Examples Of Paranoia In Kindred

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"We study the past to understand the present; we understand the present to guide the future." -- William Lund. In Kindred by Octavia E. Butler, Dana is a black woman celebrating her birthday with her white husband when she is transported back in time to the antebellum south. During her time in the antebellum south, she meets a boy named Rufus who she has to save over and over so that he will grow up and be the father of one of Dana’s ancestor. Each time Dana is transported back in time Rufus is growing more obsessive over Dana. In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, the whole atmosphere of the play is paranoia because people in the play didn’t know who was next to be accused of being a witch. The time period during this play is during the Salem …show more content…
In Kindred, Rufus doesn’t really care about how all his slaves and Dana feel as long as he is happy and content with his life. One example is when Rufus falls in love with Alice and takes her away from her husband and begins raping her. Dana realizes “that he loved the woman - to her misfortune. There was no shame in raping a black woman, but there could be shame in loving one.” (Butler 124). Rufus is in love with Alice and doesn 't care about how Alice feels even though Alice doesn’t love him back. Rufus then just keeps on raping her because he thinks this will satisfy him and eventually Alice will love him. If Alice stood up for herself and told Rufus that she doesn’t love him and that he needs to move on then Rufus might have notice that Alice has feelings too and he might have noticed how she was feeling. In The Crucible, Abigail and her girls keep on blaming everyone that they didn’t like in Salem and they didn’t care about how everyone else would be affect by being put on trial. Eventually “‘there be so many cows wanderin’ the highroads, now their masters are in the jails, and much disagreement who they will belong to now…”’ (Miller 125) The town fell apart with everyone being in jail because cows were wandering the streets and there was no one to take care of the kids. The girls benefited with everyone in jail because now they didn’t have to deal with all the people they disliked, but on the other side they didn’t care about the town falling apart. If the people in the town stood up for themselves and stopped believing that Abigail and her girls could find witches then they would be powerless. People in the town could have also shown the girls that

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