Between the years 1976 and the early 1800s a lot of progress was made towards racism in America. The use of time travel in the book shows the readers the major differences of how white people treated the African Americans. Whenever Dana would travel back in time to the 1800s, the readers can see how time has affected the characters, not only physically in appearance, but also their changes in attitude and personality. Dana would time-travel to Maryland and come back to her new home in California. In the 1800s, slavery was bad in Maryland and California wasn’t part of the United states. The use of time-travel and issues of race in the book Kindred by Octavia E. Butler shows the progress the United States has made on racism and how it got better.
By 1976, slavery was ended by Abraham Lincoln when he made the 13th amendment. Despite slavery being ended, there is definitely still some racism in 1976 but compared to the early 1800s where the majority of white people thought they were superior to African Americans, there isn’t as much racism. In 1976, intermarriage wasn’t as common as it would be today. For example, when Kevin and Dana were talking at work, one of their coworkers said, “‘Chocolate and vanilla porn!’” (Butler 56). During that time, intermarriage was something that people were still getting used to. People said that they were “‘the weirdest-looking couple’” (Butler 57). Also, Dana’s aunt accepted that she was going to marry a white man just because “she prefers light-skinned blacks (Butler 111).” The change we can see between the times is that Kevin didn’t see Dana as an inferior but treated her as an equal. They both didn’t care about each other's race but cared about each other’s personality and being able to talk to each other about their problems. In the 1800s, there was no intermarriages between African Americans and the white people. They all saw African Americans as inferiors and used the women however they pleased and whenever they were done using them, they would get rid of them by selling them. As Rufus grew older he grew more hostile towards Dana and the slaves, just like how his father was. It takes
In 1815, African Americans were considered inferior. If slaves were educated it wasn’t thought of as good. If slaves were educated they would be able to write their own passes or find a way to escape. Now, being educated is good because it is what will help you get a job. In 1976, Dana and Kevin worked in the same place. But, when Kevin came with Dana back to the 1800s, he had to pretend to be her slave owner. Overall they both got different perspectives of slavery because of their different races. Kevin thought that the slavery in the Weylin property wasn’t that bad because there is, “no overseer. No more work than the people can manage” (Butler 100). Meanwhile, Dana who spent her time with the slaves said there were, “Dirt floors to sleep on, food so inadequate they’d all be sick… and no rights and the possibility of being mistreated or sold away from their families for any reason- or no reason” (Butler 100). Many occurrences happened in the course of a century. In the 1800s, Maryland was one of the states with a large amount of slaves. California was also not a state yet in the 1800s. By 1976, California and many other states existed. The significance of having some of the books setting in Maryland was to show the cruelty of having slaves. In Maryland, slave owners owned many slaves because of the big farmland that they had. If the book didn’t take
This chapter beings with the exploration of the Chesapeake area, with the introduction of Bacon’s rebellion. It shows the ripple effects of slavery growing to every inch of the area surrounding the Chesapeake. Berlins next section ranges from the Lowcounty South Carolina, Gerogia, and Florida areas. These areas were more effected by a cash crop and explained the effects that shaped the plantations due to the cash crops. The cash crop sped up the conversion to slave societies and demonstrated a different tone than the conversions upheld by the Chesapeake expansion. His next section demonstrated how the conversion of slavery effected a region, such as the North, indirectly. The explanation of how slavery effected the lives of the north was informational in terms of seeing that slavery was more commercialized for ports and their fertile lands. The Lower Mississippi Valley is the last section Berlin described in the Plantation Generation. He explains that the Mississippi Valley de-evolved from the slave society that it was to just a society with slaves. Family life is the sole message of this section. Explanation of the increase in marriages and their route to surviving in the lower Mississippi
Owning a person to work for less or no money has been practiced for years. Like other countries, people in the United States also owned slaves. Since the north was mostly industrial, they didn’t need slaves. On the other hand, southerners owned thelarge plantation and they needed cheap labor in order to make profit. Slavery was a backbone of south’s prosperity. Yet, arguments on whether to emancipate slavery divided the nation in half. To keep the country united, both sides tried to convince each other why slavery is right or wrong. There were many documents written about slavery. One of the document that talks about why slavery is beneficial to our society is the excerpt of Cannibals All by a slave owner, George Fitzhugh. While there are document that support slavery, there are also documents written by fugitive slave that talk about their life as a slave. One of them includes Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave by Frederick Douglass. He was born in
How far would someone go to survive? All through life people go through various challenges, but when someone is facing death, how far would someone will they go to save oneself? Survival can mean many different things; such as making it through highschool without getting into trouble, fighting off a predator, or standing up for what is right to help others. In Kindred, Octavia Butler uses many different situations to show what survival means to her. For example, Dana, the main character, travels through time to save her ancestor Rufus thus experiencing times of near death predicaments. In Kindred, Octavia Butler uses the conflicts Dana experiences in her time travels to suggest the idea that people do things they wouldn’t normally
Janie Crawford, the novel’s main character, is an African American woman who eventually married three times throughout her lifetime. Her mother was raped by her schoolteacher and eventually gave birth to Janie, leaving her behind for Janie’s grandmother to raise her. A research article focused on Their Eyes Were Watching God concluded that “The devastating impact of the white discourse on black people which has targeted their identity is an integral part of this paper” (J Nov. Appl Sci. 1). It is evident in the novel that Janie (along with several other African Americans) are mistreated because of their skin color. This novel was set in the early 1900s, when although slavery was abolished, African Americans were not treated equally; the whites still held an unwritten superiority towards them. Although an imbalance of equality between whites and blacks is present, this novel should not be banned from the classroom because it teaches the cruel but true history of our nation. Our country’s history cannot be ignored like this, because it is a part of a valuable piece of literature and it makes society appreciate our new customs of equality that currently
In the novel Kindred by Octavia Butler, Dana reveals in the fight that she is drawn back again to a flashback of her husband Kevin talking to her in their kitchen; however, she realizes Kevin did not make it back to their home. Dana had a feeling of fainting and vomiting, and she realized that she would soon see Rufus and reconciled with her husband that she had not seen for months. Dana saw that Rufus was beaten by this young black male and there was a young lady who was frighten and had her clothes tore and told the man to run away and to leave Rufus. Then Rufus denies Dana’s help throughout the chapter. He says that he is a young adult and does not need her help at all. Later, in the chapter Rufus reveals that Dana’s fear would come to reality and that sooner Rufus will break the purity of the relationship they have. After that Dana, will realize the true colors that were reveal during Rufus confrontation with Kevin that almost resulted in a horrifying situation for Dana. Nonetheless, when it comes to relationship or treatment, every character differs from each other due to race, or how they
The issue of Slavery in the South was an unresolved issue in the United States during the seventeenth and eighteenth century. During these years, the south kept having slavery, even though most states had slavery abolished. Due to the fact that slaves were treated as inferior, they did not have the same rights and their chances of becoming an educated person were almost impossible. However, some information about slavery, from the slaves’ point of view, has been saved. In this essay, we are comparing two different books that show us what being a slave actually was. This will be seen with the help of two different characters: Linda Brent in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and Frederick Douglass in The Narrative of the life of Frederick
One of the main reasons this novel is relevant today is the theme of tolerance in the book. Tolerance is still something we have a large problem with today. In the novel, women, blacks and even Boo Radley are not thought of as equals or are just not accepted into mainstream society. Today, we have the same issue. One simple example is how you will see blacks sit at one lunch table and whites sit at another.
The protagonist and hero of our film Colonel Ben Cameron is portrayed as the honest and star struck lover who wants nothing but the love of his life by his side. Yet, this proves impossible with the newly corrupt and hate filled south created by the freed blacks, so Colonel Cameron devises the idea of the KKK on the stereotypical belief that all blacks are superstitious. Dressing as ghosts was an attempt to simply scare the blacks out of the south. Beliefs such as that of all blacks being highly superstitious and use of black face are some of the many racist aspects in “The Birth of a Nation”. The film even breaks down African Americans into a few categories The tom as the loyal slave who is always harassed and beat, the coon a black man who is viewed as lousy and good for nothing, pickanninies are the presentation of black children who were easily moved and had overly expressed features, the tragic mulatto from the one drop rule was a mixed black who was always angry because she had “corrupt” black blood, the mammy was the sexless, overweight female who cared for the kids, and the brutal black back who was centered around nothing but the desire for white women (Bogle 4-10). Each of these roles played a significant role in discriminately dividing the African American community into categories and expressing false differences between African Americans and
The book follows Dana who is thrown back in time to live in a plantation during the height of slavery. The story in part explores slavery through the eye of an observer. Dana and even Kevin may have been living in the past, but they were not active members. Initially, they were just strangers who seemed to have just landed in to an ongoing play. As Dana puts it, they "were observers watching a show. We were watching history happen around us. And we were actors." (Page 98). The author creates a scenario where a woman from modern times finds herself thrust into slavery by account of her being in a period where blacks could never be anything else but slaves. The author draws a picture of two parallel times. From this parallel setting based on what Dana goes through as a slave and her experiences in the present times, readers can be able to make comparison between the two times. The reader can be able to trace how far perceptions towards women, blacks and family relations have come. The book therefore shows that even as time goes by, mankind still faces the same challenges, but takes on a reflection based on the prevailing period.
In most relationships, friendship or sexual, trust is one of the main aspects that determine whether or not the relationship will last. In Octavia Butler’s Kindred, relationships are a major topic. Specifically, one that involves two different races which was never a big factor until time travel introduces them to the antebellum south. The trust Kevin and Dana displays shifts due to the novum of time travel and the way they view their own relationship in modern day 1970 to the antebellum south.
Douglass's narrative is, on one surface, intended to show the barbarity and injustice of slavery. However, the underlying argument is that freedom is not simply attained through a physical escape from forced labor, but through a mental liberation from the attitude created by Southern slavery. The slaves of the South were psychologically oppressed by the slaveholders' disrespect for a slave’s family and for their education, as well as by the slaves' acceptance of their own subordination. Additionally, the slaveholders were trapped by a mentality that allowed them to justify behavior towards human beings that would normally not be acceptable. In this manner, both slaveholder and slave are corrupted by slavery.
When the Northern States abolished slavery, blacks could begin building a life in freedom. The North was now the land of freedom. This had a huge impact on the thousands of slaves and indentured servants who ran away trying to reach freedom and their dreams of a better life. The southern slave owners viewed the act of running away as disrespect. They had paid money for the slaves and therefore owned them as their property. The advertisements served as a resource for them to regain their possessions, both the human and material possessions. The descriptions of the indentured servants and slaves that were given in the advertisements clearly attest to the fact that slaves were viewed as property. The advertisements offer great insight into what the life of a slave was like, and why they would risk running away.
...e reader into the story. It is this detail, however, that made the story get off track during several scenes. In his story-writing Jones has a tendency to be talking about thing and then suddenly tangent off into another direction for a few pages. All of these different directions that the story is going can make it difficult to differentiate between past and present time as well as it may confuse the reader about which character is being described at a given time. The vocabulary of the novel was not difficult to comprehend and even jargon of the slaves, which can be difficult to translate, was easy to understand. Overall, as long as "The Known World" is read carefully enough and differentiation can be made between tales of the past and present, the novel successfully sheds light of aspects of pre-Civil War slavery that novels of the past have failed to do.
Today, blacks are respected very differently in society than they used to be. In “The Help”, we see a shift in focus between what life is like now for the average African American compared to what it was like for them to live in the 1960’s.“The Help” teaches readers the importance of understanding and learning from our history. The novel is a snapshot of the cultural, racial and economic distinctions between blacks and whites in a particularly tumultuous time in American history. “The Help” encourages readers to examine personal prejudices and to strive to foster global equality.
Throughout the book, I’ve also learned about many racist things. It was painful to read about the hateful treatment of Blacks during that time and the effect that it had on Black children. When Maya had a bad tooth and her grandmother took her to a white dentist in town. The white dentist refused to help Maya because, as he stated, "I would rather put my hand in the mouth of a dog than to put it into a nigger's mouth." This incident serves only as an example of the many ways that Blacks were cruelly mistreated in those days.