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Octavia butler's kindred analysis
Research project essay on Octavia Butler's Kindred
Octavia butler and women in slavery
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Slave Master In kindred Octavia Butler writes about how a modern day black woman, Dana, is traveling back to the past to save a man that would become her ancestor. Whenever Rufus faces danger he calls upon Dana to save his life. Each time Dana goes back she finds out the brutal reality of the slave trade in America. She finds out the true meaning of freedom when she compared her life to the slaves in Tom Weylin’s plantation. She discovers that being a slave is not as easy as the books show it; instead it is a complicated relationship between master and slaves. Most of the slave masters depend on slaves for economic survivals. Throughout the novel Butler compared and contrasted Rufus and his father. She compared the way they cared for power and money and she contrasted their attitudes about education for their slaves and relationships with slaves. His father was a man who only cared about money and his power, but on the other hand Rufus is a man with feelings for his slaves. Tom Weylin, father of Rufus has three of the most powerful qualities. His skin color, he has …show more content…
His father would sleep with slaves just to have sex and fun. On the other hand Rufus would sleep with them to have a relationship with them. Rufus was friend with many blacks. And then fall in love with a black woman, Alice and then later he has a child with her. He loved her so much that he could not see her leave him. Once Alice tried to run away but they caught her back and Rufus bought her in an auction. He would scare her so she doesn’t even think about leaving him again. “To punish her, scare her, to make her see what could happen if she don’t… if she tried to leave me” (251). Just to scare he would sent her children away from her to Baltimore just to show her what would happen if she tries to leave him
The book Kindred is about a women named Dana, a present day African American women. She ends up traveling from California, where she lives with her husband Kevin, who is Caucasian, back to the antebellum South. Dana only goes back in time when Rufus needs her help and each time she is there she seems to stay longer. Rufus is a white slave owner son. Slavery had previously existed throughout history, in many times and most places. What does it mean to be a slave or an enslaved person? To be a slave is to be owned by another person. Slavery to me seems like the imagery of hell. I imagine hell being something you cannot escape. A place where your soul burns internally. You might beg, cry, or even pray but nothing will help the predicament you
Butler teaches the importance of freedom by having Dana fight to try to free or help the other slaves in the 1800s. Rufus falls out of a tree and breaks his leg when Dana is sent back to him but this time with her husband (Kevin). Rufus asks Dana to come to the manor with him so she goes to help his leg heal. Dana is living in Rufus's house in 1819 pretending to be her husband’s slave. Dana chooses she will fight to help all of the slaves of the plantation get their freedom or write their own way to freedom, so she starts secretly teaching a young slave boy by the name of Nigel to read and write. Kevin responds to this by saying “‘Do a good job with Nigel… Maybe when you’re gone, he’ll be able to teach others.”’ (Butler, 101). This shows her dedication to freeing the other slaves by risking her life to teach Nigel to read and write. A mute slave girl by the name of Carrie, sees Dana teaching Nigel and she points to the book, Dana sees that Carrie wants to read and write as well. She sees this as another oppurtinity of them writing their own freedom. Dana will risk anything to help the slaves learn to
First, these works attest to the frequency of trauma and its importance as a multicontextual social issue, as it is a consequence of political ideologies, colonization, war, domestic violence, poverty, and so forth”(Vikory). Rufus is a representation of the white male system and having control over not just the slaves body but their mind and as any white save owner he thrives off that power.He has a desire to be loved and tries to control everything and everyone around him with out getting his hands dirty. Rufus morally knew it was wrong to force himself upon Alice, but instead he asks Dana to get Alice and persuade her to come to his bed. "Go to her. Send her to me. I'll have her whether you help or not. All I want you to do is fix it so I don't have to beat her. You're no friend of hers if you won't do that much!” (Butler 164). Rufus as a character feels remorse after he commits rape, divides families, and beat slaves. In all reallity he is just submitting to the cultural and social norms that are expected of any white slave
For example, Northup introduces the reader to a slave named Eliza Berry, who was forced to become her master’s lover, as well as to live with him on the condition that she and her children would be emancipated (25). This exemplifies how white men would use their status to sexually harass their female slaves, while avoiding the consequences because no one would believe them, and they were threatened with being whipped if they uttered a word. In addition, Northup introduces another female slave named Patsey, and he states, “Her back bore the scars of a thousand stripes; not because she was backward in her work, nor because she was of an unmindful and rebellious spirit, but because it had fallen to her lot to be the slave of a licentious master…” (116). Overall, this quote corroborates how severe their masters would penalize them both physically and mentally, as well as how unfair they were to
...out his master and mistress who were brutalized. He just wrote about his lifetime stories, so it’s not easy to find out actually how and why slaveholders were changed by slavery. I thought it was because of the power or the fear they got from becoming slaveholders or maybe both the power and the fear were the reasons, because we can say that the fear made slaveholders want the power.
Butler alludes to the significance of the problem by choosing the adjective kindred as a title for her work. Throughout this novel, familial bonds are built up, and at the very end get a perverse form because of gender and racial mistreatments. Throughout time, Dana witnesses families clinging to each other while they are treated unjustly. The veracity of this assertion is confirmed by examining scenes where the heroes stick together with their family because they are put in circumstances where it is impossible to escape racial violation. An example of such a case is the incident between the slave called Tess and Dana. After Weilyn sells the man for attempting to flirt with Dana, other slaves try their best to not displease their masters because they do not want to be separated from their family. This scene suggests that racial violation was so horrifying that African Americans could not even choose to live with their family, and it made them even more dependent on each
In her novel, Kindred, author Octavia Butler addresses the challenges of interracial relationships. She touches on both consenting and non-consenting relationships. While Dana and Kevin are in a consenting relationship, their experiences and difficulties are similar to that of Rufus and Alice. Conversely, there are also many aspects of the two relationships that are very different.
Writers utilize their writing abilities in order to create a piece of literature that would transmit a meaningful message to their audience and create an impact on them. This is the case of Octavia Butler’s Kindred , a historical science-fiction novel evolving around a twenty six year old woman named Dana living in 1976. The story in the novel is rather unique since the plot alternates between the past and the present as Dana time travels from the commodity of her house in 1976 Los Angeles to Maryland in the antebellum period. The catalysts for these trips to the past are the near death experiences of the son of rich southern planter, a boy named Rufus, who is one of Dana’s ancestors. Every single time Rufus fears for his life, Dana is summoned
The first novel, Kindred involves the main character Dana, a young black woman, travelling through time to explore the antebellum south in the 1800’s. The author uses this novel to reveal the horrific events and discrimination correlated with the slaves of the south at the time. Dana, who is a black woman of modern day, has both slave and white ancestry, and she develops a strong connection to her ancestor Rufus, who was a slave owner at the time. This connection to Rufus indirectly causes Dana to travel into the past where she helps many people suffering in the time period. Butler effectively uses this novel to portray the harshness of slavery in history, and the impa...
Octavia Butler’s novel Kindred is categorized as science fiction because of the existence of time travel. However, the novel does not center on the schematics of this type of journey. Instead, the novel deals with the relationships forged between a Los Angeles woman from the 20th century, and slaves from the 19th century. Therefore, the mechanism of time travel allows the author a sort of freedom when writing this "slavery narrative" apart from her counterparts. Butler is able to judge the slavery from the point of view of a truly "free" black woman, as opposed to an enslaved one describing memories.
In fact, women had to carry with the pain of having their children wrenched from them. Women were forced to be “breeders” they were meant to bear children to add to their master’s “stock”, but they were denied the right to care for them. It was not something unusual to happen to these women it was considered normal. The master didn’t believe the female slaves had feelings, or the right to ruin their merchandise. It was also not unusual for the plantation master to satisfy his sexual lust with his female slaves and force them to have his children. Children that were born from these unions were often sold to protect the honor and dignity of the slave owner’s wife, who would be forced to face the undeniable proof of her husband’s lust for “black women.”
A new outlook on pre-Civil War slavery is portrayed in Edward Jones' novel "The Known World". Unlike many well-known novels that cover slavery, Jones chose to focus on the thoughts and emotions of both the slaves and slave-owners and how they interact with each other. Set in a wealthy Virginia county, the practice of owning slaves is common to the white man and the black man as well. The main focus of the story is Henry Townsend, a black former slave that was bought out of slavery by his father, who was also a former slave. As time passes Henry never loses the admiration he has for his former master and looks to him as an idol. Much to his parent's disappointment Henry not only enjoys his life as a free black man after being bought by his parents, but also takes advantage of his right to own slaves. He does not feel guilty for owning slaves, but instead feels that he is adding to his legacy and worth. Henry feels that if someone didn't want to be a slave that they should pay for their freedom, just as his father had done. If they want freedom bad enough they will be able to obtain it in his eyes. But, when Henry dies it is his widow, Caldonia, a black woman that was born free, is torn between her loyalty to her race and loyalty to her deceased husband. Ultimately Caldonia stays true to the legacy that her husband had built, but it is understood that she does this due to pressure from society. Jones chooses to show the thoughts of his characters rather than tell them which undeniably gives greater depth to all of the characters. Through the actions of both slave and slave-owner alike "The Known World" shows that the world surrounding the institution of slavery has more to do with social status than it does with race and the color o...
Neither miscreant nor saint, Rufus turns into the purpose behind the plot and the way to its determination. For Dana, he is the issue to be illuminated. Rufus Weylin's survival implies her survival, so she will do whatever she can to guarantee that he lives sufficiently long to have youngsters. This turns into Dana's principle concentrate once she understands the kid she first spares is her precursor. Rufus has no more profound importance until the point when she has developed an association with him. Rufus' character speaks to what the white slave proprietor was in the prior to the war south. Rufus isn't the two dimensional portrayal that Butler indications at in the novel. He doesn't completely impart qualities to the white creatures in history books or the depictions of kindhearted white men who coincidentally owned slaves. Rufus exists as an intricate character with a past filled with his claim that adversaries anything history could have said in regards to
Butler’s Kindred induced a personal understanding of slavery that is relevant, as much as it is unique, to the modern views of African-Americans and society. The largest and most frequent theme of the novel is the underlying notion of society influencing behavior. Butler shows her readers the influence behavior has on society, by literally sending Dana back the source of the behavior. By portraying societal influence in her novel, Butler was able to craftily instill a sense of empathy, understanding, and even sympathy for events of the past. If these attitudes may be developed toward slavery, the most grotesque of all behaviors, they are surely applicable to lesser behaviors of today.
The movie “The Butler” is directed and produced by Lee Daniel’s and written by Danny Strong, it is based upon a true story between the years 1920 – 2008 (2013). The story takes you through a time of the civil and human rights movement (including Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Freedom Riders, Malcolm X and the Black Panthers), the Vietnam war and ending with the election of the first black president of the United States of America, an era of the great black oppression, segregation and the fight for equal rights and opportunity and sometimes your life. The movie surrounds a conflict of determination between a father and son that also represents a generational change of the old and young. The main character is the butler named Cecil Gaines (father), which is determined to live a dignified and purposeful life while supporting his family and keeping them safe. The son, Louis Gaines is determined to bring change to a nation’s consciousness and lift the 200 years of oppression laid upon the black people of America and end white privilege that prohibited equal rights and opportunities. Louis was labeled a criminal and was