Octavia Butler wrote Kindred in order “to make others feel the history: the pain and fear that black people have had to live through in order to endure” (Fox). She drew on her mother’s experiences as a maid to tell the story that belonged to many Black Americans. Butler frequently wrote novels with strong, independent black woman protagonists. Kindred tells the story of a 1967 black woman, Dana, who travels back in time to antebellum Maryland to, time and time again, save the life of her white, slaveholding ancestor while also preserving her own. Butler’s usage of Dana as a modern woman travelling back in time where black folk were considered subhuman—black women considered even less so—was a powerful choice and examining the novel through …show more content…
Butler’s usage of Dana, a modern-day woman, and Alice, her enslaved ancestor, provides a clear contrast of what agency of one’s own sexuality looks like. Butler uses Dana as a counterpart to Alice, displaying her as an empowered agent, acting on her own volition. She marries a white man, whose family doesn’t approve of him marrying a black woman, and engages in a relationship very different from Alice’s relationship with Rufus. Dana and Kevin’s relationship is one of emotional, mental, and physical equality. Butler demonstrates Dana reclaiming her sexuality when Dana and Kevin reunite after Kevin is in the past for five years. The intercourse was a way for Dana to ground herself in her present-day reality where she is free to enjoy sex and have control of her self and her body. While in antebellum Maryland, Dana’s agency is ripped away from her by the hegemony of slavery. Butler uses this theft of agency as a commentary about the sexual experience of enslaved black women—the vulnerability and victimization. “The institution of slavery commodifies black …show more content…
As a freewoman, Alice tries to take possession of her life by choosing her lover and marrying a slave, which results in her getting raped, running away, and getting dragged back, now under slave status. She doesn’t see her body as her own, “Not mine…Not mine, his. He paid for it, didn’t he?” (167). As her rebellion, Alice submits her body, but not her spirit—she never fully accepts her sexual enslavement, continuing to plot her escape as the years go on. She fears that she will lose her sense of self and “turn into just what people call” her—saying she enjoys being Rufus’ (235) girl. Her motherhood is one of opposing feelings—to have kin, but for that kin to also be enslaved and a constant reminder of her loss of agency. Butler shows how black motherhood during enslavement was a complex thing. Alice has no voice about what happens to her children, and they become objects that Rufus uses to control Alice’s affection and sexual behavior toward him (Mitchell 63). Alice loves her children, but the institution of slavery constricts that love due to her inability to own herself or her children. This usage of children as a bargaining chip and a weapon against the mother is also seen from Butler’s employment of Sarah. Sarah’s three sons were sold to pay for material things, leaving her with Carrie, who she protected and loved with her entire being. Tom Weylin uses
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
This rule applies not only to slavery, but also to sexism. In Kindred, Butler concentrates on the powerless position of women in society and continuously relies on unexpected rhetorical tools to approach the problem. On one hand, the story of Alice who was raped by her master Rufus employs pathos to give a very accurate description of her feelings, as well as experiences of Dana who was forced to convince the woman to sleep with Rufus after her body recovered from severe beatings. On the other hand, Butler uses logos to examine gender inequality in society. Despite decades of economic, social, political, and technological transformations, women are still perceived as inferior to men. They are often viewed as a tool to satisfy men’s ambitions and needs. Butler acknowledges this incongruity between human progress and human prejudice as illogical when describing Dana’s choice to return to Maryland after she had spent two months there, and witnessed the evils of slavery. The progressive and seemingly independent Dana feels she owes something to a cruel and narcissistic
Women who were enslaved during the slave period endured much suffrage. Not only were they the subject of chattel slavery, but some were also molested by their masters, for their own personal pleasure. In some cases, masters would pair “good breeders” together so their farm would benefit and they would have more slaves. This behavior would lead to force rape. The purpose of the book is to demonstrate how slavery crippled African American slaves from defending themselves due to oppression, particularly women. The trial of Celia, A Slave opens a gateway where people’s morals and actions were put into question after the death of her master. Themes such as gender oppression, chattel slavery, race, prejudice, revolt are some themes present in Celia,
As far as Julia Dickson, the information contained in Kent’s book presents the picture of a young girl and young woman who did not have the conventional life of a slave. Julia herself apparently explained that she worked making beds, sweeping, and tending to chores in the house and garden. She had other children after Amanda, a son by a slave and a daughter by a white man named “Doc Eubanks.”4 Julia was treated by the Dickson family doctor regularly for many years. David and Julia Dickson maintained an apparently intimate relationship. Slaves and whites both reported that the two had an intimate and affectionate
In Octavia Butler’s novel, Parable of the Sower, a common theme carried throughout the story is the differentiating people based on their race. In this story, society views white people as wealthier, safer, and the owners of colored people and are seen treating them horribly, where as people of color are poorer, more commonly used as slaves, not as trusted, and over all have it harder in Butler’s dystopian setting. Butler thinks this topic of racism is common, and society is more prejudice to black people rather then white. I can deduce this by the financial and social status she depicts white people to be versus people of color. After Lauren’s neighborhood is destroyed and has to flee with Zahra and Harry, Lauren pretends to be a boy so her and Zahra can pretend to be a couple rather than Zahra and Harry, which would be a mixed race couple. A couple of white and African-American did not mix because “…[he’ll] piss of all the blacks and [she’ll] piss off all the whites” (pg. 172). Butler does not let these two races mix
Alice and Kevin have an interesting start to their relationship. Initially, it appears that Dana is not interested in Kevin, as she tries to reject communication and his advances through buying her lunch. This distance on Dana’s part allows readers to contemplate whether Dana is put off by Kevin’s obtrusive attitude because he is a man, because he is white, or a combination of the two. As the novel advances, Butler continues to focus Kevin’s faults in his marriage because of his identity as a white man.
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 Author of this book (On our own terms: race, class, and gender in the lives of African American Women) Leith Mullings seeks to explore the modern and historical lives of African American women on the issues of race, class and gender. Mullings does this in a very analytical way using a collection of essays written and collected over a twenty five year period. The author’s systematic format best explains her point of view. The book explores issues such as family, work and health comparing and contrasting between white and black women as well as between men and women of both races.
Many plantation owners were men that wanted their plantation ran in a particular manner. They strove to have control over all aspects of their slaves’ lives. Stephanie Camp said, “Slave holders strove to create controlled and controlling landscapes that would determine the uses to which enslaved people put their bodies.” Mary Reynolds was not a house slave, but her master’s daughter had a sisterly love towards her, which made the master uncomfortable. After he sold Mary he had to buy her back for the health of his daughter. The two girls grew apart after the daughter had white siblings of her own. Mary wa...
Sexism is still a prevailing problem in the world today. Unfortunately, this contributes to other forms of discrimination. In the article, Black Girls Matter, the author, Kimberlé Crenshaw, brings this to light. Young girls of color are often ignored by national initiatives in regards to both racism and sexism combined. The author supports her criticism with the use of personal stories of young girls of color, namely, Salecia, Pleajhai, Mikia, and Tanisha along with numerical data as examples.
The antagonist, Sethe, is not keen to let her kids end up in such a miserable lifestyle that she lives. Defending that she would rather see them away from the wretchedness of Earth and instead dead in Heaven. Slavery is an exceedingly cruel and nasty way of life, and as many see it, living without freedom is not living. Slavery dishonored African Americans from being individuals and treated them just as well as animals: no respect and no proper care. For example, Sethe recalls the memory of her being nursed as baby by saying, "The little white babies got it first
In the middle of the night, four white men storm into a cabin in the woods while four others wait outside. The cabin belongs to Alice and her mom. The four men pull out Alice’s father along with her mom, both are naked. Alice manages to scramble away. The men question Alice’s father about a pass, which allows him to visit his wife. Her father tries to explain the men about the loss of the pass but the men do not pay any attention to him. Instead they tie him to a tree and one of the white man starts to whip him for visiting his wife without the permission of Tom Weylin, the “owner” of Alice’s father. Tom Weylin forbid him to see his wife, he ordered him to choose a new wife at the plantation, so he could own their children. Since Alice’s mother is a free woman, her babies would be free as well and would be save from slavery. But her freedom “status” does not stop one of the patroller to punch her in the face and cause her to collapse to the ground.
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.”
In this Alice Walker story, the reader meets a girl named Celie. In this novel, Walker takes the reader on a journey through much of Celie’s life. While taking the reader through this tale, Walker draws attention to a number of social aspects during this time period. Through Cilie’s life, Walker brings to light the abuse and mistreatment of African American women from 1910 through the 1940’s. “Women were also regarded as less important than men – both Black and white Black women double disadvantage.