Examples Of Intertextuality In Kindred By Octavia Butler

Since the mid-term, there have been a number of stories that deal with the issue of race. One story that really dealt with the issue of race was Kindred by Octavia Butler. In Kindred, Dana Franklin is transported back in time whenever her ancestor, Rufus Weylin, is in danger, and when Dana goes to Rufus’s time, she realizes that she is going to a time where African American people are still slaves. Every time Dana goes to help Rufus, she is treated even worse than the last time she had gone back. At one point, Dana is told that she needs to stay on the plantation that Tom Weylin, Rufus’s father, owns because Dana is unable to actually get back to her own time. While Dana is staying on the plantation, her husband, Kevin, is treated much kinder than Dana is, and he eventually tells Dana to try to not get into trouble, especially since she already …show more content…
Intertextuality might have been used in these recent works to help readers create a picture of the main characters of a particular story. In some instances, intertextuality used in the more modern stories helps make the story seem more believable to certain readers. Kindred by Octavia Butler, shows intertextuality by working off of the concept of time travel; however the time travel in this story does not require any kind of machine the way stories such as The Time Machine, and All You Zombies. Kindred plays on the idea that the main character is the only one who can keep their future the way it is by making sure nothing detrimental happens to anyone with a crucial part before this main character is ever born, which is very similar to All You Zombies; even though the main character in All You Zombies is actually each character that is met in the story. The Wicked + The Divine by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie uses intertextuality by making numerous references to beings usually found in mythological works or various religious