“Kindred” by Octavia Butler -Analysis Essay

There are various connections that can be make in the midst of the characters in spite of appearance the novel Kindred written by Octavia Butler. The majority of these connections relate to quadruple of the course themes weve visited in olden few weeks double consciousness, collective trauma, diaspora, and power family relationships. The protagonist, Dana Franklin, traveled between the retiring(a) and present and in her travels she met a variety of antithetic people, including the enslaved African Americans and their White owners of the 19th century, as tumesce as her ancestors, oneness in stopicular is the cause of her time travel. Alice Greenwood and Rufus Weylin two had a peculiar relationship with Dana, as well(p) as with each other. The ties that Dana shared with Alice exemplified the themes of double consciousness and collective trauma, and the ties shared between Dana and Rufus demonstrated the themes of diaspora and power relationships.Alice and Dana had a sisterl y relationship, as some of the other characters had commented, Sarah in one case told Dana after Alices passing, You and her was like sisters You sure fought like sisters, always fussin at each other, stompin away from each other, comin back. Although a out blood line description, this is a very accurate summary of their relationship. Their double consciousness was first realized when Rufus had pointed out that they were both one and the same, this meaning that they were two halves of the same person. Not only did they look alike, save the line between their roles in the Weylin household were heavily blurred. Alice was the love interest of Rufus while she was alive, although her only use to him was to either sexually abuse her or use her as his personal punching bag. She had once told Dana that whenever shes around, the mental and corporal abuse isnt as bad as it regularly is. On the other hand, Dana has an immense gist of freedom in comparison to Alice, even to the other slave s. Due to the unspoken set of rules that Dana and Rufus share, he doesnt try to pursue some(prenominal) sexual relationship with her until the end of the book. As Dana had once said, I could accommodate him as my ancestor, unsalteder brother, friend, but not as my master, and not as my lover.Alice is openlyspiteful towards Dana because of this, but it is also obvious that the reason why she always comes back to Dana is because, like a sibling, she is used as an outlet for her pain, fear, and hate, and knowing that she could have done more to lesson Alices suffering, Dana allows puts her feelings aside and accepts the onslaught of abuse. Both of their relationships with Rufus also lead to their collective trauma as they are both abused by him, and, in different ways, he takes something from them that leave them un substantial. For Alice, he not only rips her freedom from out under her, but he also sells their children, which were the only reasons that she had stayed on the planta tion for so long. For Dana, he too took her freedom and the power that she once held over him had vanished completely, but its possible that he is also the reason that she there was a rook stump in the identify of her arm.The relationship that was shared between Dana and Rufus was the most complex relationship of them all. A list of unspoken rules shared between the two had been the foundation of their relationship, as they had both known that one could not live without the other, that if either one of them died, the other is just as good as rimy as well. Ever since Dana had first saved Rufus from drowning in the river, she had attempted to in unagitated some morals into the young boy in hopes that he wouldnt be as corrupt as his father or the other slave owners, as she knew that that was what he would soon become. Although, with each time that she returns to save the boys life, he grows older, and he becomes more mature as well as stubborn, not as advantageously goaded into do ing nice things for the slaves, like setting most of them free, or not selling any of them as his father does. Eventually, the reigns of power are no longer held by Dana, and the influence of the 19th century has at last rubbed off on Rufus for the worse. No longer small and feeble, Rufus has Dana sent to work in the fields, has her whipped, hits her multiple times, and in the end held the barrel of a rifle to her head, though the line is completely crossed when Rufus tries to have sex with Dana, which she responds to with the hold of a sharp blade in his side.Twice. The scale of power begins tipped towards Dana, then towards Rufus, then for another(prenominal) brief moment back to Dana. Their relationship is also, in a way, diasporic, as Dana is constantly out ofplace in the 19th century throughout the entire book. She brings back with her the knowledge of the future, though sparse, as well as new medicines, devices, and ideas, though because of her skin color she is seen as no more than either a smart nigger to the white folks and a white nigger to the blacks nothing more than a nigger. Even though she wasnt accepted by most of the other slaves and the whites who held power over her, Rufus, still needed her in many different ways and was very clingy at times, even as he gave his last long and shuddering sigh, he simply could not let go of Dana, both literally and physically, as his hand still grasped her arm in the afterlife.When Dana arrives from the past for the last time, she discovers -excruciatingly painfully- that her arm had somehow operate and conjoined with the wall of her living room. The exact spot where Rufus had held her in his final moments marked the deprivation of her arm, from the cubital joint to the ends of the fingers, It is unknown whether or not Danas arm is left in the past, still held between the cold fingers of the dead, as Rufus body was believed to be burned to ashes and never found, along with the Weylin estate. Danas graphi c physical vent shows what slavery truly is outside of popular novels, history books, and dramatized television where the actors practice the pain and suffering that their ancestors dealt with. The loss of her arm shows many different things, like how even though African Americans today have been take from slavery over time, who they are today was planted and rooted in the past. Also, slaves had constantly suffered from both frantic and physical abuse at the hands of their owners, yet they were extremely certified of their owners. Dana is subjected to horrific pain at the hand of Rufus, yet she still feels pity for him when he comes crawling back to her, as he is both her master and her kin-dred, so she alternates between despising him and feeling empathetic towards him. Lastly, Danas severed arm is a horrible loss, and it is meant to capture the horror of slavery. It is also significant that she suffers her injury because Rufus hangs on to her.Like Rufus holding onto Dana, the past has a hold on the present, the sacrifices of the past shape the present today. Dana loses an arm which is an important body part, oddly for a writer, although she escapes with her life. The slaves of the past had sacrificed skin, bone, and sanity, yeta lot of them escaped, albeit scarred. Danas horrific injury makes all of the sacrifices slaves made painfully real in order to make lives better for generations to come. Part of her lies in the past, and so does part of todays generation. In conclusion, the strange relationships that Dana had formed with her ancestors, Alice and Rufus, had in some ways, led to the loss of her arm. Her entire existence was dependent on the two of them having her great grandmother Hagar, and although Alice may have survived without Danas influence, Rufus was definitely dependent on Dana as well. Octavia Butler had wanted readers to take with them the reality of how we are still deeply rooted within slavery and it still has an affect on us today, ev en though it had ended over one hundred forty years ago. As Dana had witnessed first hand, slavery has never been a free occurrence, anyone who was apart of it in any way never came out of it as they once were before they never escaped slavery whole again, but as less of the person than they were before.