Kindred and Beloved

So far I have really enjoyed reading Kindred. What I like most about the story is that it mixes the impossibility of Dana’s time travel with the factual history of the slave era in the antebellum south. In some aspects, it reminds me of Toni Morrison’s Beloved. Although these stories are very different, they both mix the factual elements of slavery in the United States and the mystical characteristics of time travel. In Beloved, the character Beloved mysteriously appears at Sethe and her daughter Denver’s house. She is believed to be a reincarnation of Sethe’s daughter who was killed many years earlier because Sethe’s previous owner came to bring her back to the south. Throughout Beloved, the main characters struggle to understand Beloved’s true identity and begin to question the reality around them. Beloved, if she is even Sethe’s daughter, acts as a constant reminder that Sethe can’t ever really escape slavery and the impact it has had on her life. In Kindred, Dana is also forced to understand and confront her own distant history through being physically thrown into the middle of it. Both books highlight the inescapable impact that slavery has had on American history and those involved, even if it is generations later. Also as a reader, you are attempting to understand the time travel at the same time that the main characters. Even at the end of Beloved, Beloved’s true identity is still unclear, leaving the reader with questions. Although we have not finished Kindred, Dana is figuring out the ways of her time travel at the same time the reader is try to grasp it so far in the book. This contrasted with the historical aspect of each scenario is what draws the reader into the texts and forces one to always be on their toes, constantly trying to piece together what is real.