Kindred Commentary

Kindred Analytical Essay

Question:Critically analyze the environment surrounding Rufus. How does his environment shape him? Positively? Negatively? Both? Rufus has had such a confusing life and it has affected him in both a negative and positive way. He was the son of a horrible slave owner and a friend of a great slave.

Rufus’s environment had a negative effect because he grew up in one of the worst times. He grew up in the Antebellum south where there were many slave owners, including his own father. He grew up in a time when slaves were beaten, sold or killed. This was so normal people wouldn’t even blink at the horror. Not only did Rufus think it was okay to mistreat slaves, but also to call them the (n-word). “Your mother always call black people n******, Rufe? Sure, except when she has company. Why not”(25)? Rufus became so accustomed to having everything he wanted handed to him that he never learned the true meaning of work. In his later years as an adult, he still has not liked to write his own

Dana was a positive part of Rufus’s environment because she was the one who really helped him through the good and the bad. Dana tried to help Rufe reach a realization that slavery was clearly wrong and tried . But in the end not much changed. “What’s he done to you?” ‘Sent me to a field, had me beaten, made me spend nearly eight months sleeping on the floor of his mother’s room, sold people. . . He’s done plenty, but the worst of it was to other people ” (245). Rufus had a very complicated life. He was affected by the Antebellum south both in a positive and a negative way. Sure he was white, but that just means he wasn’t sold, killed or beaten. He was also so used to be getting everything handed to him that when he wanted something done for him he got someone to do it. Rufus didn’t like to write because he never really had to do it before so he had Dana do it for