The destructive love of a boy.

Throughout Kindred, Rufus was a difficult character to interpret. I constantly have different feelings for him. At times, I feel sorry for him because he is lonely; at other times he just seems psychotic. Butler illustrates him as a character who can never be independent because he is always dependent on someone else no matter how much older he gets. He seems like a boy who is super-glued to his mother. This sort of behavior in Rufus' case is a form of love, but it's an obsessive love that leads to his own destruction.

As a young boy, his attachment to Dana seemed natural. Dana was a caregiver and a motherly figure to the 12 year old Rufus. Rufus looked to her for understanding because his own mother treated him like a baby and never took the time to talk him about his troubles or feelings. Margaret is there at his bedside when his leg is broken, "The accusing stare vanished...'My poor baby,'...cradling his head in her hands (Butler 69). When Rufus breaks his leg, he turns to Dana for comfort instead of Margaret, his mother. "Did you ever break your leg?...'my wrist once'..."I'm scared"...'the worst will be over" (Butler 70). Through Rufus' eyes his mother is someone who will only say sweet, empty words, that mean well, but can't rid his rid his fear of the pain to come for healing the leg. Dana on the other hand, does not say sweet words like "it's going to be okay baby." Instead she gives a straight answer to Rufus' question of what's coming for by not hiding behind the bush. This attachment that Rufus has towards Dana also rids the fear of being lonely. By being the individual that gives him realistic answers to his troubles makes her the character that he's more dependent on. Dana rids his fear of being alone and intensifies the motherly love he has for her.

Alice is a vivid description of Rufus' destructive love. "I want Alice...I can't ever have both wanting and loving. But I'm not going to give up what I can have...I'll have her whether you help or not"(Butler 164). His expression of wanting her and not giving up to have her makes it seem that he loves her, but not sane love, more like an obsessive love towards Alice. To me it seems that the obsessive love Rufus has for Alice can lead to disastrous actions with tragic results. He goes so far to express his way of love for Alice by raping her because she won't love him the same way he loves her. As a result, Alice hates him till her tragic end. His fear of not receiving Alice's love makes him paranoid into believing that she will runaway and make Rufus spend the rest of his life in loneliness. This fear ignites Rufus to make irrational decisions and take control of Alice's fate. Rufus sends Alice's children away because he fears that she will leave. If that happens, then Rufus will end up being a broken man. Making Alice suffer by Rufus' obsessive love at the cost of sending away her children, resulted in Alice commiting suicide. Now, Rufus is alone and can't share his destructive love with anyone. Alice is the character to which Rufus depends on to share intimate love with and to rid the fear of solitude. Since Alice is dead, Rufus searches in desperation for someone to take her place in order to be the shelter for his infatuated love.

Rufus wanted Dana to take the place of Alice,"Being sorry and lonely and wanting me to take the place of the dead" (Butler 259). He believed that Alice and Dana were one person. Rufus saw this similarity through their physical appearances, and even somehow through their personalities. Although Alice always behaved bitterly towards him and Dana behaved more kindly, he still saw them as one person. "You're so much like her, I can hardly stand it....You and her. One woman. Two halves of a whole (Butler 257). At this point he demonstrates a more psychotic behavior. Dana was once the woman who he saw as his mother, and now all of a sudden he wants her to replace Alice. This is happening because he wants Dana to be the shelter for his destructive love. It is ironic that Rufus wants Dana to take Alice' place as the mother of his children and his lover, Rufus states, "If I ever caught myself wanting you like the way I want her, I'd cut my throat" (Butler 164). It seems as if Rufus is lying to himself by his own statements and the relationship that he has with Dana and making it into something bizarre so that his heart doesn't feel so lonely. By twisting up the relationship that is already established between Dana and Rufus, since he was a boy, makes his natural love for Dana as boy into a destructive love by replacing the motherly love with Dana into an intimate love. His psychotic love for Dana is illustrated by stating, "They should be your children now...If you had any feelings for them you would stay(Butler 256). Rufus expresses how desperately he wants Dana to stay and never leave him. He goes even further by stating how he would love her, "I wouldn't hurt you and you would not have to hurt yourself..." (Butler 257). His behavior has completely changed towards Dana, into a more obsessive love-like behavior into manipulating her to stay with him. He confesses why he needs Dana in the form of questioning himself, "So, what else do I have to lose?" (Butler 259). Throughout Kindred he constantly tries to convince Dana to stay. When Dana had a map of the northern states to where Kevin was, Rufus just told her she was at home and she didn't have to go anywhere. He does it again when Kevin comes from the North to get Dana, but Rufus stops them and shows the heavy dependency he has on Dana by stating, " You're not leaving!...Damn you, you're not leaving me!"(Butler 187).

He realizes after losing his father, Tom Weilyn, Alice, and now he's going to lose Dana that he has never been so lonesome in his life. This grief is dominating his mind and his idea of love which makes it destructive towards Dana. "But he was afraid of dying alone, afraid of being deserted by the one person he depended on for so long" (Butler 257). This sort of desperation, that Rufus is going through, of searching for a shield or shelter is like a boy lost in the woods looking for his mother. As if, the boy is unprotected and horrified of facing the world's troubles on his own. His love became destructive due to the risky actions or behavior he would take in order to keep Alice and Dana, whom he loved dearly, with him. He didn't even consider the consequences that he would have to suffer,or the consequences that Alice and Dana had to suffer. Rufus ended up suffering grief, Alice suffered death, and Dana suffered by killing Rufus due to his destructive love and losing her left arm. This grief of losing the people Rufus tried to love makes Dana his last hope. By not letting go of her arm even to the point of agonizing pain of being stabbed by Dana, makes him appear as if he's a boy clutching his mother's hand out fear that her hand might slip and he will be left alone in the world. "And now the boy is dead, we have some chance of staying that way" (Butler 264).

In rememberance

I begin my blog with a personal testimony from a few years ago. I was probably around 11 or 12. My older sister, 12 years my eldest, brought a new boyfriend around to meet my family. His name was Garrett, he was a rugby player, and he was African American. The factor of race in whom their children date has never been problematic to my parents; one obstacle overcome. The visit was going smoothly, until my brother (7 or 8 at the time) implores if Garrett is a slave.

My younger sister and I scrambled to quickly mend the situation by scolding Darrin while pinching him viciously and kicking him swiftly under the table. However, Garrett was very polite and understanding in his response; he told Darrin how slavery was abolished long ago and how his ancestors were once slaves. Thus following, my older sister has become much more wary of bringing boyfriends home, in order to avoid more potential misunderstandings (or in my brother's case here, total lack of understanding).

The purpose of my little stroll down memory lane is this: the abolition of slavery and equal rights is still a fairly recent issue. These are not completely old wounds nor are they mild. Slavery was an absolute disgrace not only to American history but the history of the world. My family's embarrassment over my brother's comment stems from this fact. The world is not color blind still to this day.

Octavia Butler's Kindred centralizes on the issue of slavery. At the end of class, we are asked to consider: Why does Butler write about slavery? Why doesn't she create a white character who goes to a plantation to save her ancestor? Why doesn't she place her character in California of 1815? Butler's character of Dana is a direct parallel of herself. Both women are African American writers from California. By embarking Dana upon a perilous journey through space and time, Butler is placing herself in 1815 on a Maryland plantation. Butler as the writer and Dana as the character are experiencing simultaneously the atrocities of slavery first hand. Kindred is written in order to show us how slavery still to this day is relevant in life. By placing Dana and herself in this situation, Butler gives the reader a peephole into the severity of these encounters. Though it is a terrible account of American history, slavery must be remembered so that it is not repeated.

We discussed in class how often slave texts are read, some so much so, that the concept of this struggle is often lost or not considered enough. Just as The Things They Carried's depiction of war is written in hopes of preventing destruction, Kindred is written with the desire that our generation will learn from the mistakes and the ignorance of Americans centuries ago. We can't take for granted the seriousness behind the history.