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Examples Of Oppression In Kindred

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This section of the paper focuses on the ways in which the African slaves were oppressed in America as documented in Octavia Butler’s novel of Kindred. It elucidates some cases in the novel; including the novel’s writer who experienced the life of slavery to their masters. The paper further gives a prelude on how the owners of the slaves dominated, repressed and subjugated their slaves. According to other sources that Butler used in composing the Kindred, the essays of Andrea Hairston, express the sufferings her fellow slaves including racial discrimination, harsh labor, separation from their families and even rape. She outlines the theme of oppression and power in similar ways. The struggle for power was between the slaves and the owners of plantations who were equally ruling these slaves. However, the novel also shows the struggle for power between the slaves themselves. The slaves were struggling to be in higher or better ranks of slavery that is, the “field-hands” slaves were fighting to become “house slaves.” This was because the slaves who worked in the whites’ homes were entitled to proper housing conditions, could eat better foods and were expected to perform less harsh jobs. …show more content…

These problems were mostly faced by the women who worked there since those roles could mostly be taken up by the females. She gives an example of female slaves who reported rape cases within themselves to maintain their positions of being house slaves. They never had their personal freedoms with their sexual body and could be inhumanly harassed by their owners. This condition of slavery makes Butler create a portrait of emotional charge showing the cruelty in slavery with all the accuracy in history that she can

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