Who Is The Protagonist In The Book Kindred

The slaves in the novel seemed to adapt much better to their own slavery than the modern blacks such as Dana did. Slavery was the only life many of the blacks had ever known so it was much easier for them to accept their future than it was for Dana to accept her sudden loss of rights. For Dana to come from a world where the possibilities of African American?s futures were so broad to suddenly lose all of her rights and be viewed as property was almost enough to cause Dana a mental breakdown. Although the slaves did not want theirs lives the way they were, they had somewhat grown accustomed to the idea of slavery and accepted it as their future. It is much easier not

The novel under the title Kindred is a magnificent literary piece created by renowned African-American fantasy writer and novelist of contemporary times Octavia Butler. This superb piece encompasses the most burning issues and problems faced by the African-American community. The novel throws light on the pathetic condition of the black slaves and vehemently condemns domestic violence and slavery inflicted and imposed upon the black stratum of the American society. The novel also discusses atrocities and hatred exercised upon the African Americans on the basis of racial and ethnic discrimination prevailing in the society. Butler points out the communication gap between spouses and family members, which adds to the misery of the black

Rufus Weylin; a character first perceived as a young, curious and innocent boy, turns in to an over-obsessive and miserable tyrant. In Octavia Butler 's novel _Kindred_, the book revolves around the horrors of slavery in the United States in the early eighteen hundreds. White characters are given absolute power and control over black characters, and treat them like animals, making them live a long life of misery and unhappiness. As _Kindred_ unfolds, it becomes clear that Rufus turns in to a stereotypical slave owner and abuser. With every trip that Dana makes back to Rufus, there is a clear distinction of changes in his personality. He becomes more evil, over-obsessive and cruel as he gets older. In fact, he becomes very much like his

Neer the very beginning of the novel Dana is experiencing her second return to the past and is greeting her relatives when the father of Alice, her great great… grandmother, is being dragged away because he is presumed to be a runaway slave of the slave master, Tom Weylin. After that mess with Alice’s father clears, the patroller questions Dana as to who she is. When she can’t answer, the patroller drags her out of the home, and she tries to escape with no success. “The man tackled me and brought me down hard. At first, I lay stunned, unable to move or defend myself even when he began hitting me, punching me with his fists. I had never been beaten that way before - would never have thought that I could absorb so much punishment without losing consciousness.” After she is brutally beaten for a while, she scrambles and musters up the strength to bring a limb down onto the man’s head and runs fast and far away from the unconscious man who almost killed her. Although Dana’s tenacity might have come as a surprise to the readers, Butler also does a fabulous job of revealing how Dana is even surprised by her capability and how she can survive through her power as well as her

Furthermore, a theme in this novel that recurs is the theme of power. In this novel power is seen when Dana gets transported back in time to Maryland in the 1800’s because in that time it was a white patriarchal society. Which means that white men had all of the power in society and could do as they please. As well as own slaves because slavery was accepted within that time period. At one point Dana states in her inner monologue “Someday Rufus would own the plantation. Someday, he would be the slaveholder, responsible in his own right for what happened to the people who lived in those half-hidden cabins. The boy was literally growing up as I watched—growing up because I watched and because I helped to keep him safe. I was the worst

Lastly, violence in Kindred was used to show how the treatment of slaves was used to dehumanize and put down blacks. In a society where a slave owner had absolute power over its “property”, the importance of a slave’s life was greatly disregarded. Butler used this notion and violence to show how in the eyes of whites, slaves were subhuman. Thusly, they had no rights, and received extremely unlucky treatment. When traveling to the 1800’s as a black women, Dana stated that in that time “there was no shame in raping a black woman,

Have you ever been told that you and a friend are practically the same person? Something similar to this happens to Dana and Alice in Octavia Butler’s novel, Kindred. In Butler’s novel, Dana is a young black woman living in 1976. Next thing she knows, she time travels back to the antebellum South. Dana is given the task of saving her several times great grandfather, Rufus Weylin, from multiple life threatening situations. Along the way she meets her several times great grandmother, Alice, who is a young free black woman. In her novel, Kindred, Octavia Butler compares and contrasts Dana and Alice to show the theme that people will do anything in order to survive. Both Dana and Alice have to become slaves on a plantation, run away for a life of freedom, and tolerate the treatment of Rufus.

In the novel Kindred, by Octavia Butler, the main character Dana is exposed to the brutality and exhausting existence inflicted on slaves in the 1800’s. Through intentionally suppressive measures, slave owners used a series of methods to control and manipulate an entire race of people into submission. Dana describes this process as dulling and her experiences haunt her as she is slowly broken down. “See how easily slave are made?” (Butler 177) her thoughts say; this is Butler attempting to illustrate how it was nearly impossible for the enslaved people to change their situation and fight for freedom. Contemporary people didn’t understand why the slaves didn’t rise up and revolt against the whites, so Butler puts Dana through conditions that eventually show her and the audience it wasn’t that easy. The slaves were too tired to revolt, too broken to fight back, and too connected to each other to leave; thus giving the repulsive entitled whites the ability to continue their disgraceful contempt for human decency. By means of labor and sensational punishment, family ties, surveillance that included slave hierarchy; dreams of revolutions and freedom were overpowered and even Dana becomes complacent accepting the role of slave.

First published in 1979, Octavia E. Butler’s Kindred is a unique novel, which can be categorized both as a modern-day slave narrative, and as a science fiction time-travel tale. In the novel, Butler uses time-travel as a way to convey W.E.B. Du Bois’ theory of double-consciousness. Dubois’ theory is based on the idea that people of color have two identities, both struggling to reconcile in one being. His theory about the complex nature of the African-American experience directly relates to Butler’s use of Kindred’s protagonist, Dana, and her experience time travelling as a modern-day African-American woman, and her experience of a pre-abolition, nineteenth-century slave.

The main characters of Dana (the time traveler), Kevin (her husband), Rufus (the ancestor), and Alice (his slave) each encounter a shift in obligations throughout the timeline of the novel. The encompassing sense of obligations experienced by characters

Authors of fiction often write about the human condition as a way to connect with a broad range of readers. Unlike factual textbooks, fiction gives characters feeling and emotion, allowing us to see the story behind the basic details. In many cases, readers gain a new perspective on a period of time by examining a fiction novel. In Kindred, by Octavia Butler, the near death experiences of Rufus Weylin transports a 20th century African American woman named Dana to the ante bellum South to experience exactly what it’s like to be a slave. Through her day-to-day life on the Weylin plantation, the reader begins to understand just how complex slavery is and how it affects both the slaves and the plantation owners; thus, giving new

Secondly, there is another theme that was seen in the novel and that theme is social norms. In this novel there was a parallel plot, which mean that the writer intertwines two or more plots that are commonly connected by characters or certain themes. Within this novel the parallel plot is the time 1976 and 1800’s. When looking at the parallel plot, there is a theme between the two time periods that is social norms. When Dana travels back in time the social norm is that interracial couples are illegal, a slave owner can have children with the slaves and slaves shouldn’t be educated.

“Better to die fighting for freedom then be a prisoner all the days of your life” (Bob Marley). It all begins with Dana Franklin and everything she has to do in order to both save her ancestry as well as keep love and freedom in her life. It is 1976 in Maryland and Dana Franklin is a black woman married to a white man named Kevin Franklin. One day after moving houses, Dana begins to feel dizzy and faints. When she wakes, she realizes she is no longer in 1976 and must save a boy, Rufus Weylin, from himself everytime she is sent there. Dana is constantly sent back to 1815, a time where people with her skin color resort to lives of fear and taking orders, but all Dana truly wants is to have love and freedom. In Kindred, Octavia Butler

Correspondingly, this became a problem for everyone in Rufus’s life as in Douglass’s life as a former slave as well. Rufus’s actions were the main cause of hardships that even people he cared about had been hurt or dead. Dana had tried to prevent this from happening, but Rufus had failed to conform given being raised in his time period. Equally important, it is genially accepted that race and slavery changed history which has lead to a divided nation that remains affected today.

The novel Kindred by Octavia Butler, presents history in a way that shows whose history was remembered, reimagined, and sadly forgotten. Dana who lives in Southern California in the late 1900s learns about the sad truths of history firsthand. Dana has the ability, which seems like a curse, to time-travel to the 1800s. This is where she is unknowingly introduced to her ancestors. Being a freed African American women Dana is frightened each time she is taken back to 1800s Maryland. As she puts the pieces together, she begins learning the quieted side of her family’s history.. Dana observes the alternate versions when she time- travels. Dana already lives a life that people look differently upon because she is married to a white man, Kevin. While