a first-hand witness of the way society has morphed people and created racism and hate when she encounters Rufus, one of her ancestors. She also has the opportunity to observe platonic and familial love within Rufus and Alice. Through her interactions, it is shown that racism and hate are learned habits while love is a born characteristic. Racism and hate are purely the result of one’s environment. In the book, Dana sees how slave owners were immersed in a world of

When a baby is born, it is pure. Their mind is malleable and impressionable. That young impressionable baby growls to love their parents from the minute they’re born. They then begin to hear potentially toxic and bigoted opinions from their parents and latch onto those ideas because they can’t yet form their own opinions. These ideas they’ve latched onto are often problematic. This process can be seen in the book with Rufus. The first time Dana went back to the 1800s, Rufus could be corrected on his usage of offensive terms.“quote about Dana telling rufus not use the n word and rufus listening,” (page). Eventually, the ideas solidified and it was too late for something as simple as a few corrections to alter Rufus’s problematic views. The one constant in the whole situation is love. Rufus, in his own twisted way, loves Dana because he has the human need for