All of us know that slavery happened. We can all agree that it is wrong to consider an entire race of people as inferior just because of the color of their skin; that it is wrong to consider people as property and treat them like animals or worse. We might even know the intricate details about how many slaves there were, how many plantations there were, details about what they had to go through. But is this facing the truth about slavery? What does it mean to face the truth about slavery?
Most people are ashamed that this happened in our country not so very long ago and would swear that if they had been there, they would not have stood for it. They would have helped free the slaves and would have condemned all those who accepted it as pure evil. This is easy for people to say because it is in the past. We did not have to live through it. Kindred shows us that it is not as simple as we think it is.
As we have learned in this class, the details about what happened does not communicate the whole truth. The truth is in the emotion. Kindred communicates the truth to us through emotions. We follow two people from near our own time and watch as they are exposed to slavery and racism in the 1800s. We are up close and personal to the violence, rape, whipping, foul language, manipulation, and mistreatment that goes along with it and are properly shocked and horrified. But we are also thrown into the culture of the time, the atmosphere, the daily life around the atrocities. We adjust as Kevin and Dana do. Dana is disturbed by how “easily [they] seemed to be acclimatize” (97). Kevin goes as far as to say “this could be a great time to live in” (97) and mentions that the plantation “isn’t what he would have imagined. No overseer. No more work than people can manage…” (100). Slavery is not as bad as he thought it would be.
We also come to realize that maybe a white plantation owner is more human than we think. We recognize Tom Weylin as a perpetrator of horrible atrocities to his slaves but we also catch glimpses of his morality when he disapproves of Kevin’s fake plan to betray Dana or when he allows Dana to stay so that she can help his son.
The truth that we are not facing normally, that Kindred helps us to face, is the fact that the people who lived with slavery were just as human as you and I. They were brought up in the culture and society of the time, and this is why they let it happen. We need to face this truth so that we can examine how we were brought up, how we are affected by our society, and make sure that we like who we have become.
What you’ve explored here is very interesting! Facing the truth about slavery is not just about the facts and numbers; it’s about the emotions that are attached to slavery. I think that it is important to note, as you did, that different people may have different emotions associated with slavery. Looking back at slavery as a detached observer produces less of an emotional connection than say, someone living in that time period. Ranges of emotions can be found in between these extremes, depending for example on ancestry or stories passed down through generations. I think that this is the purpose of Kindred; to provide us, as readers who may be detached, with an opportunity to expand our emotional connection to the antebellum south. By expanding our emotional connection, we can then gain more emotional truth about the antebellum south via Kindred.
ReplyDeleteThroughout our educational careers, we’ve all learned about slavery in history classes. And yes, we all realize that it was terribly horrific and inhumane, but a history book can only give the brute facts that you were talking about; Kindred gives us the emotion. This is the power of storytelling; it takes an event, whether historically accurate or not, to a higher level of truth by connecting the reader to the story via emotion. Kindred has made me think about slavery as well as gender roles in a completely new way for this very reason. In just the first one hundred pages, the characters already seem real, and their experiences have touched me more than I expected them to. Because it’s written in the first person, I am especially attached to Dana, so when she is whipped later in the story, the agony she feels is translated directly to me. I had to stop reading momentarily during this scene because the violence felt so close and overwhelming.
The beginning of Kindred has already established more truth about slavery than any history book that I’ve read. Whether the truth is about the horrible violence, the dynamics of the plantation, or as you noted, even possible misperceptions about plantation owners, this emotional truth seems far more tangible than some historic statistic.
If I might be so bold: Sarah, I think what you have written here would be a welcomed addition to the posters appearing on OccupyWallStreet -- a great call for everyone, 99%'s and 1%'s alike, to re-examine themselves and others. Well said.
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