What Is The Theme Of The Book Kindred

Octavia Butler’s book Kindred, written about slavery in the Antebellum period of US history, has many themes. However, the most important theme is Family as indicated through the title and in the content of the novel. Specifically the word kindred reveals the true intent behind her work through the juxtaposition of the past with the 1970s. This technique used in order to bring about social change in regards to the view of interracial relationships. The word kindred itself has multiple very similar meanings. In the Oxford Online Dictionary it is defined three different ways. First it is defined as “One’s family and relations”, second it is defined as “Relationship by blood”, and third it is defined as “Similar in kind; related”. All definitions

This one use is when Dana is describing Kevin and her relationship to him,, “He was like me—a kindred spirit crazy enough to keep on trying.”(57) Because of the irregularity of the word more emphasis is placed on their relationship itself by tying it back to the title, and thus the meaning of the book itself. Going further into it strongly implies that Octavia Butler means to make the book more about the contrast and similarities in the two times rather than one time or the other. The rarity is key here. To reinforce the point about interracial relationships, Dana says this about Rufus after he tries to rape her, “I was beginning to realize that he loved [Alice]...but there could be shame in loving [a black woman]” (pg 124). In conjunction with Dana and Kevin’s isolation from their families because they were an interracial couple this helps paint a picture of what Butler was trying to talk about. This use of parallels between the two times only serves to add more fuel to the idea of views on interracial

Blood relationships obviously play a big role in the story as it drives the plot, however Octavia Butler omits a few key things that might play into a larger theme of family relations. Only one revelation about Dana’s ancestry even makes it into the book as a mere mention, “Hagar Weylin, born in 1831. Hers was the first name listed. And she had given her parents’ names as Rufus Weylin and Alice Green-something Weylin.” (28) While this revelation about her identity and past is more important than just any other quote, Octavia Butler does not seem to interested in building upon this. Family identity can be seen as an important theme however the lack of discussion on the ethics and technicalities of time travel on Family or the future leads the reader away from this. For all we know, killing Rufus as young as she did could have prevented an entire group of people from ever living. Those people could have even advanced the world’s technology. Instead of focus on common technicalities with these things she chooses to focus on the juxtaposition of modern interracial relationships with interracial relationships in the Antebellum period. Through doing so she had left hints scattered all throughout and leads us to an interesting conclusion. Because the plot of the novel after this point is focused on relationships, we can infer a subtle pointer to the meaning derived in the first