Octavia Butler's Kindred
For this week’s reading I chose to take on Kindred by Octavia Butler. While I
reading I found myself getting even more immersed in the story and characters
than I did with other science fictions novels and short stories we have read in
class. The only apparent reason I could think of as to why this novel was an
easier read than Butler’s other works was because it wasn’t steeped in heavy
science fiction vocabulary that is challenging to pronounce, and Butler's
writing was simple and straightforward. She moved the reader through the story
quickly making it nearly impossible for the reader to put down.
The novel introduces a character named Dana, a black woman living in Los Angeles in 1976, who has unwillingly time travelled to 1815 to save the life of a young boy in Maryland's. It turns out this boy, Rufus, is one of her ancestors white slave owner’s son. Dana continues to be pulled into time travel back to this plantation where the more she travels back in time the longer she stays and the only way she can get back to the present day is if she is a life threatening situation. In the time she travels to the plantation she is forced to live the life of a slave; being whipped and beaten and nearly raped twice. Even being forced to watch other slaves be whipped and families destroyed. Somehow she finds solace in the hard work, and it becomes an escape from the horrors of slave life as she watches as the small son of a plantation owner (Rufus) grows up to be a cruel, evil, volatile slave owner and to be her great-grandfather many generations removed.
Kindred is about slavery and the scars it has left on American society cloaked in a science fiction novel. Butler’s very open and accurate portrayal of the physical, emotional and psychological abuse inflicted on innocent lives really made me personally, feel like a kindred spirit with the characters in the novel, though I could never truly relate. Something I never understood why in the novel, Dana was from present day (1976) so why would she even help Rufus at all? Especially when he became older she came to his defense when he committed heinous and terrible acts, but I did notice a truly redeeming theme in the novel. It’s setting in Maryland, where the famed Frederick Douglass was once a slave. Being a history buff, I picked up on the fact that Butler chose the setting as a place where the slaves could realistically potentially escape. The novel is aimed toward young adults, so it did not get too involved in the gore and brutality though part of me wish it did, because it was the reality of the situation and it was a moderately quick novel to read.
The novel introduces a character named Dana, a black woman living in Los Angeles in 1976, who has unwillingly time travelled to 1815 to save the life of a young boy in Maryland's. It turns out this boy, Rufus, is one of her ancestors white slave owner’s son. Dana continues to be pulled into time travel back to this plantation where the more she travels back in time the longer she stays and the only way she can get back to the present day is if she is a life threatening situation. In the time she travels to the plantation she is forced to live the life of a slave; being whipped and beaten and nearly raped twice. Even being forced to watch other slaves be whipped and families destroyed. Somehow she finds solace in the hard work, and it becomes an escape from the horrors of slave life as she watches as the small son of a plantation owner (Rufus) grows up to be a cruel, evil, volatile slave owner and to be her great-grandfather many generations removed.
Kindred is about slavery and the scars it has left on American society cloaked in a science fiction novel. Butler’s very open and accurate portrayal of the physical, emotional and psychological abuse inflicted on innocent lives really made me personally, feel like a kindred spirit with the characters in the novel, though I could never truly relate. Something I never understood why in the novel, Dana was from present day (1976) so why would she even help Rufus at all? Especially when he became older she came to his defense when he committed heinous and terrible acts, but I did notice a truly redeeming theme in the novel. It’s setting in Maryland, where the famed Frederick Douglass was once a slave. Being a history buff, I picked up on the fact that Butler chose the setting as a place where the slaves could realistically potentially escape. The novel is aimed toward young adults, so it did not get too involved in the gore and brutality though part of me wish it did, because it was the reality of the situation and it was a moderately quick novel to read.
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