Rachel Heinen
Dr. Bolis
ENGL 1301W
3 March 2023
Analytical Response #4 - Kindred In the novel Kindred, by Octavia Butler, there are many instances of direct and indirect characterization. Direct characterization involves the technique of directly telling the readers something about a character while indirect characterization involves showing the reader through actions and dialogue. An excellent example of direct characterization is how Butler directly tells the readers right away in the novel that Dana is African American. Butler chose to use direct over indirect characterization for this aspect of Dana’s identity because of its importance to the plot of the novel. If Butler had done this directly, the readers would take longer to realize,
Analyzing Character Development: Dana Octavia Butler’s novel, Kindred, provides a unique look into slavery in the antebellum South through the eyes of Edana Franklin, a black woman living in the late 20th century, who is suddenly sent through time to the early 19th century where she is suddenly faced with the task of protecting her ancestor, Rufus, from many dangers in order to ensure her existence in the present. Dana begins her adventure with no knowledge of how or why she has been given this responsibility and, as a result, must adapt to her new and unfamiliar surroundings. As the novel progresses, the reader sees Dana’s internal battle with herself as she decides whether or not Rufus is worth saving, or if she should let Rufus die
In his “’No.’ : The Narrative Theorizing of Embodied Agency in Octavia Butler’s Kindred,” Bast underscores humanity’s desire for agency, one’s “ability to reach decision[s] about themselves and [express them]” and how one’s agency can benefit a society or a community (Bast 151). In the beginning of his article, Bast labels this decision-making and expression as beneficial and necessary for a community, while simultaneously underlining society’s limitations put on mankind’s freedoms such as discrimination, prejudice, or injustice. Nevertheless, he follows up by stating that it is simply human instinct to want to express thoughts even if other factors oppress them, undermining these social limitations.
Octavia E. Butler's novel Kindred tells the tale of American slavery from a more modern-day perspective through time travel. The novel includes many themes and recurring motifs, but it also includes many different characters with different motivations and personalities that all go through some sort of character development. No one character follows a certain archetype commonly found in a lot of other literary works, and it makes the story engaging and more realistic. First off is Dana, the main character of the story. At the novel's start, Dana has experience with doing hard labor to barely make a living, but her development starts after she travels back to the Weylin plantation.
“It was dangerous to educate slaves, they warned. Education made blacks dissatisfied with slavery,”--or so Rufus’s neighbors claim as they observe his liability of allowing slaves to have even the slightest form of education. In the novel, Kindred, composed by Octavia E. Butler, Dana strives to maintain agency, or power over situations and personal encounters, as she navigates the Antebellum South after being miraculously teleported through time. While exploring this oppressive society, Dana turns to using knowledge from 1976, the time era she came from, in order to gain agency over others who automatically have more power than her, such as Rufus, the son of a plantation owner she is tasked with helping.
An example of the author using indirect characterization is when Hassan is being attacked following the kite-fighting tournament, Amir doesn't take any action to help him because all he is thinking about is the kite, calling it, "my key
In the following paragraphs I will use the main points to present Hurst using indirect characterization in the story “The Scarlet Ibis” throughout 4 quotes and explanations. The thesis states, Hurst uses indirect characterization to teach readers that selfishness can have positive and negative outcomes. Positive outcomes can come from selfishness Brother teaches doodle to walk because he is embarrassed that doodle’s crippled.
Prabesh Acharya Mr.Cowell IB English 18 May 2023 Analysis on Symbolism Kindred by Octavia E. Butler is a novel which takes the reader through 2 different time periods while following the perspective of Dana, an African- American woman who is forced into traveling back and forth from 1979 Los Angeles, California to Antebellum Maryland. She is forced to travel accordingly to the dangers which Rufus, her ancestor faces. The complexities of racial identity are displayed as she is forced to navigate the horrors of Slavery day to day inorder to ensure her existence in the present. Octavia E. Butler's use of literary devices such as Symbolism, Foreshadowing and Irony among others help to portray a sense of suspense, anticipation, and bottomless
A normality in the literary world is that texts deeply nestled in the crosshairs of biopolitics, gender, nationalism, and other identity particularities often fall victim to one sided and dogmatic cultural critiques. Critic after critic find difficulty regarding how to analyze and essentially read a novel where intersectionality is intrinsic to its framework such as Kindred, because it does not fit the fairly common singular literary theory mold. This notion is articulated and defended in “"Some Matching Strangeness": Biology, Politics, and the Embrace of History in Octavia Butler's "Kindred"” where Robertson explores Butler’s usage of Dana’s body to confront universal truths and to cement the idea that Dana is in a historical paradox due
Dana and Rufus’s Relationship Ever wonder what it's like to have a changing relationship with a plantation owner's son back in the 1800’s? Dana Franklin is a younger African-American woman married to Kevin Franklin who is a middle-aged man. Dana travels from California in 1976 back to the early 1800’s whenever Rufus is in trouble. Rufus is a plantation owner son and is also the father of Dana’s ancestor. Dana’s travels are random; she gets lightheaded and dizzy when she is about to travel.
She becomes a witness to how a vulnerable little boy turns into a selfish, malevolent and cruel slave master. In every chapter of the novel, Dana has been transported to a certain period of time and observes significant changes in the behavior of Rufus, due to the influence of the environment. Therefore, Rufus is more of a product of Nurture, rather than Nature. His father, Tom Weylin, is influential in how Rufus
Dana comes to face with so many misfortunes throughout the novel, being continuously whipped and beaten, and almost even raped and killed. The way the author Butler tells the story relies on the main character Dana and her ability to time travel. The metaphor of time travel is used highly in this novel, it is used to show the passage of time but to also show how easy it is for people to get used to the idea and existence of slavery. All while Dana gets used to time travel and slavery as
An example of indirect characterization would include “...Know yourself. Love yourself. Be a good friend. Be a kind of hope and substance…” This doesn’t exactly tell you about Mim, but it explains what she aspires to be. She wants to be a wise young lady, which the author doesn’t come right out and say it, but he implies that those are her goals.
Introduction Authors use characterization to give the reader better understanding of what the character is like. In "Lamb to the Slaughter" a series of Literary Devices are used to develop main characters and their feelings about each other. Roald Dahl in "Lamb to the Slaughter" uses conflict, imagery, and direct characterization to develop the love Mary has for her husband so that the reader understands how one thing can change a person but deep down they're still the same person. Paragraph 1 Dahl uses conflict to develop Mary's feelings for her husband.
Situations are defined by choices. Small actions in one moment of time alter the future of what happens forever. In Kindred by Octavia Butler Dana, the main character, is a black women born in 1976, who time travels back to the early 1800’s in order to save her relative, Rufus, a white boy who is the son of the owner of the plantation. Along the way she also meets her other relative, Alice, a slave born free, but enslaved since she helped her husband run away. Alice is owned by Rufus, who is convinced that he is in love with her.
Maryland in 1815, like much of the south, was a hot bed for slavery plantations. For slave owners in particular, it was a benefit if your slaves were not educated, as they would be less likely to question the oppressive treatment, and not adequately be able to express the conditions under which they labored. In the novel Kindred by Octavia Butler, various aspects of education are intertwined throughout, effectively depicting how education and slavery do not go together cohesively. Specifically, in the case of Dana, the novels protagonist, her intelligence led to her owners feeling inferior, which prompted many verbal and physical attacks, an exploitation of her abilities, and the overriding attempt to suppress the education of other slaves