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The Importance Of Friendship In Octavia Butler's Kindred

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Whether it is reality or books, there are always different types of relationships involved with the main characters. In the antebellum South, white people are taught to be dominant, leading to a feeling of superiority over black people. This leads to a stereotype of what types of relations you should have with those around you, though this leads to the white man doing what he wants and thinks is ok. Rufus is no exception to this matter, as he is raised in an environment with role models who exemplify this stereotype. In Octavia Butler’s Kindred, this environment leads to Rufus and Alice having a warped relationship because of their social standing, Rufus’ thoughts as he grows up with the conflicting views of a white man’s mentality, and Rufus’ action as he realizes the power he holds over Alice. During this time period, Rufus as a white male naturally has a higher social standing than Alice, who is a free black girl. Because of this, Rufus, as a boy, thinks that every person of …show more content…

As a child, he is taught to treat all other races as though they are beneath him, resulting in his expectation of being called master or mister by those around him on the slave farm. When he grows up, Rufus takes on the role of a slave owner and becomes unusually cruel to the one he claims to love. As a slave owner, he abuses the power to keep Alice in place and establishes a master-and-slave relationship, and destroys the childhood he had with her. When Rufus realizes that this is not enough to set her as a slave, he turns into his old man and resorts to threatening and manipulating her to control her. Their relationship goes from innocent childhood friends to master and slave just because of Rufus and his selfish

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