Octavia Butler's Kindred: Literary Analysis

The novel, Kindred, by Octavia Butler is about a young African American woman, Dana, who finds herself being transported back and forth from the past, early 19th Century, to her present day life taking place in 1976. The condition under which she is brought back to the past is when a particular slave owner’s life is put in danger. His name is Rufus Weylin who is not only a vicious slave owner but also the father of Dana’s ancestor. Despite the hurt and abuse that Rufus inflicts on her and his sex slave, Alice, she must keep him alive long enough so that his son can be born; who is the one who begins Dana’s family line. Furthermore, after Dana is transported to the past due to incidents causing Rufus’s life to be in danger, the only time she …show more content…
He knows that what he does is wrong, but he also knows that if he ever left them, his slaves would be sold to another slave owner who would not have a hint of compassion or remorse towards his slaves. That is where the theme of love begins. As Dana is living through this slavery period, she is experiencing so many different emotions, but the one that keeps her strong is love; the love for her family and the love for the slaves she’s with to help them reach freedom. She has this love/hate relationship with Rufus. She does everything in her power to keep him alive because she knows without him, she would be nonexistent and would not have her present-day life with her husband. But she hates him so much because of the awful things that he has done to not only her, but to the others around her who have become her “family”, including the repeated raping of …show more content…
Since reading, I have learned that I never truly understood the harsh impact of slavery. The amount of pain, tolerance and degradation that slaves had to endure is disgusting. And what I feel is the worst of it all, is how incredibly dependent the slaves had to be to their slave-owners and vice versa. I couldn’t imagine having to be considered property, abused, and then be dependent on my abuser. That’s no way to live and it’s a shame that it will forever be a part of our history and unfortunately our present and future. Although slavery is gone, there is still an abundance of racism in our country which stems from slavery. All races are supposed to be treated equally and even though our country has come a tremendous way from where we were with racism, we still have a long road ahead of us. Just recently, the media has been slammed with racism. The police and the Black Lives Matter campaign is just one example. I believe that some people like to use racism when it’s convenient for them and although it’s a serious matter, our society has turned it into petty fight between the