Critical Book Review: Kindred By Octavia Butler

637 Words2 Pages

Critical Book Review: Kindred Kindred is a novel by Octavia Butler and a powerful glimpse into the history of black slavery and an in-depth look at the connections between the past and present. The story begins as the main character, Dana, is drawn mysteriously back in time to save the life of a little red headed boy named Rufus. She becomes aware that the child is her ancestor and that she is brought back to the seventeen hundreds every time his life is endanger, in order to save her bloodline. As she spends increasingly more and more time in the seventeen hundreds, she is exposed to the brutalities, systems of oppression and racism that ruled society in that time period. Kindred is about generational history, and how it binds the past

Show More
Related

  • Kindred And The Parable Of The Sower Analysis

    1494 Words  | 3 Pages

    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...

    Read More

  • Rebellion Against Slavery in Fires of Jubilee by Stephen B. Oates

    1145 Words  | 3 Pages

    Fires of Jubilee is a book that talks about slavery and rebellion against it. The book is enjoyable but still very saddening because of the occurrences in the plot. Slavery is not something to be happy about. Humans treating other humans with no mercy, and making them work with no pay for extended hours. The killings made by the slaves are saddening, too.

    Read More

  • Miriam Toews' A Complicated Kindness

    825 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Miriam Toews novel A Complicated Kindness there are many references to pop culture. There are references to music, books and films. These all lead to the development of key ideas in the novel. East Village is supposed to be a town free form the influence of most media. The children are allowed to watch certain films but only the ones the church deems fit. Yet somehow the un-holy films find their way into the procession of kids in the town like Nomi. The films are used to develop key ideas by showing that not everybody is happy with a strong importance on religion, where Nomi gets some of her influence for wanting to move to New York and how the church uses the ban on films to remain in control. The church isn’t successful on banning media so the kids grow up knowing names like The Rolling Stones and James Taylor. These musicians, the books they read and the movies they watch all add to the mystery of the outside world and what life would be like outside of East Village.

    Read More

  • Emotion and Culture in Secret Life of Bees

    492 Words  | 1 Pages

    Although the main character in the book was white, the author, Sue Kidd, does a great job of depicting the African American culture during the time. Whether it was Rosaleen getting beat up in jail, or Zach dreaming of being a lawyer, this book showed you what it was like being a minority during a time when rights where still being fought for. One of the smaller conflicts in the story was a man verses man conflict, when Lily and Zach started to like each other. Though they knew that a colored man, and a white girl could never be together, they both were attracted to each other. Were they not from different cultures, people would have been fine with them dating, but because Zach was black, it couldn?t work out.

    Read More

  • Importance Of Slavery In Kindred

    1213 Words  | 3 Pages

    Octavia Butler’s, Kindred, addresses slavery in a contemporary, yet historical setting. In traditional slave narratives, the time period is set to nearly a hundred years back, but in this book, through her usage of time-travel to merge the present with the past, she allows the audience to have a closer connection to both the characters and the content. This happens because readers go through the journey with the main character, Dana, in a relatable fashion.

    Read More

  • Relationship In Kindred

    888 Words  | 2 Pages

    The relationship between slave and master. One of the the most complicated, unspoken of relationships in history. The book Kindred by Octavia E. Butler tells a compelling story of the relationship between a white man and an african american woman during slavery in the 1800’s. The tale starts with a woman, Dana, who travels back in time to 1800’s where she meets Rufus a young white boy. Throughout the story Dana learns about slavery through her experiences with Rufus and he eventually teaches her to truly understand the relationship between master and slave.

    Read More

  • Kindred by Octavia Butler

    1391 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Beside Oneself By Judith Butler

    955 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the featured article, “Beside Oneself: On the Limits of Sexual Autonomy,” the author, Judith Butler, writes about her views on what it means to be considered human in society. Butler describes to us the importance of connecting with others helps us obtain the faculties to feel, and become intimate through our will to become vulnerable. Butler contends that with the power of vulnerability, the rolls pertaining to humanity, grief, and violence, are what allows us to be acknowledged as worthy.

    Read More

  • Similarities Between Dana And Marty In Kindred

    826 Words  | 2 Pages

    Kindred is a novel about a woman named Dana who teleports from the present year 1976 to the past whenever her ancestor Rufus needs help. Back to the Future is a movie about a teenage boy named Marty who travels to 1955 accidently. Dana & Marty have a few similarities in their lives. They both have to adapt to the society they time travel to, make their ancestors stay together, and both have to face a challenge before the return to their present time.

    Read More

  • Summary Of Deadly By Julie Chibbaro

    1171 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the book Deadly by Julie Chibbaro there were many themes that were analyzed and illustrated throughout the book. There were only three that catches the eye love can be blind, death can hurt and oppression of women. These themes stood out the most because this book take place in somewhere in the 1900’s because in that era there were many disease taking place in New York. Such as the typhoid, Yellow fever, small pox and other contagious diseases that cause many deaths and also when the Germ theory was just a theory not a law. This book mainly talks about Prudence, Mr. Sopher, and Marm especially but there are others such as Dr. bakers, Jonathan this book talks about how typhoid was carried by an Irish Woman named Mary Mallon and the disease

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Reading To Write By Stephen King

    925 Words  | 2 Pages

    Many people think that reading more can help them to think and develop before writing something. Others might think that they don’t need to read and or write that it can really help them to brainstorm things a lot quicker and to develop their own ideas immediately (right away). The author’s purpose of Stephen King’s essay, Reading to Write, is to understand the concepts, strategies and understandings of how to always read first and then start something. The importance of this essay is to understand and comprehend our reading and writing skills by brainstorming our ideas and thoughts a lot quicker. In other words, we must always try to read first before we can brainstorm some ideas and to think before we write something. There are many reasons why I chose Stephen King’s essay, Reading to Write, by many ways that reading can help you to comprehend, writing, can help you to evaluate and summarize things after reading a passage, if you read, it can help you to write things better and as you read, it can help you to think and evaluate of what to write about.

    Read More

  • The Oppressed And The Oppressors In Octavia Butler's Kindred

    2364 Words  | 5 Pages

    The history of slavery in America is one that has reminders of the institution and its oppressive state of African Americans in modern times. The slaveholders and the slaves were intertwined in a cruel system of oppression that did not yield to either side. The white slaveholders along with their black slaves became codependent amongst each other due to societal pressures and the consequences that would follow if slaves were emancipated with race relations at a high level of danger. This codependency between the oppressed and the oppressor has survived throughout time and is prevalent in many racial relationships. The relationship between the oppressed and the oppressor can clearly be seen in Octavia Butler’s novel Kindred. In this novel, the protagonist Dana Franklin, a black woman, time travels between her present day 1977 and the antebellum era of 19th century Maryland. Throughout her journeys back to the past, Dana comes in contact with her white ancestor, Rufus Weylin, a white slave owner and Dana ultimately saves his life and intermingles with the people of the time. Butler’s story of Dana and her relationship with Rufus and other whites as she travels between the past and the present reveals how slaveholders and slaves depended on and influenced one other throughout the slaves bondage. Ultimately, the institution of slavery reveals how the oppressed and the oppressor are co-dependent; they need each other in order to survive.

    Read More

  • Octavia Butler's Parable Of The Sower

    1100 Words  | 3 Pages

    Dystopias are full of dissatisfying issues and often unsettling worlds. Parable of the Sower, being a classic dystopian novel, is no different. Throughout the book, readers are engaged into a world where death is normalized and atrocity is average. The main character, Lauren’s connection to this world allows her to develop personally and spiritually. Lauren uses both connections to other people as well as connections between other people to express her feelings about the world around her. In Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower, Lauren’s interest and connection to the female astronaut influences her religion, Earthseed, and uses the astronaut to mimic and express her dissatisfaction with the world she lives in.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The Dozens By Rachel Wiley

    1062 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the month of March 2016, Women of the World Poetry Slam had Rachel Wiley, a poet and body-positive activist, present her now viral poem called “The Dozens” (Vagianos 2016). This poem was about slams white feminism as a clear indication of whiteness self-defense mechanism. In this poem Wiley included various kinds social events that have occurred in the past years and just to name two: Raven Symone on blackness and Miley Cyrus and Nicki Manji at the VMAs. White feminism continues to become more problematic as the media continues to allow it to be because whiteness makes money; however, intersectionality about race, public imagery, and actual feminism also continues to go viral as the diversity of American become more and more productive.

    Read More

  • Celie's Struggle for Freedom in The Color Purple

    1416 Words  | 3 Pages

    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).

    Read More

More about Critical Book Review: Kindred By Octavia Butler

Open Document