Dana Is No Friend

Today in class, Sarah said that while she reads Kindred, she enjoys it, but afterwards she feels as if what she read had very little substance. I feel similarly. While reading the end of Kindred, I was attached to the characters to a certain extent, and somewhat enthralled by the storyline. I experienced physical pain when Dana walked into the barn and saw Alice hanging there. I, like Dana, didn’t want to believe that it was Alice “hanging there. Hanging by the neck” (248). However, now that I have finished the book, all of my feelings for the characters have disappeared, just as Dana vanishes between the worlds. In her writing, Butler achieves a disconnect from the actual characters. The reader travels between 1976 and 1815, and also experiences the conflicting emotions of both enjoying the novel and despising it. Butler demonstrates that time travel is a buffer, and that the characters serve in that role as well. Dana is an anchor to present day life instead of a character with whom to emotionally connect, allowing the reader to explore the horrors of slavery. Usually when I read a fictional book, I am able to bond emotionally with the characters and retain that connection after I complete the novel. The flatness of the characters in Kindred allows me to focus mainly on the events instead of on my connection to the fictional people. I think that the reason I am annoyed after reading Kindred is that I feel as if I have been cheated out of the fictional relationship with characters in a book that I have grown to enjoy having.