A People's Past in the Novel Kindred

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Recommended: Research essay focusing on Octavia Butler's Kindred

Kindred

In Octavia Butler’s novel "Kindred," A young African-American woman writer named Dana who is married to a white man named Kevin whom is also a writer. Dana is pulled back into time during the 19th century. Dana comes face to face with many obstacles and is forced to deal with her "people’s past" (Harris) until she returns to her present day life in California. Throughout the book; Dana continues to save Rufus, her ancestor, and slowly begins to accept slavery in order to survive.

Dana is pulled back into the past whenever Rufus is faced with a life or death situation. On her first trip back into time, Dana finds Rufus drowning in a river. She pulls him out safely and begins to give him mouth to mouth resuscitation. Rufus’ mother, who saw the whole thing, begins hitting Dana while screaming, “You killed my baby!” (Butler 14). A few moments later Dana comes to face her first racial encounter with Tom Weylin. She turns to face the end of a long barrel of a shotgun. Almost immediately Dana becomes dizzy and passes out to wake up in her and Kevin’s home in California.

On Dana’s second trip back to the Weylin plantation, she finds Rufus holding a piece of wood on fire. The draperies on the window were burning. Dana manages to put out the fire by throwing the drapes out of the window. Once the two begin talking, Rufus tells Dana that she is supposed to her him ‘Master’. This starts to make Dana laugh

because she is not going to call a little boy master. Rufus replies to her with, “You’re supposed to. You want me to call you black” (Butler 30). During this time it was natural for whites to refer to blacks as niggers openly. Dana did not approve of Rufus using that word around her. Dana eventually has to leave the house in ...

... middle of paper ...

...back for good to Kevin and 1976. However; she left a piece of herself behind, emotionally and physically. She experienced first hand what it was like to live as a slave. She lost her arm on her way back home because Rufus was holding in it her arm when she vanished, forcing her to leave the arm behind with Rufus.

Works Cited

Butler, Octavia E. Kindred. Boston: Beacon Press, 1988.

Govan, Sandra Y. “Homage To Tradition: Octavia Butler Renovates The Historical Novel.” MELUS. 13. (1986): 79-96.

Harris, Edward. “Octavia Butler’s ‘Kindred’: What Would You Do?” Epinoins. 10 Oct. 2008. .

Steinberg, Marc. “Inverting History in Octavia Butler’s Postmodern Slave Narrative.” African American Review. 38.3. (2004): 467-476.

Yaszek, Lisa. “A Grim Fantasy: Remaking American History in Octavia Butler’s Kindred.” Signs: Journal Of Women In Culture And Society. 28.4. (2003).

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