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.