Believability

While at first I felt a strong connection to Dana and her travels and efforts, I now am having second thoughts. It is becoming increasingly more difficult for me to relate to the characters, the concepts, and the fiction itself because of how unrealistic the time travel is and how little time Dana takes to reflect upon her travels. While she admits after the first time she is whisked back into the 1810s that "It's all crazy" (15) when Kevin asks her what has happened, she still recounts the details for him and immediately tries to make sense of the situation. Kevin calls the events that they discuss "facts" (16) and  Dana goes on to say "As real as the whole episode was, as real as I know it was..." (17), as if the possibility of the traveling not being real is barely considered. Dana and Kevin treat ridiculous conversation/subject matter as perfectly legitimate and approach the planning of their next steps in a serious way, which makes me question the maturity of the characters and the book/writing itself. The fact that things work out perfectly for Dana in her travels adds to this effect--she always returns to the other time period when on the very brink of death, and she is able to effortlessly determine that the people she interacts with in the South are her ancestors. There is not one point in the novel when Dana takes a moment to say, "Hold on, do I know this for sure? Everything that's happening to me is ludicrous, should I consult with someone else about this?" Instead, it works out that her physical appearance is similar to that of her distant ancestors. Instead, Kevin ties a bag containing a switchblade knife to Dana so that she can be properly equipped for her next "episode." Maybe I simply need to be more willing to suspend my disbelief, but to me the lack of reflection by Dana, someone apparently living in the 20th century, comes off as childish.

An Analysis of the Analyses of Kindred

It seems that, thus far, attempts to write about Kindred on this blog have taken one of two forms – the first, an overarching critique of style (or a justification of a style that others have critiqued), or secondly, an intensely close examination into a singular aspect of the story. I am not convinced that either technique is appropriate.

The first type of blog posters seem to consistently begin with an emotional or evaluative statement about the book as a whole, either in regards to what was ineffective or, as Joe put it, by justifying why “some parts of the book were not that awful .” This is certainly useful for the purpose of cataloging initial reactions to this work, it does not, itself, serve as helpful analysis. To simply critique the style or quality of the writing is not our primary goal in this class; we are here as analyzers, not as literary critics. If these critiques were centered around aspects of the novel that are relevant to Butler's focus, our complaints would be closer to the mark, but thus far they have not been. They have been criticisms of character quality, or of subjective emotional impact. I dislike Oliver Twist for the two-dimensional characters and hackneyed tropes it uses as well, but it hardly diminishes the quality or importance of the book as a piece of literature. It only draws into question the quality of the writing (I do claim that there is a large difference between literature and writing, but that ought to be saved for another post.)

The second almost invariably focuses on a minute aspect of the story, such as Rufus' sexual longing, or on the nature of time travel. This keeps the post closer to the purpose of the class in the sense of our role as analyzers, but is strangely almost less helpful than a generalization about the text as a whole. As within The Things They Carried, Bulter is attempting to capture a gestalt of a concept within her writing, and does so without the help of the absent fourth wall that O'Brien consistently leans on. As such, it is the combination of each individual aspect of Dana's experience that leads us to the image of slavery as a whole. Perhaps, if we examined and analyzed many different aspects of slave life as Bulter presents them, we would get a better focus of the novel as an entity, but narrowing down on a single topic within our blog post is like a group of blind men examining an elephant; well-intentioned, but fruitless in their isolation and lack of communication between each other.

I am excited for our discussion today, but it seems as though there are a few flaws and bad habits in our mode of analytical examination in relation to Kindred that have yet to be fixed. To me, this alone makes this book worth reading; it has brought to the forefront of my mind the nature of our analytical role as readers and as students of literature.

Why can’t we talk about slavery?

A point was made in class by our own professor that she had purposefully steered the direction of our conversations toward time travel and avoided slavery.  Why?  Evidence that even now in an open environment people will avoid talking about the main issue at hand if it is uncomfortable and/or emotionally sensitive.  Time traveling is a side note in the novel, but it is also so much easier to talk about.  And to be honest, could you really blame us for ignoring slavery?  How could 21^st Century college students actually discuss slavery when it is so detached from their experiences?  You can’t, and part of the reason may be, because our time periods are so different or because people just are not the same now as they were back then.

Through the first person narrative, we as readers can get a sense of slavery through the illusion of direct experience, and by doing this, we are in turn forced to ask if the experience is as distant from us as we believe.  Like us, Dana had a buffer to the events of the 1800’s until she lived long enough for the past to become “real now” even though it was “so abstract [back] then” (243).  After the culturally differences have been taken down, we realize that people have not changed.  Namely, the majority of us still lack courage.  Dana tells Sam that although other slaves may badmouth her for bowing down to Rufus, they who “let Fowler drive them into the fields (…) to keep the skin on their back and breath in their bodies,” are no different than she (237).  

Part of the reason for our aloof perspective on slavery is that we have hindsight.  As a representative for the readers, Dana advises Alice to “slow down” and take the easy route, and Dana never risks her own existence by finding a way to always forgive Rufus for his transgressions rather than confront him (234).  Even after her existence was assured through the birth of Hagar, Dana still found herself lacking the courage to directly confront Rufus.  In their final embrace, Dana realizes how easily she could accept Rufus’s actions, because “he was not hurting her” (260).  Only by realizing that “a slave was [still] a slave” and that Rufus was not Kevin did Dana have the courage to drive the knife into Rufus’s side (260).  As shown in Dana’s experiences, when we as people of a future time lose the power of our perspective, we realize how helpless we are to the traps of a time long past.

A Chilling Comparison

Dana's first trip of significant length to the ante bellum south is a jarring experience for her. She is struck by what she perceives to be the stark contrast between 1976 California and 1815 Maryland. At first, she is very out of place in the south and doesn't foresee any possible way that she will ever become truly acclimated to the past. However, throughout the course of the novel, this perceived distance between 1976 and 1815 collapses and Dana and Kevin become more a part of the past than they ever thought possible. It is easy to look back on history from a distance and claim you would so something differently. Dana finds that it is much harder to actually follow up on that if given the chance. For the sake of her own survival, she begins to play the role of the slave. After one beating she thinks to herself "See how easily slaves are made?" (177). After only a few months, Dana begins to assimilate, although grudgingly, to the culture of the 1815. Kevin gets so used to the early eighteen teens during his 5 year stay that he experiences a kind of culture shock all over again when he is transported back to 1976. When he returns with her he "had a slight accent, [she] realized. Nothing really noticeable, but he did sound a little like Rufus or Tom Weylin." (190).

So why is it so easy for these characters to learn to fit into a world that is so different from their own? Perhaps it is because the two different worlds are not so different after all. Although there is no slavery in 1976, the US is still not as progressive as laws may suggest. Butler draws many comparisons between the the ante bellum south and 1976 California. Dana and Kevin's marriage, which is considered sinful in the past, is still something that many people consider to be shameful in the present. They got married in Las Vegas with no friends or family since their families were offended by the idea of marriage between a white man and a black woman. As much as Dana and Kevin like to think they are progressive, some tension due to the difference in race is still found in their relationship. Kevin automatically expects Dana to do his typing for him, in much the same way that Rufus wants her to write his letters for him. In addition, Kevin, the more successful writer, feels obligated to support Dana economically, similarly in a way to Weylin supporting slaves, although far more benign. On a larger scale, Dana notices that such a racist and brutal thing as slavery happened quite recently in the past. About Nazi concentration camps she had heard "stories of beatings, starvation, filth, disease, torture, every possible degradation. As though the Germans had been trying to do in only a few years what the Americans had worked at for nearly two hundred." (116).  Butler's at times disturbing comparisons between the two times as well as Dana's time travel serve to collapse the distance between 1976 and the eighteen teens. She shows that the history of slavery and the early 1800's feels far away in the past, but is in reality not so far back in the past, and the racial inequalities from the past are still very present in 1976.

Being a Women vs. Being an African American

This is a fail attempt to understand an African American during slavery. No!! This is my attempt to transcend any notion of understanding of what it means to be a woman and give Dana’s experience justice. After reading the book I realize it was more than being an African American during slavery, but to be a woman at the same time. In the mind of Dana she had two things working against her. I try to figure out what aspects of life can be transfer from the 19^th century and still be predominating in the 20^th century. I realized at the end it was the fact she was a woman that was the most crippling to her existence. Women are more than a field hand, more than a wife; more than someone that can do a task for a man. Women most importantly are sexual objects used at the expense of men’s personal will.  To be rape is worse than being a slave. It is an experience that destroys all aspects of being a human and transforms the person into a shell of person they use to be.  Being a slave takes away your freedom, it dehumanizes the person. However, being raped takes always the moral compass and the person is permanently enslaves; unable to escape that moment. Escape is always possible for a slave, but a slave that has been rape escape is not. Rape is something that will travel with the person. If Rufus was able to rape Dana there would be no going back to Kevin, she would forever remain with Rufus spiritually and mentally. In addition, the experience would not have forced her home it would lock her in that space in time. 

Reeling

         When I finished this book, I didn't find myself reeling in awe of its power. You know sometimes, you finish a really great book, and afterwards, you need a while to digest it? Well, Kindred didn't really do that for me. And I really think it should have, considering the point of the book is to make us think about what slavery means to modern people.

        There are several points in the book that try to 'close' the distance between 1976 and 1815, such as the South African race riots, "South African whites always struck me as a people who would have been happier living in the nineteenth century, or the eighteenth" (196), or when Dana alludes to the fact that her temp jobs are like slavery, or that being forced to do menial writing for Rufus is similar to doing it for Kevin. But the book didn't leave me reeling.

        In The Things They Carried, my stomach turned while reading the scene where Rat Kiley tortures the baby buffalo. That scene made me think. I think the scene that is the most disturbing in Kindred is on 176: "He beat me until I swung back and forth by my wrists, half-crazy with pain, unable to find my footing, unable to to stand the pressure of hanging,  unable to get away from the slashing blows..."

        Yet, this scene, while disturbing, didn't make me sick and it certainly should have. The kind of torture that happened in institutionally in slavery is incomparably more tragic than the buffalo scene. I don't want to say that violence and brutality is the only way to prove a point, but it was certainly effective in The Things They Carried. Butler probably didn't want to alienate potential readers by making the book too violent, but I think that Kindred really downplays the kind of horrors that went on during this period of time. 

        I think that the book has a lot more power if taken in context. In 1979, Martin Luther King had only been dead for ten years. In 1979, integrated schools had only been around for twenty. The tension of the Civil Rights movement was far from over in 1979. This book probably cut a lot closer to home in 1979. As Octave Butler said, "I think people really need to think what it's like to have all of society arrayed against you."

The Difficulty of Rufus

By the time I got to the end of Kindred, I was expecting the confusion surrounding the novel and the characters to be cleared up. Although the story itself ends somewhat resolved, my feelings towards the character of Rufus are very up in the air. While reading about Rufus as a child, I had such hope for his character and believed that there was a capacity for him to learn and grow from Dana’s influence. As the novel progresses and Rufus begins to show the same racism and cruelty as his father, I lost some of this hope, yet there was always something slightly endearing about his character, especially in his relationship with Dana. There were times reading the novel where I even felt guilty that I still clung to such hope for his character when he was acting in such evil ways. Although he repeatedly whips slaves, rapes Alice, and disrespects Dana, there is something in his behavior that makes you wish for him. Rufus is forever childlike, always needing attention, never fully able to understand his feelings. He is internally conflicted about Dana, not sure whether to love her or hate her for her ability to challenge him. On the most basic level, Rufus’s character is weak. Not only is he is incapable of staying alive without Dana’s help, Rufus cannot be true to himself when it comes to who he loves. There are many instances when Rufus understands what is the right thing to do and even wishes to do it, yet he is too weak to ever execute the right plan of action. The fact that there’s always a part of him wishing to do well makes me cling to my hope for him even after countless disappointments. By the end when he is attempting to rape Dana, I know that I hate Rufus, yet when he actually dies, I don’t find myself rejoicing. I had such hope for him, a hope that is difficult to simply discard.

Just trying to survive

One thing that we haven't really discussed in class is the roles of education and literacy in the book. For Dana, her literacy comes to define her in the 1810's. It gives her power, yet proves to be a disadvantage when whites are scared and confused that she may know too much and have more power than them. Dana also knows a surprising amount about the time period that she has traveled to. This seems almost too convenient to me, yet I guess it can be seen as a way for Butler to show that Dana is well educated. Although Dana has some power through her literacy and education, it seems to help very little and does not help her as much as she would like it to. I noticed this most when Dana realizes that her education through books and maps is ultimately no better than the type of common knowledge that someone like Alice has when faced with surviving a time period that is working against them.

Dana says:

"We were both failures, she and I. We'd both run and been brought back... I probably knew more than she did about the general layout of the Eastern Shore. She knew only the area she'd been born and raised in, and she couldn't read a map...Nothing in my education or knowledge of the future had helped me to escape...What had I done wrong? Why was I still a slave to a man who had repaid me for saving his life by nearly killing me" (177).

Dana's knowledge of books and of her own placement in time does not help her when she is fighting for survival. Slavery defines Dana's life when she is in the Antebellum south and it becomes clear that the skills that she has from the 1970's are only somewhat useful. It becomes clear that in a time where slavery dominates society, education and literacy of little importance.

Haters Gonna Hate

           I am getting an overarching idea from our class that almost everyone hates this book. Honestly though despite the actually logic of all the time traveling and rules that go along with such a thing, some parts of the book were not that awful.

For starters this book, for me at least, tries to illustrate to the reader the idea that just because something is history does not mean it is universal fact. What I mean is that yes we hear that slavery is bad from history, but we still cannot begin to imagine what it was actually like. Also we can say Rufus  is an awful person, but you also have to realize that he was brought up in a culture making him believe that what he was doing was right. Even today it is hard for many people to adopt radical ideas. Just imagine how hard it would be if someone claiming to be from the future is introducing these ideas. For the slaves many of them did not know anything other than slavery and did not even begin to think about freedom. If not for the presence of Dana and Alice on the plantation most of Rufus’ slaves might not give it a second thought.

            Another idea that I thought this book portrayed was that you don’t truly know how you will react until put in the situation yourself. Dana caught herself being a hypocrite at times, for example when she was telling Alice it was in her best interest to sleep with Rufus. Also you can say that if in Dana’s position you would have left Rufus to die or even just kill him yourself, but lets be honest we knew as much about the repercussions of this book’s time travel, or time travel in general, as the author does. In the heat of the moment or when placed in a state of fear and uncertainty humans tend to act in unpredictable manners.

             We also have to put in context when this book was published. Race was still a touchy topic in 1979 and this book helps to further illuminate how race should never matter. It tries to bring the reader into the shoes of someone being discriminated against. Also a reader may grab hold of Dana and not want to lose her like Rufus does. She at times embodies the common person who wants to do the right thing, but at the same time is looking out for her own self-interest. For me this made for a very relatable character.

Hey I understand that this book is repetitive at times and can even leave you thinking that something like this could never happen. I could also see how if you read this book in one sitting you could drive yourself nuts with questions, but somehow or another this book was still put on our syllabus and you are still supporting the author who wrote it by purchasing the book. Finally we do not have enjoy the plot of every book we read rather we need to try to find any purpose, whether trivial or profound, that we can conjure up to make the whole process of reading in the first place meaningful. We can hate on the book forever but where will that get us?

-We don’t always read for personal enjoyment. 

Let's Talk About Sex

            According to Sigmund Freud, everything we do is motivated by underlying sexual desires. No matter what our motives are on the surface, our libido subconsciously drives it all. I don’t know how much value I normally see in psychoanalyzing fictional characters, but I do think that Freud’s theory on sex drives can be applied to fiction as well. In many fictional works, the plot and the characters are driven by sex. Look at Cat’s Cradle, for example. Sexual desire for Mona motivates Jonah to go to San Lorenzo. In The Things They Carried, sex (and love, I suppose) is the reason Mark Fossie ships his girlfriend to Vietnam, the reason Dobbins wears his girlfriend’s panties around his neck, and the reason Jimmy Cross is constantly preoccupied. In Man in the High Castle everything Frank Frink does is with hopes that he can get Juliana back. I could go into more depth on each of these, but I’m going to look at Kindred.

            Rufus is the prime example of sex drive as an underlying motivation. The most obvious example is in his treatment of Alice. He only agrees to let her kids be educated and freed because he doesn’t want to lose his sexual object. His treatment of Dana, on the other hand seems motivated by something else – perhaps gratitude or fear – for most of the novel. He fears abandonment by her so he refuses to let her leave. We find out at the end, however, that sex was behind this as well. His sale of Joe simply because he talks to Dana indicates some desire and jealousy in Rufus. Then when Rufus says that Dana and Alice are one woman, all of his lust for Alice is transferred to Dana. It’s no secret that Rufus has strong sexual desire for Alice, and if he views Dana and Alice as one then he must have the same desire for Dana. His attempted rape of Dana at the end confirms this. So while on the surface he doesn’t want Dana to leave because he fears being alone, his deeper motivation is driven by his libido.

Are we really all that different?

We seem to always think the best of ourselves. When asked about how we would act in a potentially precarious situation, we respond with the obvious acts of nobility, naturally, for we could all be superheroes if we wanted to, right? I am going to temporarily shatter this false self faith.
When we learn about slavery, the holocaust, and other historical tragedies, we are appalled by the actions of the human race. The tyrants of these times seem distant and perplexing, and we immediately self identify with the victims of these adversities. It is easy for us to affiliate ourselves with the "good guys" in these situations. Due to societal developments and changed laws, it would be much more difficult for such tragedies to repeat themselves in their countries of origin in the world today, so as a result the reality of such events seems profoundly intangible.
In Kindred, Butler attempts to shatter our self confidence. By using characters from the 1970's that appear unafraid to break societal norms, and having them affected by the uneasy times they are thrust into, Butler successfully shows the actually close proximity of people today and the people of these historical times. Dana's words clearly display Butler's idea to us readers when she says "I never realized how easily people could be trained to accept slavery" (101). Butler wants us to ask this same question in our own heads. Through Kevin's acquisition of the American south's societal norms at the time, and Dana's general acceptance of these norms (although she does not sit back entirely), Butler wants us readers to see that we are often not even aware of the wrong doings we commit. For we are simply kids "just imitating what [we've] seen adults doing" (99). 

Relative Distance

Though Kindred does explore the terror that is slavery in vividly graphic terms guaranteed to make most squirm in their seats, I think it is more important to take notice of what Butler says by including time travel in her plot. As I read it, Time travel is just a device employed to show the reader how close he or she still is to biases that have supposedly been disposed of as time has moved on. Kindred’s plot is cyclical and repetitive, but there’s intent behind what at first might seem monotony. Butler, through these manipulations, shows the reader that people might not have progressed as much as they think. It was a valid point in 1979, and unfortunately, I think it is still valid today.  This is a good idea, and it is, for the most part, well executed. Butler’s clunky dialogue and less than gripping characters do at times distract the reader from the gritty points being made.  However, I will admit that Butler is rather adept at keeping your attention, especially considering the fact that the text has, at least for me, no real suspense. The Novikov self-consistency principle will do that. Almost all I can think of while reading is that Dana is going to do what she did, and that will be all. This story has a predetermined ending, one that is easy to discern after first discovering the elements of the plot. While it may not be beautifully written (much like this blog post), Kindred does succeed in showing the danger in ideologies and reminding the reader that one is much, much closer to those old biases than one might like to think. 

Kindred, what the hell?

            One of the questions that seemed to plague me throughout my reading of Kindred was why did Rufus Weylin require the assistance of Dana to continue living and eventually father her ancestors? It is quite evident that Dana is very alive and well in her present world of the 1970's. Her lineage seemed to be intact as is, so why is it that she needed to go back in time and aid in protecting her future? I understand that Olivia Butler is playing on the distinct "Time-travel" genre but in nearly all cases the time traveler is a)transported with their knowledge of how and why and b)advised not to change anything in the past and to simply let the events unfold as they do. According to this principles of time-travel, should Dana have simply let Rufus be as he was? Clearly if Dana was alive to go back and "help" Rufus, then it is reasonable to assume that he ultimately would have survived to father Hagar.
           Another viewpoint that can be taken on this subject is that Dana did not travel through  time in a linear manner but rather she travelled to an alternate reality that coincides and directly affects her present state. This would account for why Dana needed to save Rufus from himself. This would also explain why the time in the "alternate" world of the 1800's seemed to move at a much quicker rate than that of her home era. Personally this seems to make much more sense than her simply going back in time to save herself. That concept seems to me a bit redundant.
          Overall, I found this novel to be a bit repetitive and drawn out. I mean why the hell did Dana have to go back like five times? And why did she go back even after Hagar was born? That seemed to be a bit much in the scope of the novel as a whole. At that point in time it really didn't matter whether or not Rufus died. Hagar would have been raised by someone within the plantation until she was old enough to go on and secure the future lineage of Dana's family.

The Big S-Word

Well, we did it again. During class Tuesday we managed to avoid talking about the big s-word (it rhymes with the non-existent word flavory) despite the fact that we weren't talking about it was brought up specifically. After noticing this, I began to pay attention to the novel and the use of slavery in it. I wondered why Butler didn't just write a slave novel and decided to write a science fiction novel instead (looking for a larger reason than her simply being a science fiction writer). Then I picked up on how over and over again Dana says that she is not a slave. She says it to Rufus, herself, and even Kevin. She tells herself that she is merely acting the part in order to survive, but that’s not exactly true. Her time travelling makes her a slave. Some larger force orders her around and telling her where to go and when. She is kept in line through the fear of not knowing what will happen if the connection is severed. I believe that Butler uses the time travel as a parallel for actual slavery. Much like we want to avoid talking about it because it makes us uncomfortable to think that something so terrible could have actually happened, Butler approaches slavery from not-so bracing angles as well as head on. By using a parallel she eases her reader in. 

Alice

            While chatting away on Tuesday about all the terrible things in Kindred, it became clear that the biggest problem for most of us is the clichéd, flat characters.  Each character is a stereotype of a person in the antebellum South that Butler uses to fill a role.  For instance, Sarah plays the typical “Mammy” of a plantation, the house slave who practically runs the show; Tom Weylin represents the cruel white plantation owner; Tess is the powerless slave who becomes the white men’s plaything until they tire of her; Jake Edwards is the heartless, power crazed slave driver.  Everyone has a very recognizable part—they are characters that can be found in any novel about slavery.  But while we were discussing the boring-ness of it all, I started to wonder how Alice plays into this stereotypical characterization.  She certainly isn’t the submissive toy like Tess, but she doesn’t actually stand up for herself to Rufus.  Her mood swings and attitude towards Dana are hard to read and to understand.  She is often angry, but usually sad, and we never know exactly why.  Of course her husband was sold and she was forced into slavery, but why does she come off as so much angrier than Sarah, who has also had atrocious things done to her.  It’s almost like we are finally given a character with depth, one who isn’t pigeonholed like the others on the plantation and who has more of a personality than Dana….almost.  I mean doesn’t it make you want more? I want to understand how Alice feels, hear more about her days on the run, and actually get a well-developed character.  Perhaps it’s because we only get to know Alice through Dana’s eyes, but I would love to read from Alice’s perspective, to see what an “insider” things and feels, particularly one who seems to have such strong emotions.  Though unlikable for the most part, Alice intrigues me and makes me wonder, far more than any other characters.

Wow, What a Terrible Epilogue

I'll be the first to admit it's easy to close your mind to a book once you've decided you don't care for it--whether on the basis of style, theme, or plot. It's not a tendency found only in students--just think of the editors and publishers who reject a manuscript after reading the first page. But because the former group must trust the latter group to put good (or at least marketable) books on the shelves, the question "why this book?" hangs in the air, demanding a satisfactory and ironclad line of reasoning.

As comparative literature students, (or really, as readers in general), we might feel cheated or empty if we cannot answer this question. When we get to the end of the book and there is no moment of illumination, no "Eureka!" or "I get it now!" we can react in one of two ways: either the book is a poor one, or its messages are simply above us (i.e. we didn't try hard enough or are not smart enough). In a classroom setting or when reading books generally considered to be "literature," I usually react in the latter manner.

However, I am learning to challenge my reading material. My initial, not-so-positive reaction to Kindred was a moment at which I knew I didn't care for the book, but more importantly, I knew why. Oftentimes, I've commiserated with classmates about how much we hate the book we've been assigned (e.g. reading 1984 in 8th grade and not understanding a bit of it), but that's largely mob psychology. I arrived at my conclusions by myself. Maybe they're not the deepest observations I could make about a text, but you've got to start somewhere, right? You don't have to assume that everything you read in a literature course is inarguably good literature. You don't even have to agree that the professor has a "good" reason for assigning said good literature. But I have chosen to trust our professor, and want earnestly to understand what it is that this book is supposed to offer me, besides verbal target practice. 

So here I am, pocketing my skepticism as instructed. Let me set aside my complaints about cardboard characters. Let me believe that the text is more effective at getting its message across with these characters written as they are, lackluster dialogue and all. Um, here I go.

If Butler has written a plot-driven novel, it follows that it does not much matter who specifically is involved in the plot, but only what type of person. Perhaps Butler felt that too many details about her characters would cloud her purpose. If she's trying to teach us a lesson about the continuity of racial and gender-based discrimination (and it looks like she might be), she needs only representatives of those conflicting groups, not individuals. This makes Kindred more an exercise in didacticism than a work of art. If you're trying to teach a child that two plus two equals four, you say, "If Timmy has two apples and Francine gives him two more, how many apples will Timmy have?"not "If Timmy, a juvenile delinquent with an inferiority complex and a prematurely receding hairline, steals two apples from his neighbor's tree, and then trades a pack of cigarettes to Francine for two more apples, what is the probability that Timmy will become a hustler?" I personally find the second question much more interesting, but that's just me...

Anyway, ineffective tangents aside, maybe I've been using a microscope when I should have been using a panoramic lens. I was too focused on my dislike of Butler's style to notice the inequality between Kevin and Dana in their own time, for example. I won't say I like this book, but I will say I'll give it another chance.

...

(But really, Octavia Butler, "'And now that the boy is dead, we have some chance of staying that way.'"? That's your last line? Way to be morbid, and just totally off). 

Okay, okay, I'm done. 

The Fair Monster

"'He won't whip you for following my orders. He's a fair man..... I said fair, not likable'" (Butler, 134).

From the very first time Dana time travels to the 1800s, Tom Weylin seems like the "head honcho" of evil, the base from which all the rest of the evil on the plantation stems. He seems to be not a complex, realistic character but in stead just plain bad. However, the further in Kindred I read, the more I see that Tom Weylin is actually, in my opinion, one of the most well-developed, believable characters in the novel. To me,  it is not what he does but how Dana reacts to what he does that seems crafted. He is a weak person, and the power society has randomly granted him due to the color of his skin is the only secure thing he has to go on. Therefore Dana's education scares him. He, although seemingly unconsciously, realizes that while his power depends on the viewpoints of society, Dana's power in knowledge is innate; no one can take that from her. As much as he abuses Rufus, Tom Weylin does not only allow but also encourage his son to become more educated than him. By letting Dana teach Rufus, Tom Weylin gives him the chance that he himself never had, and therefore actually allows him to progress more towards the 1900s world where Dana was born. Although in many ways he hates and looks down on Dana, he sees how crucial a part of Rufus' life she is, and in a weird way, even respects her.
Therefore what seems more unlikely to me is how Dana responds to him. When talking with Rufus she says,  "He wasn't a monster at all. Just an ordinary man who sometimes did the monstrous things his society said were legal and proper." (Butler, pg. 134) It is hard for me to believe that Dana could see him as anything other than a monster. I think that is one of Butler's flaws in creating Dana as a character: she forgives too easily. She accepts the time travel; she accepts her place in the past; but how easily she accepts being abused and seeing others abused in such horrendous ways makes her a creepy person. She may realize that Tom Weylin is not a monster in retrospect, but for her to claim this whilst on the plantation seems almost eerie.
Rufus' assessment of his father being "fair, not likable" is, ironically a fair one. I think in this passage his insight in fact overrides Danas': he realizes someone can be a fair monster, or make fair yet harmful decisions. Because of this I am curious to see how Tom Weylin and Rufus' relationship plays out in the rest of the novel.

Savior (Or Not)

        Since we basically just hated on Kindred in class on Tuesday (in deep, literary, ways, but still), I would like to step away from judging the book and focus on analyzing a particular scene that caught my interest. This is the scene where Dana goes to Alice and tells her that Rufus would like to sleep with her, and Alice accuses Dana of being the “mammy” of the household, the black woman who helps “white folks keep n-----s down” (167). I find this accusation very interesting, especially since there seems to be some truth to it. You would think that Dana would have assumed the role of the activist in the household because of her progressive (at least for the 1810’s) views. However, even though she does try to teach Nigel to read, and even advises Alice to run away, she does take on a sort of in between place in the household. She will never be accepted as equal by the whites because of their ingrained racism, and the blacks of the household see her as above them because she is so well-spoken and literate, and also because she associates with white people (particularly Kevin) in ways that are unfamiliar to them. I find this an interesting way that Butler breaks a stereotype that people have about saviors. The reader would believe that since Dana has more knowledge and is from the future, that the black slaves would follow her and she would try and lead them to freedom. However, heroism is not always so cut and dry. Dana has little to no power in the 1810’s, and even then she still has to try and preserve her own eventual life, a conflict of right and wrong that has some unexpected grey areas. Sometimes she is presented with a choice between saving her own life and doing the “right thing,” and she does not the heroic, but the rational action and saves her own life.

Too Many Treats

           Rufus sucks. I liked him better when he was an innocent child because the older he gets, the more he just manipulates people in order to get what he wants. This is what bothers me the most about him- the fact that he refuses to make compromises and actually gets everything that he desires.

            Dana is sent back to save Rufus' life when Isaac is beating him up for trying to rape Alice. Rufus likes Dana, so this is already like giving a treat to a dog that peed on a rug: he misbehaves and then Dana comes back to him. Then, Isaac and Alice are caught and Rufus gets the satisfaction of seeing Isaac beaten and sent to the South. Next he takes advantage of the opportunity and buys away Alice's freedom: he owns the woman he loves whether she likes it or not now. How many treats is that now? Three!

            Some time goes by where Rufus has Dana help bring Alice back to health and he does not harm anyone. But as soon as Alice is better, he blackmails Dana into forcing Alice to spend the night with him. He brought Dana back to this time and Dana cannot escape, in fact she is becoming more a part of it, and she feels the need to protect the people she loves here. So, Dana does what he asks and Rufus gets Alice whenever he wants. Two more treats right there.

            To make sure Dana is always there, Rufus doesn't send her letters to Kevin, though he tells her that he does. One more bad action and he is rewarded with having Dana for longer. When she discovers this, she tries to run away and is caught and whipped. Rufus gets another treat because she is punished and he knows she won't try to run again.

            Rufus tries to rape a woman and is given five treats for it. He lies to Dana and is given two treats. Just because he is born as a white man, he is given anything he wants without even trying and he knows it. I hope as the novel continues Dana is able to change him before he acts so badly to her that she decides not to come to his rescue.  

P.S. The title was my sad attempt to create a title that could be ironically related to Halloween.