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Octavia butler's kindred analysis
Research project essay on Octavia Butler's Kindred
What is one of the main themes commented on by Octavia Butler in Kindred? What is she trying to say with this story
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Octavia Butler’s Kindred (1979) is a speculative fiction novel about a young black African-American women, Dana Franklin, who can travel back in time to her ancestral past. Each time Dana’s ancestor Rufus, a white, slave-owner, is in danger he summons her from the future to rescue him. As Dana gets pulled back in time without any notice or knowledge, she realises that she has a purpose, that purpose being to preserve Rufus’s lifespan till a stage when it would be safe for her lineage to still exist in future generations. By the second trip, we discover that Dana has absolutely no control over this supernatural force and can only return ‘home’, back to present day, when she fears for her wellbeing. Throughout the entire experience the reader …show more content…
Every slave had a being, purpose and an ordinary lifestyle before they were hauled away from their lives with no explanation and lobbed into slavery, which was what Dana had experienced when she was hauled from her own life suddenly to aid her white predecessor whenever it suited him. Dana’s return to her own time also has a metaphorical symbolism related to slavery as it required her life to be at risk before she could return to ‘home’, present day. That could be connected to slavery and other historical events that we study today, as those situations also had to be brought to the brink of population demise, before anything was done to aid the situation. Time travel is usually associated with dominance, for someone to gain power but for Dana it is about overcoming dominance not getting it. When Dana witnesses life on the plantation first-hand, she gains a new historical context that she could not have gained from texts alone. Dana returns home with emotional and physical scars at the end of her journey as she had seen much more than anyone else from her time by participating in forebear’s lives. She gains a new perspective of history and the present day, and with that gains the ability to accept the past. Dana is no doubt the main character in this novel as it all has to do with her understanding and heredity of the past, but she is also a protagonist in the sense that she was faced with various obstacles such as her race; sexuality and age but yet she surmounted all the hindrances and accomplished what she was meant to do in formidable
He believes that he has a place in this disaster, and he accuses himself for causing a person's death and he doesn’t stop thinking about it as he says here “half a year has passed since I returned from Nepal, and on any given day during those six months, no more than two or three hours has gone by in which Everest has monopolized my thoughts” (296) .The experience has in many ways, affected him very deeply, which influenced him to write this book. The character development in "Kindred" by Octavia E. Butler is not as strong as "Into Thin Air", in this novel Dana, a young black woman who is a writer living at the end of the Twenty-first century, she is sucked into the south during the 19th century. Dana must go's through struggles so that she is able to establish her own identity and have
Post-emancipation life was just as bad for the people of “mixed blood” because they were more black than white, but not accepted by whites. In the story those with mixed blood often grouped together in societies, in hopes to raise their social standards so that there were more opportunities for...
...e, history, and blood. The specific commingling that emerges, however, has common roots in its very diversity. Throughout her tale Menchaca's allegiance is clearly to her race, and while the bias comes through, the history she traces is never the less compelling. The strongest achievement of this book is that it fundamentally shifts the gaze of its reader by reifying race and celebrating its complexity.
In all, Tademy does a great job in transporting her readers back to the 1800s in rural Louisiana. This book is a profound alternative to just another slave narrative. Instead of history it offers ‘herstory’. This story offers insight to the issues of slavery through a women’s perspective, something that not so many books offer. Not only does it give readers just one account or perspective of slavery but it gives readers a take on slavery through generation after generation. From the early days of slavery through the Civil War, a narrative of familial strength, pride, and culture are captured in these lines.
The purpose of this essay is to highlight the issues that Dana, a young African-American writer, witness as an observer through time. As a time traveler, she witnesses slavery and gender violation during 19th and 20th centuries and examines these problems in terms of how white supremacy disrupts black familial bonds. While approaching Octavia Butler’s novel Kindred, this essay analyses how gender and racial violation relates to familial bonds through Dana 's experience in Tom Weylin 's plantation. It is argued that Butler uses pathos, ethos, and in rare cases logos, to effectively convey her ideas of unfairness during the American slavery, such as examining the roots of Weylin’s cruel attitude towards black people, growing conflicts between
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.
In the novel, the author proposes that the African American female slave’s need to overcome three obstacles was what unavoidably separated her from the rest of society; she was black, female, and a slave, in a white male dominating society. The novel “locates black women at the intersection of racial and sexual ideologies and politics (12).” White begins by illustrating the Europeans’ two major stereotypes o...
In conclusion, readers identify with the human form and use it as a vehicle for defamiliarization to show the mechanical functions they serve themselves and others. The characters in “Bloodchild” behave as part of a process and show a lack of respect for their human qualities. As they desensitize their bodies, they allow the Tlic to engage with them in an unbalanced power relationship. Then, the Tlic interact with them in a sheltering way and inhibit their thought process. Through this interaction chain, Butler effectively conveys that the way humans treat themselves will dictate how others treat them. As the afterword said, “Bloodchild” is not about slavery; it’s about the relationships humans take on because they allow themselves to be
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.
Many people often wonder what would it be like to time travel. Would it be fun or scary? Would they change the past and future or keep it the same? Would it change them as a person or break them? For Dana, one of the main characters of Kindred, she went through all of that. Kindred by Octavia E. Butler is about Dana, an African-American woman, who travels back to the antebellum South to preserve her existence in the present. When she goes into the past, she meets her ancestor Rufus, a white slave owner, and she tries to stop him from becoming a racist. Dana's efforts to make her ancestor change his ways fail because he becomes dangerous and racist. This results in Dana killing her ancestor, but this action does not affect her presence in
The story clearly illustrates that when one thinks of their ideal lifestyle they mainly rely on their personal experience which often results in deception. The theme is conveyed by literary devices such as setting, symbolism and iconic foreshadowing. The abolition of slavery was one step forward but there are still several more steps to be made. Steps that protect everyone from human trafficking and exploitation. Most importantly, racism is something that needs to stop, as well as providing equal opportunity to all without discrimination.
Kindred by Octavia Butler is an incredible book that leaves the reader hypnotized. This story educates people on the first hand abuse of slavery. Butler took a woman of the modern era and transferred her back into a period
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.
Events in history have influenced writers’ style, genre, and emphasis in their stories. 1 Alice Walker was greatly influenced by the time period of the 1940’s. There was much racism and oppression during that time, especially for black women. Women were beaten and abused simply because of their color and gender. Celie, a young black woman, endured many hardships reflective of the time period including racism, oppression, and sexism but remained strong in her faith in God and overcame these obstacles to show the quiet strength of a woman. The oppression of black women is very evident in The Color Purple (Ryan 3062). It is especially shown in the relationship between father and daughter, Alphonso and Celie(Fulmer 1). From the time Celie is very young she is subject to oppression. She is raped repeatedly by her stepfather and is told to keep quiet about it (Walker 1). This is very demeaning to Celie and it causes her to fear men for a good portion of her life (Walker 6). Celie gets pregnant twice with her stepfather. He takes the first baby and “ kilt it out there in the woods.” The other he sells to a family in a nearby town (Walker 3-4). Celie is oppressed all throughout her life, but she learns to overcome it and support herself (Ryan 3062).
It is not until Celie is an adult that she finally feels content with her life and understands her capacity to be a completely autonomous woman. The concept of racial and gender equality has expanded greatly throughout the twentieth century, both in society and in literature. These changes influence Walker's writing, allowing her to create a novel that chronicles the development of a discriminated black woman. Her main character, Celie, progresses from oppression to self-sufficiency, thereby symbolizing the racial and gender advancements our country has achieved.