Kindred By Octavia E. Butler: Literary Analysis

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The science-fiction novel Kindred, written by Octavia E. Butler, is an extremely dramatic and fascinating novel that revolves around Dana, an African American writer living in California in the year 1976 and her mysterious trips to pre-Civil War Maryland. How she is being sent back to that time is unknown, but after the initial few trips, she realizes she is being sent back to ensure that her bloodline continues; and this begins with saving a young, white boy named Rufus. This novel forces the reader to be in Dana’s thoughts and actions all the time, as it is written in first person from her point of view. She encounters terrible and repulsive treatments of African American slaves in her trips back, and she is horrified by it. Her “innocence” …show more content…
They both agree that they want to, and Dana goes to talk to her Aunt and Uncle about it, and Kevin goes to talk to his sister about it. Kevin’s sister is disgusted; she refuses to even meet Dana. She is angered that Kevin would marry a black woman, but Kevin claims that this is just because of her husbands, who he refers to as a Nazi, influence. When Dana goes to talk to her aunt and uncle, her aunt approves but her uncle does not. He took it personally as he had always wanted her to marry someone like him. Thus, both of their only relatives have rejected them because they both chose to marry outside of their own race. Here, Butler uses this scene to again portray how different the past and present are when it comes to racism. Kevin’s sister’s husband is twenty years older this her, and according to Kevin, he is what influenced her not to like blacks. Dana 's aunt only approved because she liked the look of mixed-race babies, while her uncle absolutely disapproved and was personally offended. Butler is again playing with a comprising between past and present racial attitudes. Kevin and Dana see no issue in getting married; they love each other for who they are, not their skin color. Their relatives, however, don 't even want to meet them, all they had to hear was that they were a different race, and they refused. While racism might not be totally fixed today, it is much better than it was in the past. This scene helped to understand how frustrating it would feel to have your family reject someone you love solely because he or she is a different race than you. It also reminded me that racism is not totally gone today, but it is dying

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