Aura - actual or abstract?

In class we discussed how different interpretations of the novel drastically affect the reader’s experience while reading Aura. We debated whether or not Aura was an actual person, the niece of Señora Consuelo, or whether she was simply an idea of the aura of youthfulness the Señora desired. While reading the novel I first suspected Aura was actually a separate being from Consuelo and supernatural elements allowed the Señora to feed off of the youth of her niece. After closer examination, however, I now suspect that Aura is simply the youthfulness Consuelo craves and the two characters, Aura and Consuelo, are simply two personalities of the same person.

Multiple times in the text, Fuentes describes peculiar and miniscule occurrences that I could not help but wonder why he included these. After finishing the novel, however, I realize that these tiny inclusions are actually extremely important clues. On page 33 Fuentes writes, “You look at yourself in the large oval mirror...and when your breath hides your face again you’re repeating her name: ‘Aura’.” The reader may assume that Felipe is simply daydreaming about the beautiful niece, or we may realize that the aura of youthfulness is obstructing Felipe from realizing what is happening around him. Also, towards the end of the novel Aura ages drastically and Felipe sees that her beauty is fading. Then when Felipe goes to bed with Aura, he wakes up with Consuelo. Aura originally had told Felipe that Consuelo was ‘out’ for the day, but in reality Aura (or rather the aura of youthfulness) is leaving while Consuelo remains.

By assuming Aura and Consuelo are one in the same, we may also guess that perhaps so are Felipe and the General. On page 25 Consuelo says, “I told you she’d come back”, as if she had told Felipe multiple times that her aura of youthfulness would indeed return again and again. At this point in the novel, however, Consuelo had not yet told Felipe about Aura, but rather this is his first introduction to her. By collapsing time, and ‘generations’, on top of each other Fuentes blurs the reader’s perception of reality and the reader is forced to question if there are separate generations (Aura v Consuelo, Felipe v the General) existing. I viewed this collapse of time as signifying, rather, that memories are being tampered with and each of the two separate personalities are simply one in the same (Aura = Consuelo, Felipe = General). This is also supported when Felipe knows that the doors are not locked and his belongings are already in the room, and the ‘butler’ who fetched them is never seen.

Lost in Translation

When we were discussing Aura in class this week, we touched upon the issue of translating. As the original text was supposed to be in Spanish, it is more than likely that we were not able to get the full effect of what Felipe wanted to give to the readers. We were probably very close but it still was not the complete full effect, no matter how miniscule the difference might be. One instance was the choice of the term “kid” when we find out that Aura is skinning a goat. As I had said, it took me a moment to realize that the text was referring to a goat. It was the choice of the editor and/or translator to use that choice of word. It was never meant to refer to a human child in the original novella.

The question then becomes have we lost to translation?

It’s always a question that comes up with translations. There’s an agreed lost to what the original text contained, but we don’t have a scale to notice how much disappears.

(Disclaimer: I’m going to use Chinese as an example because I am currently studying Chinese and just have a lot more examples for it. If you only see boxes and not the actual characters, it’s probably because your computer does not have the language installed for the keyboard and does not show it on the Internet. It’s not a big deal. Just don’t assume that I’m writing boxes for my amusement please.)

First thing we lose is the words that do not have an exact translation. While one language might depend on a certain word being within a sentence, another might just depend on the tone of voice. Example: In English, we use the tone of our voice to imply that we are making a suggestion about what to do in a situation. We also use certain words, although this list is not exact and uniform for everyone. In Chinese, there is a “particle,” 吧, that is place at the end of sentences to indicate that the statement is a suggestion. There is less need of an overall tone in the voice with this. While a translation could probably get the effects across decently well, there is something that feels lost because there is no exact translation.

The second thing we lose is the sound of words together. Poetical terms that are often applied to prose are suddenly lost being they depend upon the sound of the words rather than the meaning of the words themselves. Alliteration, cacophony, and euphony are all lost because of the different sounds. In Chinese, the character for “listen” is 听 (pronounce as “ting” in a high, even tone). To me, the Chinese version sounds prettier than just the word “listen.” But in translation, we lose the sound quality of words.

The last thing I’ll mention is cultural differences. They are usually explained in the text, but sudden realization of what is being implied is lost. Sometimes cultural references are completely shifted to make it relevant to the reader’s culture rather than the author’s intentions. This is common with anime that corporations (*cough4Kidscough*) when they would take relevant cultural differences and “Americanize” them. (Like replacing rice balls with doughnuts.) It limits not only our understanding of other cultures, but whatever impacts that might have been associated with certain things are suddenly gone.

Of course, the flip side to the argument is that we would have to study the language and culture in depth before we can get everything that we want from the novel. As chances of that happened tend to run slim, we are stuck with what we have from translation. Go figure. :/

Kindred, Aura, and Memory

I’m sure that the dates on the syllabus for this class were assembled strategically, because as we’ve seen, when we move from one book to the next, we always seem to find an aspect(s) of the previous reading in our current reading. Moving from Kindred to Aura, the most noticeable connection is the idea of time travel; and how a shift from present, to past, to future shapes a person’s identity. Because we discussed identity so thoroughly in class, I’d like to focus more closely on the role of memory within that time travel.

In Kindred, we saw that as Dana traveled from the 1970’s to the 1800’s and back, one of the things she carried with her was her memory. Memory was especially important to Dana in guaranteeing her own safety, and fulfilling her goal of ensuring the birth of Hagar. Dana needed to establish positive relationships with the people of the antebellum south, so that their memories of her would be a positive. Therefore, she could be assured that her return to the south would be a peaceful one. Dana also had to keep the memory of her ancestry alive, for that was, as she thought, the purpose of her time travel. Because Dana’s relationship with Rufus is based on their ancestral connection, if she had forgotten her ancestry, her relationship with Rufus would have been altered, and in turn, changed the storyline. Memory is not only important in such long-term ways in Kindred, but also in short-term ways as well. Memory influences our perception of others, so if we have an experience with another person, the outcome of that experience will influence how we see that person. More often than not, it is very difficult to just forget that experience, and alter your perception of someone else. This power of memory is especially true in observing the relationship between Alice and Rufus. Rufus’ attempt to kill Alice’s husband, and rape her became a painfully vivid memory for Alice that constantly dictated her perception of Rufus. Despite his attempts to gain her affections, Alice could not forget that violent incidence, which eventually led to her suicide. In Kindred, long term and short term memory plays an enormous role in making events and character interactions especially clear.

In Aura, short term and long term memory are not as clear to Felipe as they were to Dana, and because of the second person point of view of the story, memory therefore becomes less black and white to us as readers. Although memory is not as clear in this case, it is just as important, because the blurred lines of memory purposely perpetuates the ambiguity that Fuentes has created throughout the novella. In Aura, there is often a trigger to memories, although these triggers can be somewhat subtle or confusing, making the reader question the validity of the memories in the first place. Felipe often serves as the trigger for Senora Consuelo’s memories. Because Felipe transforms into the General, he triggers the memory of youth and beauty for Senora Consuelo, which appears in the form of Aura. This is demonstrated during Felipe and Senora Consuelo’s initial meeting; when Senora Consuelo “moves for the first time since [he] entered the room,” to reach out to Felipe, Aura immediately emerges, “her arrival so unexpected” (p. 25). Felipe continues to serve as the mechanism to bring back memories, both physically and emotionally. By re-writing the General’s journals, he is “re-membering” the past; he is at once piecing past events back together, but also recreating the memories in the present. His physical presence re-embodies the General, and therefore the emotions and memories associated with the General; such as the beautiful, youthful, sexual relationship with Senora Consuelo. Since time and space become flattened, our perception of long and short term memory become muddled. The uncertainty of memory therefore perpetuates the ambiguity present throughout the whole story, and in contrast to Kindred, demonstrates that perhaps one does not need perfectly clear memories to have loving relationships with others. Maybe like the types of truth we’ve discussed, memory too can be broken up into “emotional” and “actual,” in which, depending on the situation, on is more powerful than the other.

Musings on Aura

Second person narrative is essential to understanding the text of Aura. At the time of its publication, although works had been written in second person, it was not a common way of writing. A quick perusal of the second-person narrative chapter on wikipedia will demonstrate the increased use of second person throughout the later half of the 20th century. Therefore, second-person was novel at the time in demonstrating the consequences it held on interpretation. Second-person naturally lends itself to putting the readers into the story as one always hears the repeated use of "you." Naturally, this illustrates itself as much more of an imperative text as it is filled with commands to be done. Because of this closeness with the readers, when Felipe discovers he is the general, we concurrently discover we are the general as well. Language becomes the fundamental key in terrifying the readers: we are intimately connected to the character of Felipe because of Fuentes text in the second-person.

The theme that is most prevalent is the faulty reliance on beauty. Consuelo creates Aura as a projection of herself and the ideal that she wishes to witness herself as. In a sense, Aura serves as the ultimate mirror; she is everything that she wishes to view of herself. The reliance and yearning for beauty makes the Christian elements of the piece seem ironic. While the Christian religion preaches the ideas of universal love and the relative unimportance of beauty, so much emphasis is placed in Aura on the theme of beauty. Consuelo constantly hunts for her lost beauty and seemingly needs the projection to make her life worth living.

While reading Aura, I have to say that I was not completely thrown away by the twist ending. Although I was anticipating something unusual, I have to say that I predicted the connection between Aura and Consuelo. I wonder what happens next though in the novel if we were to predict the future following the post-novella timeline. An interesting conclusion that I might draw from the piece is the idea of a cyclical nature where once Consuelo passes away after not regaining her beauty, Felipe strives to regain his youth and his Consuelo as well. Thus, he might create his own Aura and lure another woman to become the new Consuelo. This pattern of action would then suggest that nothing ever changes and the yearning for youth is a constant human feeling.

Aura and The Man in the High Castle

Felipe’s reaction when he sees himself and Aura in the pictures of General LLorente and Consuelo reminded me of Juliana’s experience in The Man in the High Castle. The exposure of a lie in one aspect of both characters lives causes them to question larger parts of their reality.

When Felipe discovers that he is in fact Consuelo’s husband, General Llorente, he holds his face in his hands “as if [he] were afraid that some invisible hand had ripped off the mask [he’d] been wearing for 27 years” (Fuentes 137). He has just found out that he has been living a lie for 27 years and is having a personal crisis, lying on his bed for hours with his face in the pillow. This revelation that he is not who he thought he was causes him to question other parts of his reality. He rejects the concept of chronological time, claiming it was “invented to disguise the real passage of time, which races with a mortal and insolent swiftness no clock could ever measure” (Fuentes 139). Believing that his former reality is false, Felipe settles into a new one, accepting his identity as Consuelo’s husband.

Similarly, when Juliana discovers that her lover is not an Italian truck driver but a German hit man trying to use her to assassinate Hawthorne Abendsen, she has a nervous breakdown. She loses how to function in her former reality. She gets into the shower with her clothes on, tries to leave the room naked, and forgets that she killed the German man. The realization that someone she thought she knew was in fact someone very different makes her question her entire reality. Juliana seeks the truth by asking the oracle, and like Felipe, comes to accept that the reality she has been living in is a fake.

Both novels expose how humanity’s search for the truth can reveal the instability of our alleged reality.

Time and Identity

I first tried writing this post about the significance of Fuentes flattening time into one time period, and instead, I ended up writing about how he manipulates identities throughout Aura. I tried, instead, to write further about the liquidity of identity and ended up referencing the issues posed by collapsing time periods. I have since realized that identity and time are two very intertwined themes in Aura.

By lifting the boundaries of time to render age to be inconsequential, Fuentes mixes generations of people together, who, by nature, do not belong in the same time period. It was unsettling for me to learn of the transformation of young Aura into her much older aunt. However, Fuentes, by flattening time, reveals to us that no actual transformation takes place; young Aura and older Consuelo Llorente are actually the same person taking on two different identities. Fuentes exacerbates the differences between the same person by calling Consuelo Llorente sometimes by her first name and other times by her last name. By creating a setting where time stands still, Fuentes gives himself the liberty to combine the same character at different points in her life into one complete setting.

Ironically, by making time irrelevant, Fuentes insinuates the idea that the spirit of a person persists throughout time. An aura, as marked by the symbolic title of this book, is portrayed as an essence that stays with a person throughout the course of his life. While it appears as though the identities of the characters change constantly, the essences of the characters remain the same. Consuelo Llorente holds two different identities, an identity as an older woman and an identity as a younger woman. However, her soul – her aura – is the same between the two identities. Similarly, the spirit of Felipe does not change during the story, but his identity is linked to the identity of Consuelo Llorente’s formerly deceased husband. We are given clues, like Felipe seeing flashbacks to a different time in the house, to know that Felipe and Senor Llorente share the same aura, because Felipe is actually Senor Llorente all along.

Regardless of the horrors and absurdities in Aura, Fuentes' message to us is a classic and universal one. Throughout our lives, we will face many changes and therefore form many different identities. However, external factors will never be able to alter our aura, the intangible structures that form our personality and mindset. Our auras are everlasting.

Green and the Catholic Church

Throughout the text of Aura, there are many re-occurances of the color green and religious (most likely Christianity) symbols. These re-occurances caused me to look deeper into their meanings to see if there were any relation between the two.

The color green, and what it symbolizes, has been contradicted throughout the history of man kind. From being a symbol of hope and growth, to a symbol associated with sickness, envy and devil, green takes on a different form in this novel. As it is connected to nature, green is usually closely associated with notions of regeneration, fertility and rebirth. In spanish tradition, as seen in Lorca's "Romance Sonambulo", green is also a symbol of sexuality. These interpretations of the color green are closely connected with the text through Aura's green eyes, Aura's dress, the slime on the wine, the curtains and the plants on the patio.

In the religion of christianity green is looked at as the color representing the triumph of life after death. This is why christian priests wear green robes during the period of time after Pentecost known as Ordinary Time. This color is used for it represents new life and growth, which isn't surprising due to the fact that Ordinary Time follows the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (New Testament). As a representation of re-birth after death (resurrection), it holds a similar notion to Aura's statement "You have to die before you can be reborn" (123).

The meaning of green throughout history can be blended together with Christianity's meaning of green, both of which are represented in the book. One question that remains is if the color green can represent something else and still hold true. I believe that the interpretation of green as a color of death, sickness and the devil can also be found. The idea that this text compresses our idea of time into a place where Aura is controlled by Consuelo in a voodoo like way, brings up the notion that black magic and satin may also be compressed with Jesus and christianity. The symbols of Christianity are continuously combined with Consuelo's ritual when Felipe witnesses her activities. This completely throws the book off balance for it questions the last stable notion within the book.

Stereotypes

Since I was sick on Tuesday and missed the workshop group discussions on the Kindred reading guide, I figured I would use the blog to voice some ideas I had on a particular question I found intriguing.

Question #17, “Why does Butler give Tom Weylin a redeeming characteristic instead of letting him be a stereotypical slave owner,” reminded me of our discussions of ambiguity in Cat’s Cradle. Vonnegut showed that one thing, in particular religion and science, are not wholly evil or good. But rather, everything has shades of gray. A similar concept can be applied to Tom Weylin. Stereotypes tend to oversimplify situations and definitions. They take dominant traits and apply them to everything, leaving no space to not be a stereotype. However, there are always exceptions to the rule on a general and personal level. In Kindred, Butler explores this idea with respect to slavery. Yes, slave owners maltreated their slaves, as we explicitly read about, and lived by a very different moral standard (one that is immoral today). But, I’m sure that there were also moments of humility as noted in the question. Although these small gestures fall in comparison to the evil that has been done, they are there. By not having Tom and Rufus completely be a stereotype, Butler humanizes them and makes the novel feel more real because in reality no one is a complete stereotype. In fact, I found it hard to relate and sympathize with Kevin because he seemed somewhat stereotypically “a good guy.” The moments where he slips are the ones that catch our attention, but Butler never goes farther in developing this darker side of him.

Unwilling Belief

"I wouldn't dare act as thought I didn't believe." -- Kevin
"I believe you. I don't understand, like Dana said, but I guess I believe." -- Rufus
"I don't want to believe you, but I guess I do." -- Nigel
"I thought Rufus and Kevin had probably old him enough to enable him to understand, whether he believed or not. And perhaps he did understand. He seemed to get angrier." -- Dana, about Tom Weylin

Belief and non-belief often seem to be mutually exclusive. If you believe the earth is flat, then that is that. For you, that is a fact of your perspective. I propose, however, that belief has many different shades and manifestations. What exactly constitutes acceptance or understanding is fluid, and hence, belief itself is also fluid.

Tom Weylin's reaction to Dana's secret seems to me to be the most indicative of the dichotomy between different levels of belief. As Dana puts it, when Tom Weylin 'understands', he more vehemently refuses that her secret might actually be the truth. Whatever type of comprehension takes place in his head, or even -- since the situation is fairly illogical -- in his gut, for Tom Weylin the last defense of belief or disbelief is his willingness to accept.

Yet the reactions of some of the other characters, especially that of Nigel, it seems that willingness might not always be necessary to believe something. From Rufus's reaction, understanding itself is unnecessary as well. From Kevin's reaction, the deciding factor seems to be pragmatism, yet in almost all of the earlier cases, the only pragmatic result of belief is some possible peace of mind about the issue.

In Kindred, Dana encounters a host of characters who are forced to interact with the impossible and then reconcile it with their own sense of reality. The ability to adapt belief, from a collegiate perspective, is possibly the greatest asset for this reconciliation -- being openminded enough that where perspective jars with truth, perspective will give way. The methods and reasons for which belief is adapted are obviously many, however, and the degree to which these characters believe or accept Dana's situation varies, particularly since she herself adapts to whichever time period that she currently inhabits, "acting" out a role, so as to keep other characters from having to confront the 'insanity' of her situation.

Even if truth and lies were well within the range of clear definition, humankind's relationship with truth and lies could still be complex and unpredictable. The fluidity of belief, the degree to which people can accept truth without actually confronting it, and the ability of a person to understand without believing has implications, I think, for the truth-seeking individual.

It suggests that individuals themselves have a role in the construction of a relationship with truth. They have the duty to prepare themselves to not only encounter, but confront issues of authenticity and uncomfortable, jarring ideas. Otherwise, as Mr. Tagomi experiences in Man in the High Castle, reality might flicker past without being recognized or welcomed.

Identity is never truly lost

It is interesting to recognize a black woman in the antebellum south with a degree of control. As Kindred develops, is it fair to say that Dana maintained her control throughout the novel, if she had control in the first place? Does she lose her identity as she travels through time?

I wanted address this question from the discussion guide the class created because I thought it is an interesting development to analyze. As Dana is passed back through time her roles change drastically. The reader is introduced to a free and strong-willed Dana who showed persistence from the very beginning by breaking family tradition and marrying a white man. This free will follows Dana to the Weylin’s plantation, but only to a degree. Dana gets away with things that the typical slave would not, seen clearly by her frustration towards Tom Weylin, telling him how to take care of his son, his family, and how he ought to treat his slaves. This attitude and wit is slightly tolerated by the Weylin’s strongly due to the fact that to them she is a mysterious and almost scary character. Even though her self is only slightly tolerated, slightly means it was tolerated after all. And Dana had the “slightest” bit of control over herself throughout the book.

She is dragged back to the plantation time after time again by this invisible hand to ultimately save Rufus from his most recent of troubles. Each time she returns to the 1800’s, a little but of her control escapes her. I don’t fully believe she ever loses control over herself, but as she gets more comfortable she gets wiser, and more confident in her free will. For example, becoming a mother like figure to Rufus, Alice, and some of the other slaves gave Dana a sense of control over her situation. As Tom Weylin and others start to become aggravated by her free beliefs, the punishments get harsher, and she begins to have this control stripped from her little by little. One scene in particular that proved that she is losing grip over her own life was when she was put to the field to work, she was whipped, hit, etc.

I think it is unfair to say she loses her identity as she travels back in time, and vice versa. I think she becomes a more conservative thanks to the struggles she was forced to face throughout the text, but her sense of caring never leaves her. I think caring is what she was set out to do and defines Dana’s identity, and she was the caretaker for the plantation, and for Kevin at home in the 1970’s.

Love is deception

In Aura a central idea is that lovers will always be together. It is this overbearing love that keeps Aura and the widow together and intertwined through the novel. As we progress through the novel we notice some interesting events take place, usually they are events that show a heavy set of similarities between Aura and the widow. Felipe, even though intrigued by these occurrences, overlooks them because of his passion for Aura. The real noticeable issue arises when Aura and Felipe become intimate one evening and shortly afterwards the widow's presence in the far side of the room becomes known. How is it that this woman could watch her relative make love to pretty much a stranger in her home? It does not seem logical or realistic for an event like this to occur. And to throw the reader for even more of a loop the two woman exit together and leave Felipe alone to sleep in what he believes is Aura's bedroom. To be quite honest it seems as though the widow herself received pleasure from watching her niece and Felipe entangled with one another. It is not until later in the novel that a possible reason for this is provided; it comes when Felipe views pictures of the Widow's past husband. Felipe notices that he has a striking resemblance to this one time army general. So in a way Aura is a way for the widow to reconnect with her dead husband. This makes somewhat logical sense, even if it is creepy, but the end of the novel brings a strange twist that leaves the reader stupefied. Felipe believes he is laying with his beloved Aura when it turns out to be the old widow. My conclusion by the end of the novel is that Aura is a deception, she is simply an image created by the widow to seduce Felipe in order for her to reconnect with her past lover. The love Aura has for Felipe is not real, the love Felipe has for Aura is based on a deception, and the love the widow has for her past husband is no longer existent and she begins to accept deceptive love as satisfying for her void that she suffers.

Two Worlds Become One

In Kindred, Octavia E. Butler constructs a story where two separate times in history become one—a world where present and past, truth and lie, amalgamate. The more Dana and Kevin become a part of the past, the less they connect with their present.

Butler warns us early on in one of Dana’s earlier trips to the past, that it would not be easy for the protagonists to live two clean-cut separate identities—past Dana and Kevin (slave and slave owner) and present Dana and Kevin (Californian writers in an interracial marriage). When Dana is forced to invent her identity to cover for her sudden appearance in the woods by the Weylin plantation, she tells Sarah she is a slave from New York and was carried away from her husband, who is still there. Obviously that is a complete lie since Dana is neither a slave nor from California—but it does stem from some truth. Dana was in fact married. She was also abruptly separated from her husband (through time travel and not a kidnapping, but nonetheless true). Dana immediately realizes that through the back-story she had created, “Lie and truth had merged” (Butler 40). She had brought some of her 1976 California life with her into the antebellum South. This fusion of lie and truth, past and present, will become a consistent theme throughout the story as it develops further.

In Part 1 of “Home,” after Dana is held at gunpoint and transported back into the present with Kevin, the two have an extremely difficult time readjusting to their normal lives. Unaccustomed to the technological advances of their time after spending months in the past, Kevin is found fiddling with the stove and the oven in the kitchen and staring blankly at the burners’ blue flames. He then goes to the living room and is unable to find the on/off button on the television. When Dana finally turns it on, Kevin feels uncomfortable and demands she turn it off. A similar event occurs when Kevin is examining his electric pencil sharpener with an expression that quickly shifts from awe to anger as he violently throws the sharpener to the floor while calling it a “damned toy” (194). Soon after, a jet flies over the house causing Kevin to jump onto the dresser terrified of the loud, booming noise. After five years in a world where electricity does not exist, Kevin found himself lost and overwhelmed in the midst of the technological advancements of his time.

Not only did the couple feel technologically lost in their time, they also felt emotionally lost. Dana begins to miss the familiarity of the Weylin house and the routine life on the plantation. She recalls the feeling of relief at seeing the yellow house, which serves as a contrast to the total lack of relief she is feeling in her original and true home. She admits that she felt as though she were losing her place in her own time. Living in a world without the technological conveniences of 1976 was more meaningful to her, “a sharper, stronger reality” (191). She goes on to explain that Rufus’s time was “a stark, powerful reality that the gentle conveniences and luxuries of this house, of now, could not touch” (191). No longer does 1976 feel like home to Dana and Kevin. Rather, the harsh times of the past have become such a part of them that they no longer know how to live freely. Kevin imagines a recently freed prisoner encountering similar adjustments. Even sleeping in a normal bed instead of on her pallet in the attic—or, as she calls it, “the world’s softest bed” (208)—becomes a problem for Dana.

The inability to readjust to the present is further accentuated by the deliberate and constant comparisons between the present and the Weylins. Dana first compares her comfortable office rooms in her house to the rooms of the Weylin house (193). Then, she compares Kevin’s facial expressions to those of Tom Weylin when he grabs her arm (194). Another comparison happens later when Tom Weylin threatens to skin Dana alive—a threat Dana’s aunt used to make, while, of course, not meaning as literally. Dana even mistakes Rufus for David after she is whipped by Fowler. Furthermore, Rufus says a line that David had said verbatim in one of the first chapters of the book—“Dana, get up. You’ll be more hurt if I carry you than if you walk” (213).

Dana and Kevin are no longer playing the part of slave or slave owner while in the antebellum South—they are living it. And by living it, a part of them becomes it.

The Long Arm of Slavery

Building up on the discussion we had in class regarding the similarities between the book and the author Octavia Butler’s life, I wanted to mention one other thing from the introduction section in my book. Butler’s mother was a housemaid and she accompanied her mother on her job at times when she couldn’t afford a babysitter. Witnessing her mother work as a servant was a scarring experience for Butler. On this, the author of the introduction, Robert Crossley, writes,

“Even then she observed the long arm of slavery; the degree to which her mother operated in white society as an invisible woman and, worse, the degree to which she accepted and internalized her status.”

This statement had helped me reason why Butler chose her protagonist from 1976 rather than the 1800’s. The purpose of the novel was not just to show the atrocities of slavery as it existed in early 1800’s but also to insinuate that it still lurks in our society.

Butler’s mother must have been a housemaid during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s and this reminded me of the recent movie ‘The Help.’ The movie was about black women working as housemaids in white communities in the 1960’s. These women were more than just maids- they were caregivers and second mothers to the children in the family. Yet, at the end of the day they were treated as lower beings. One of the focal points of the movie is The Home Health Sanitation Initiative that legally forbids the housemaids to use the toilet that the family members use.

The plot of the movie is centered on a fresh college graduate from a white family who decides to interview these women and voice their opinions. However, we see at the beginning of the movie that most of these women are reluctant to stand up against the injustice for the fear of being fired from their jobs, their only means of supporting their family. Similarly, in Kindred, the slaves of the Weylin family are afraid of escaping to freedom for the fear of ruthless physical abuse. The fear of the housemaids in The Help is not as severe as that of the slaves Kindred. Yet, in both situations, we can see how the weak members of the society were feared into accepting their positions in a system that had become comfortable in justifying superiority as human beings based on skin color. The submissive acceptance of their positions is what made the slaves in Kindred and the housemaids in The Help both internalized their statuses. Similarly, the “invisibility” of the slaves and that of the housemaids arises from the fact that they are both unresponsive to the kind of injustice that seems unacceptable to us.

I feel like this statement reflects my take on the novel. At some point in history, slavery was deeply embedded in the society; it was a comfortable part of the system, a part of the body. And even after slavery was uprooted, it’s shadow endured in the society. I felt that perhaps this is the reason Butler chose to leave Dana’s arm lingering in the antebellum South- to depict the painful extension of slavery’s arm from the 1800’s to the 1960’s.

In the words of T.Swift: Rufus, all you are is MEAN.

I really liked Rufus when we were first introduced to him in Kindred. Yes, he had his flaws but in general, he was a humane, compassionate person. Despite being surrounded by the idea that his skin makes him superior to all African American people, his moral sense told him the Alice, Nigel, and Dana were worthy of his respect and friendship. But when he comes into his inheritance and becomes a slave owner, Rufus begins to believe that he has a right to control the lives of others, command punishments and have all of his demands satisfied. He turns on his friends, abusing Alice and treating Nigel as a subordinate, and seeking out to rape Dana.

He often asks others to do his dirty work for him in order to separate himself from the violence of his actions. He sees the pain he inflicts, but rather than changing his behavior, he continues to do harm and then expresses genuine regret after the damage has been done. Despite his occasional flashes of warmth and his tenuous understanding of morality, Rufus is, in the end, MEAN. He's also just selfish and brutal and I've stopped defending him in my mind. He thinks nothing of beating and continually raping women, selling slaves while breaking up families.

Another possible theme that we didn’t touch on class could be that the obtainment of power can cause people to become corrupt and well, just mean. With power comes the desire for more power and the assurance that one deserves all the power one accrues.

When Dana goes back to the antebellum south, she tends to forget about the hugeness and focus on the little things. For instance, she keeps herself busy with “slave tasks” so to keep from driving herself crazy over all the things that she would worry about, like leaving Kevin behind or keeping Rufus alive and making sure Hagar is born. I tend to do the same thing as Dana. Sometimes I’ll find myself freaking out over how much work I have to do when really its not that bad. I look way to far into the future so that I could plan ahead/around conflicts. Whenever I do that, I get overwhelmed really quickly and end up worrying more than actually getting good work done. So I can see why Dana focuses on the little things in front of her at the moment. Like Dana, I’ve learned to take it one step at a time and only focus on the task at hand, not the big picture.

The Missing Arm

Ever since we mentioned the importance of Dana’s missing arm in class, I could not help thinking about it. I think it is interesting that this knowledge was not prevalent throughout my reading of the novel. The prologue definitely set the tone of the entire novel, with how eerily calm it was and how straightforward yet mysterious the circumstances were. The fact that she lost her arm should not have been a minor detail, but in my reading it was. I was still in suspense the entire time and I did not think about the time travel paradox. I believed Dana could die at any moment and that her point was to ensure the birth of Hagar. My question is why was the knowledge that she would be safe, or at least relatively so, in the end slip my mind while reading?

We talked about how many things were going on in the novel in class and how many different themes there could be. We touched on a few when we first started reading the book: race, gender, slavery, time travel, intelligence; the list can go on. With all of these working simultaneously it was easy to forget that she would be alive at the end of the novel. The themes and the danger we felt as we read kept us in suspense and allowed the ending to be effective and have us go “Oh yeah, I should have seen this coming” as so many of the books we have read this semester have been like. We knew what would vaguely happen in the end, but for the sake of the story we forgot it and read on not remembering previous knowledge.

The tone also helped me forget about the arm. The prologue was calm and composed. It made it seem like losing an arm was not a big deal, and in the grand scheme of things there could have been much worse things happen to her. Yes, she lost part of herself to history, but she came back with her life and most of her scars would heal. She also had an unique view on history having lived through part of it. We saw this novel through Dana’s eyes which made us feel calm when she did and feel danger and panic when she was threatened. She was our link to the novel and subsequently to the past.

Five Years for Dana

Dana never remained in the past for as long as Kevin. Kevin was there for an entire five years of his life while Dana was never there for even close to that amount of time. It is clear that both characters were affected greatly by their time spent in the past, but what would have happened if Dana had been stuck in the past for five years instead of Kevin?

I think that five years as a slave would have affected Dana far more than five years as a free white man affected Kevin. After coming back to the 1970s after his lengthy period in the 1800s, Kevin has an extremely difficult time adjusting back to modern life. He cannot figure out how to turn on the television or use other modern technologies, he can’t remember where things are in his home, and he finds himself thinking of the 1800s as where he truly belongs. Kevin did experience adversity in the past, but definitely not as much as a black woman would have living in the 1800s for five years, slave or free.

If Dana had been trapped in the past for five years, one can only imagine how difficult her time there would be. I think that one of two things could happen: Dana would either completely become a slave and forget that she was just “acting” or she would realize (over time) that she should no longer play the role of a slave and she would escape North despite the odds against her.

In the first situation, Dana would eventually lose hope in ever going home; as the years go by she would truly become a slave from the time period. She wouldn’t realize that it was happening, but over time she would become more submissive and eventually act just like most other slaves on the plantation. She would have no hope in anything better and the 1970s life would be almost entirely forgotten. She would totally drop the idea of “acting” the part of the slave and by the time she would realize what has happened, it would be too late. Once she takes on the role of the slave and forgets about her life in the 1970s, there would be no going back. Even if she were to return home after five years as a slave, she would never be able to adjust back to free life. Dana would have a completely different perspective on the world and her place in it. Her relationship with Kevin would be changed even more than it was by the events that occurred in the novel; she would never be able to see herself as an equal to him. Five years would have convinced her that men and especially white men were far superior to women in general and far superior to black women. I think that it would be nearly impossible for her and Kevin to ever get back to the relationship they had before Dana gets stuck in the past. In the book when Kevin is trapped in the past, he does not have to live with the idea that he is less of a human being than anyone else. He is able to continue to fight for freedom for other humans and while he has a difficult time, the way he looks at himself does not change as much as it would for Dana if she were instead trapped in the past for such a long period of time. I’m not suggesting that Kevin does not have a difficult time, just that Dana would have had a much more difficult experience than Kevin ever would. Kevin mainly has to adjust between differences in the way of life between the two times while Dana would have to adjust the way she views herself.

In the second situation, I think that Dana could realize that she does not deserve to be a slave and that she should fight for her rights, whether or not odds are against her. I think that it would take some time but eventually Dana could realize that she doesn’t deserve to be subservient to anyone. I think in this situation she would escape North and help other slaves gain the same freedom as she has. This way she could make the best out of her situation; she could educate and save other slaves from lives of unjust service. In this case, I think it would be easier for Dana to adjust to the 1970s than in the first situation. By fighting to save other slaves she would be recognizing her own self-worth and would not have given into the roles of the time period. She would still have a rough time adjusting back to an entirely free life, but she would I think, eventually be able to eventually adjust back (maybe after another five years or so). Her relationship with Kevin also might be eventually able to recover because she would regard herself more equally with him than if she had given into being a slave.