ipl-logo

An Analysis Of Octavia Butler's Kindred

1802 Words8 Pages

Writers utilize their literary abilities as a tool to create a piece of work that transmits a meaningful message that will create an impact on their audience. This is the case of Octavia Butler’s Kindred, a historical science-fiction novel evolving around a twenty six year old woman named Dana who lives in Los Angeles during 1976. What makes the story unique is the fact that the plot alternates between the past and the present as Dana travels through time from the commodity of her house in 1976 Los Angeles to Maryland during the antebellum period. The catalyst for these trips to the past is the near death experiences of the son of rich southern planter, a boy named Rufus Weylein, who is one of Dana’s ancestors. Every single time Rufus is put in a situation where he fears for his life, Dana is summoned to the past in order to save Rufus’ life in order for her …show more content…

One of the main motifs discussed in the book is the idea of fragmentation, which Butler utilizes to illustrate the way any sort of separation from what is familiar can cause a person to suffer and be harshly damaged. As the novel progresses, Butler also includes instances in which Dana has to perform certain activities in order to survive in her trips to the past. These events are placed in the plot in order to exemplify the way in which the entire situation of time traveling puts plenty of distress upon Dana. Furthermore, this distress is one more example of how strange and shocking situations can result in damage for the person who experiences them. Butler also charges the plot with symbolism in order to convey this message. She utilizes symbols that either represent stability and well being, symbols that stand for struggle and survival and symbols that represent oppression and

Show More
Related

  • Analyzing Character Development In Octavia Butler's Kindred '

    1936 Words  | 8 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Summary Of Sojourner Truth By Octavia Butler

    152 Words  | 1 Pages

    Butler did an excellent job. She utilizes time travel as a plot. She followed the two main rules of time travel for the most part in a way no drastic changes happened beside Dana losing her arm. Butler gave her limited ability to bring things from her time into the past, which is often another forbidden rule.

    Read More

  • Embodied Agency In Octavia Butler's Kindred

    886 Words  | 4 Pages

    This analysis of agency would be useful for a person pushing for more freedom of expression or freedom of speech. All in all, Bast’s successfully supports his perspective of agency through his evaluation of Kindred, and the comparison of the human instinct of expression to Dana’s want to create change with her time traveling powers constructs a powerful parallel between the novel and Bast’s article. The novel Kindred, however, serves to create an important message about society on its own, as well. Octavia Butler’s Kindred is a science-fiction novel that depicts the life experiences of a young black woman named Dana, who is given the task of traveling back in time to the era of slavery to save her ancestors, but is unjustly oppressed and has most, if not all, of her rights stripped away from her simply due to her race and gender. As a result, the most prominent overarching theme of the novel is the inequality of power and social status given to people of varying gender and race, and the struggle that those people must go through to gain as much freedom and equality as possible.

    Read More

  • Privilege In Tangerine

    251 Words  | 2 Pages

    It is a commentary on social injustices. To express these injustices, Tangerine uses symbols. Symbols are objects that exist to convey an idea. these symbols can be powerful since they can portray a concept

    Read More

  • What Is Octavia Butler Instincttive

    396 Words  | 2 Pages

    Octavia E. Butler characterizes Dana as instinctive to highlight the belief of how dangerous it is in the early 1800s. On her first trip to the past, Dana saves Rufus, a young white boy drowning in a river. After performing artificial respiration, ultimately saving his life, she is held at gunpoint: “I turned, startled, and found myself looking down the barrel of the longest rifle I had ever seen. I heard a metallic click, and I froze, thinking I was going to be shot for saving the boy’s life” (Butler 14). Dana finds herself in a life-threatening situation after her instinctive action of saving a boy from drowning.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Kindred By Octavia E. Butler

    913 Words  | 4 Pages

    Kindred is a book written June 1979 by Octavia E. Butler comprised of two genres, historical fiction, and science fiction and as a result, the book classifies into a new genre. This book can be considered a historical fiction because it shows the history of the pre Civil War 1800s when there were still slaves and it shows the perspective of a slave's life in the south. This book can also be considered a science fiction because Dana can time travel. The logistical issues for it cause the effects to be considered science fiction. Kindred can also be called both of these two genres, but the genre it creates is something new.

    Read More

  • Kindred By Octavia Butler: Literary Analysis

    1204 Words  | 5 Pages

    The novel Kindred by Octavia Butler examines issues of racism and slavery throughout America by depicting an African American woman named Dana who, through forced time travel, finds herself in the antebellum south. This story focuses on the violence, exploitation, and abuse of black people in the past. However, through Dana and Kevin's relationship, the novel speculates on the systemic impact racism has systemically on contemporary society. This is highlighted through the struggles present within their interracial marriage and how their dynamics parallel the racism present throughout the book. Kindred explores the ways in which systemic racism has affected and continues to impact society.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Ursula Le Guin's 'Sur'

    1230 Words  | 5 Pages

    Storytelling can be described as a powerful tool, with the ability to reach many different individuals and affect their perspectives through the messages they are conveying. Narratives in a similar sense can have perverse effects on human consciousness, leaving impacts of how we think, feel, imagine, remember and relate. Mitchell states that popular fiction is important to society as it contains many important messages that can be disguised as social transformation or ideological revisioning due to the large and diverse audience that it is able to reach (Mitchell, 2012). The focus will be to examine four different popular fiction narratives from this term and the important messages within them that aid or encourage some aspect of social transformation.

    Read More

  • Comparing The Relationship In Octavia E. Butler's Kindred

    853 Words  | 4 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Comparing Two Different Worlds In For Kindred By Octavia Butler

    1487 Words  | 6 Pages

    For Kindred, Octavia Butler took a different approach on comparing two different worlds. Instead of choosing a simple path to describe two different times, she mashes them together to face reality and show how one relationship could’ve been like the other if they had met in an earlier time. This book shows that you can be from two different times but still be the same just based off your race. Dana and Kevin are from the 1970’s where racism still exist but blacks are free. Rufus and Alice are from the 1820’s where slavery still very well exists and the trading of slaves is still going on.

    Read More

  • Character Analysis Of Rufus Weylin In Octavia Butler's Kindred '

    960 Words  | 4 Pages

    In Octavia Butler’s novel, Kindred, Rufus Weylin is one of the main characters who undergoes a lot of change throughout the novel, making him a round character. A round character is defined as a “major character in a story who encounters contradictory situations and undergoes transformation during this phase. Therefore, the characters does not remain the same throughout the narrative, making their traits difficult to identify from beginning until the end (LiteraryDevice).” The reader, along with Dana, follows Rufus’s growth throughout some major points in his life, from a young boy who forms a bond and friendship with Dana, to when he grows up to be a racist man who ultimately attempts to rape her. However, it is evident that Rufus’s ideology

    Read More

  • A Review Of Laurie Halse Anderson's Fever 1793

    454 Words  | 2 Pages

    Laurie Halse Anderson’s historical fiction book, Fever 1793, takes place in the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is the story of Matilda Cook (Mattie) and her family, and the hardships they go through in the time period when Yellow Fever had struck. In the book, it teaches that during tough times, it is important to step up and take charge. This can be seen through the impact on the characters and author’s craft.

    Read More

  • The Fight For Freedom In Octavia Butler's Kindred

    1598 Words  | 7 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Character Analysis Of Rufus In Octavia Butler's Obsessive Love

    1426 Words  | 6 Pages

    What is Love? Obsessive love can be issued as stalking or overwhelming texts to situations as serious as homicidal or suicidal thoughts or actions; however, obsessive love is not love at all as psychotherapist Susan Forward puts it. Yet, on the other hand, many psychologists such as Freud believe that environmental factors cause a neurological disability that makes one convinced that he or she is truly in love with the victim; for example, people who have had rejecting parents or problems with the separation process in their childhoods can lead to this problem. These actions and behaviors are blatant to the character Rufus in Octavia Butler’s Kindred. This researcher will examine how Rufus uses some of these distraught actions and behaviors

    Read More

  • Education In Octavia Butler's Kindred

    1843 Words  | 8 Pages

    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

    Read More

More about An Analysis Of Octavia Butler's Kindred

Open Document