Kindred Character Analysis

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Losing a loved makes life very hard on a person. Many people go through the same thing, but react in very different ways. Some ways are more favorable than others. In the book Kindred by Octavia E. Butler, many of the characters go through this such as Dana, Alice and Rufus. Although the same general thing happens to all of them, they react in different ways, some good and bad. When Dana suddenly gets transported back in time without Kevin with her, she faces the crisis of being away from him very well. They just got married and felt perfectly happy, but certain events forced to be away from him and be lonely for a while. She went through a lot without having someone by her side. For example, she survives through Alice and Rufus’ verbal …show more content…
Rufus captures Alice and her husband Isaac, and he buys Alice but sends Isaac away. So Alice goes from being a free and a married woman, to a slave, never able see her husband again. This is a much harder thing than what Dana has to go through, but she still handles it way worse. Alice is at a very weak point in her life, and she does not know how to control her feelings. Instead of staying strong like Dana does, Alice uses her emotions as a weapon. She takes all of her anger out on Dana. She yells at her and bursts out in anger for no reason, and there Dana is incapable of doing anything but accepting it. “‘Doctor-nigger,’ she said with contempt. ‘Think you know so much. Reading nigger. White-nigger! Why don’t you know enough to let me die?’ (160). Alice takes all of her sadness and her longing for Isaac and puts it into hurtful insults to Dana. She feels angry toward Dana because she won’t let her die, which is controlled by Alice, not Dana. Even though Alice goes through some tough events, it does not make it acceptable to handle her emotions this way. It isn’t a courteous act to make other people suffer just because you went through torture yourself. Alice needs to get her life back together and realize that it could be worse. At least she still has a shelter, food, and her good health. Some people don’t have these things so Alice needs to appreciate the enjoyable things in her life now, and stop taking out her anger on innocent

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