Butler (1979) showed in her novel Kindred, that the times are getting harder to live in for Dana, the main character. The world itself can be a dark and scary place, but Dana feels this, “It was a bad night, I didn’t get much sleep. Nor was I to get much for six days and nights following (Butler, 1979, p. 207). Using this statement, the night time makes the situation harder to deal with and makes everyone fear the unknown. Why does the world feel so dark and numb to Dana? Since she goes back in 1976, the world believes that slavery is something that is okay to follow through with performing. The main character Dana is new to this adjustment and she feels like this is the end of the world, that nothing is going to get better from here. As life
Her since of safety and security, but most importantly her freedom. Dana’s knowledge of slavery was from books she read and things she has seen on the television, she has not had a personal experience. When she first when into 1976, it hit her how bad that the African Americans have life. This relates to how Sharon an African American women felt about slavery, which is “I had no concrete idea, until that very moment in the parking lot, what anguish she and other members of my family had suffered as slaves (Morgan and DeWolf, 2015, pg. 3). This statement compares to the feeling Dana has when she keeps going back into the past and getting treated like a slave. After Rufus father died, he treated Dana like she caused it so he sent her to work on the fields where she got whipped for not performing well (Butler, 1979, p. 21). Butler believes that if Dana fully understands how her ancestors are treated that she will do more to preserve
In this setting, the African Americans must struggle to get by in the world and to take care of their families. When Dana gets forced there she struggles to fit in because she is uses to living freely. The hardest time for her is when Kevin, her white husband, came back into this segregated world with her and this is not appropriate for them to be married. The reason this is the case is because in 1976 do not believe white and black are on the same levels, that blacks are lesser. Even in today’s time many couples still must face the same conflict. In an article, I read a man who has ancestors whose slave traders and a woman whose ancestors were slaves are struggling to understand each other’s point of view (Morgan and DeWolf, 2015). This shows that there is always going to be fear with racial segregation to a certain extent in all times.
Another major idea I think Butler tried to get the readers to focus on is that she wants Dana to try to adapt to her settings. In previous chapters, Dana started to slowly fit in and she felt like she would never go home even though she hoped to. Also, when her husband went back with her the first time they were just playing as if they lived in those roles. Even when they go back to what they use to be able to call home, Dana feels as if she is losing her place in her own time because the deep connections
...ism and segregation, it is what will keep any society form reaching is maximum potential. But fear was not evident in those who challenged the issue, Betty Jo, Street, Jerry, and Miss Carrie. They challenged the issue in different ways, whether it was by just simply living or it was a calculated attempt to change the perspective of a individual. McLurin illustrated the views of the reality that was segregation in the South, in the town of Wade, and how it was a sort of status quo for the town. The memories of his childhood and young adulthood, the people he encountered, those individuals each held a key in how they impacted the thoughts that the young McLurin had about this issue, and maybe helping unlock a way to challenge the issue and make the future generation aware of the dark stain on society, allowing for more growth and maximum potential in the coming years.
How far would someone go to survive? All through life people go through various challenges, but when someone is facing death, how far would someone will they go to save oneself? Survival can mean many different things; such as making it through highschool without getting into trouble, fighting off a predator, or standing up for what is right to help others. In Kindred, Octavia Butler uses many different situations to show what survival means to her. For example, Dana, the main character, travels through time to save her ancestor Rufus thus experiencing times of near death predicaments. In Kindred, Octavia Butler uses the conflicts Dana experiences in her time travels to suggest the idea that people do things they wouldn’t normally
It leaves the readers in an awe of silence as they deliberate and take in the powerful message of Kindred. Octavia Butler extablishes the site of trauma as adaptation and the cause as the inhumane act of slavery. Butler led her audience to question the equality not only of the past, but also the present. Developing and critically thinking about the world around us is the message that Butler wanted to convey. Are black people really free? Have blacks gained all the right that are reserved to them by constitutional law? Those answers are to be decided by each individual, but in the words of Jesse Williams, “the burdened of the brutalized is not to comfort the bystander. If you have no interest in the equal rights for black people, then do not make suggestions for those who do. Sit down.”
In D. W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation the interactions between black and white characters represent Griffith’s view of an appropriate racial construct in America. His ideological construction is white dominance and black subordination. Characters, such as the southern Cameron’s and their house maid, who interact within these boundaries, are portrayed as decent people. Whereas characters who cross the line of racial oppression; such as Austin Stoneman, Gus and Silas Lynch, are portrayed as bad. Both Lynch and Lydia Brown, the mulatto characters, are cast in a very negative light because they confuse the ideological construct the most. The mixing of races puts blacks and whites on a common ground, which, in Griffith’s view, is a big step in the wrong direction. Griffith portrays how the relationship between blacks and whites can be good only if the color line and positions of dominance and subordination are maintained. Through the mulatto characters he illustrates the danger that blurring the color line poses to American society.
...courage to survive in the world. On the other hand, her portrayal of marriage and the black family appears to be negative. Marriage is seen as a convenient thing—as something that is expected, but not worth having when times get rough. At least this is what Lutie’s and Jim’s marriage became. The moral attributes that go along with marriage do not seem to be prevalent. As a result, because marriage and the black family are seen as the core of the black community, blacks become more divided and begin to work against themselves—reinforcing among themselves the white male supremacy. Instead of being oppressed by another race or community, blacks oppress themselves. Petry critiques these issues in the black community and makes them more applicable to our lives today. These issues still exist, but we fail to realize them because of our advancement in society today.
The slave mentality is a reoccurring theme throughout this text. I find that Alexander may not even realize that she has done so but the brief explanation in the beginning about why the Blacks were the most ideal candidates for slavery actually helps the reader explain the Black exploitation that is illustrated throughout the rest of the book. Alexander goes from discussing slavery, post slavery, Jim Crow, lack of economic gain, the War on Drugs, labeling, blaxploitation in the modern day, the successful celebrity outliers (Oprah and Barack Obama), and the silence we have seen amongst the once vocal civil rights activists. I realized...
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.
While travelling to and from the south, Kevin often tries to understand and empathize with Dana. In the book Scenes of Subjection, written by Saidiya Hartman, she writes, “yet empathy in important respects confounds Rankins’ efforts to identify with the enslaved because in making the slave’s suffering his own, Rankin begins to feel for himself…” (19). Rankins is s white man whom appears to be in a similar situation as Kevin. While understanding and trying to feel what slaves feel, he goes beyond and starts feeling sorry for himself. I believe Kevin discovers he has the same problem: he tries to empathize with Dana and as a result feels sorry for himself. Time travel brings the situation to light by allowing Dana to be subjected to the role of a slave. Despite Kevin unconsciously empathizing with himself, he never stops his worry for Dana. Upon Dana’s return to modern days, Kevin tells her, “‘But in all my travelling, do you know the only time I ever felt relieved and eager to be going to a place?’... ‘it was when you went back to Maryland, when you visited the weylins to see whether I was there.’” (192). Kevin constantly worries about Dana even though he was stuck in a time where whites treat blacks as though they are objects. He always shows his love for Dana, which for the time he was in is extraordinary. While the antebellum south changes their views on life, it rarely changes their views of each
The segregation in South Carolina happens everywhere and every day. Indeed, racism is manifested through the media, the law, which legitimizes segregation, and the perceptions that white and black people have of each other. Because of the laws against colored people, Rosaleen, as a black woman, lives with constraints in her life. For example, she cannot live in a house with white people (Kidd, p.8), she cannot represent Lily at the charm school (Kidd, p.19), or even to travel with a car with white people (Kidd, p.76). The media is also influenced by racism, and constantly shows news about segregation such as the case of Martin Luther King, who is arrested because he wan...
blockages in the relationships of the characters‘ family ties and their racial issues. The actual
Her race wants him to win and overcome the pain and sufferance they had till then. The description of the men staying away from the walls, and the women clenching onto their babies, showed fear. No one could breathe, or blink as it was the moment of suspense which could go in either way was a turning point where black people felt it was all over.
when she returns to 1976, the scars of slavery are still present. The consequences of slavery are still prevalent in our society today, what with the continuing battle for civil rights and for affirmative action. It seems that much like Dana, we cannot escape the results of slavery without making a huge sacrifice.
Throughout the book, I’ve also learned about many racist things. It was painful to read about the hateful treatment of Blacks during that time and the effect that it had on Black children. When Maya had a bad tooth and her grandmother took her to a white dentist in town. The white dentist refused to help Maya because, as he stated, "I would rather put my hand in the mouth of a dog than to put it into a nigger's mouth." This incident serves only as an example of the many ways that Blacks were cruelly mistreated in those days.
Baldwin’s writing technique is simultaneously created by the thought of his two different worlds – reality and fiction. By converting his reality of life and present issues in America and translating it into a story, he introduces abroad point of view to the audience. In both of these short stories, he introduces two different stories with several different characters who both inhabit a common realistic theme, oppression, which serves as a major important role in all of their lives. Jesse was oppressed by his sexual identity, while Sonny’s brother was oppressed by the responsibility of taking care of his younger brother. It is even possible to claim that the antagonists’ of the story are oppressed as well. It could be claimed that Jesse’s wife was also an oppressed character. Though the story doesn’t reveal much about Jesse’s wife, it could be assumed that she suffered from oppression because Jesse could not please her sexually. She could be suffering from mental pressure or distress, a solid form of oppression, because she may feel she is the reason as to why Jesse cannot sexually perform correctly. The many thoughts that could run through a woman’s mind when her partner can no longer make love to her is free to roam throughout the story since Baldwin left her character unrevealed. It could also be claimed that Sonny was
Some of the inspiration for Dana came from Jones desire to know her sisters from her father’s previous marriage stating in an interview: “I 've always felt that I had a sister just outside my grasp,” (Norris). In the world Jones has created for Dana she is well aware of the other family, the privilege they receive from being the legitimate family. Dana is not only denied a relationship with her father and sister but educational opportunities because the possibility that Chaurisse may attend the same event. Hiding in the shadows of her sister Chaurisse, Dana longs to know her sister, to have a relationship with her father and to be acknowledged as his child. At the outset of the novel Jones clearly lays out the conditions of life for Dana when in a conversation with her father, he states: “What happens in my life, in my world, doesn’t have anything to do with you…Dana, you are the one that’s a secret”. (p. 8-9) The absence of a loving father figure in Dana’s life drives her desire to be acknowledged by men. Jones portrays this acceptance of her role in life through a series of boyfriends finally settling on one, who much like her father, wants to keep their relationship a secret. Dana’s relationship with her mother is much more like that of sisters than a mother daughter relationship, each woman feels abandoned by their father turning to each other in times of need. The sisterly