Trauma In Octavia Butler's Kindred

Slavery in the American South     Slaves in the American South longed for freedom, fair treatment, and better lives. Slaves were not treated fairly and dealt with many hardships in their daily lives. Life was not easy for slaves and one way that made life difficult was physical pain. One slave named Fredrick Douglass was sent to be with a slave breaker and slave-breaker means someone who would try to destroy the slave’s soul. As it states above slaves were sent to slave-breakers and so this is one of the struggle they had to go through in their life is getting their souls broke down.

This time period is important due to the devastating actions that happened to Africans and what they did to change the course of history. There were many different approaches to slavery and some were violent. Nat Turner, among other violent African slave rebellionist, gathered weapons and men and began to start a rebellion to slavery. Although, most slaves took a violent approach others like Harriet Tubman began to free slaves through the Underground Railroad. Harriet Tubman was a major contribution to the freeing of slaves through her background, her escape, her influence in the underground railroad and her legacy.

Being Black in America After, reading “Nineteen Fifty-five” by Alice Walker and “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin. Both stories deal with struggles of African American people. I sit down at this point and ponder around what it is to be Black in America. I comprehend exactly how there are countless influences that shakes African American folks day-to-day. One of the most negative forces destroying at young black people in America today is the widespread art, music, and literatures appearances of what a black individual is supposed to look like and how that individual is supposed to convey themselves.

“I closed my eyes again remembering the way I had been hurt—remembering the pain.” (Butler 20) Dana, the main character in Octavia Butler’s Kindred stated this quote to emphasize the great amount of pain she has experienced in her life, and how focusing and remembering the pain keeps her from losing her grip on reality. Dana, takes the reader in a journey back to the slave period through the antebellum south and allows the reader to travel time through the eyes of a modern African-American woman and experience all the heartache and misery she experienced during those times. Octavia Butler’s science fiction novel Kindred explores not only the unimaginable horrors of slavery; but how those horrors and the time travel affects everyone. Dana, the main character of this novel

Even a century after slavery was outlawed in the United States, black people were still not seen as equals to whites. Jim Crow laws took an entire group of people that in all reality were not different than those enforcing these laws and made them feel as though they were worth less than animals. Even black people who worked incredibly hard to fight through racism and reach their goals weren’t afforded the same privileges as white people. An examination of the book “Coming of Age in Mississippi,” shows Moody’s strong belief on different races, and the Jim Crow laws and beliefs by those living in the South, it becomes clear that racism made and still makes a very negative impact not just on a black person 's emotions and thoughts but on their ability to live the life they want without interruption or discrimination from

“The Hardships of a Slave” The autobiography Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave depicted the life of a slave during the 1800’s. Not only did it explain the life of Frederick Douglass, but also, the life of his family and friends around him. It showed the true severe and harsh treatment of African Americans during this time. Around this time, being an African American meant you were treated as less than human, property, an animal. Slaves were pushed and chastised simply because of the color of their skin, something they had no control over.

Although, there were times of struggle and domination of African Americans during the slavery times of the dominance that was especially hard for African Americans to survived. The huge impacts of oppression, families were extremely affected in different way that included: physical, intellectual, social and emotional abuse imposed by their slave masters, thus, causing gaps between family members. The obvious and cruel histories occur to both Lorraine Hansberry’s (Beneatha) from A Raisin in the Sun and August Wilson’s (Berniece) from The Piano Lesson. Both authors challenge the issue of identity and family ties in their plays. Both families in the two plays are forced to deal with the economic, social, and moral pressures forced since their ancestor experience slavery.

The Help has a plot that tells about American history and how times have changed over the decades. It shows what the lives were like of many different people in the 1960’s. During that time, there were many racial boundaries that stopped African Americans from being free as well as separated them from the same rights that the whites had. The theme is represented by the main conflict in this story, whereby a white lady named Skeeter writes a book to show the lives of African American maids in the 1960’s. In addition, she writes about the struggles of keeping it a secret without everyone in Jackson, Mississippi finding out.

Her struggles are linked to social illness of racism and poverty, which she had faced in the past. It appears that Johnson is psychologically disturbed as she tries to escape from her lost past of heritage and identity. At this point Lebert Joseph becomesa fundamental part of Avey’s historical struggle to survive. Avey was raised by her great aunt Cuney, who would always tell her stories about their family heritage and ancestry. Aunt Cuney wants Avey to pass her cultural heritage to next generation and tells her the stories of Ibo slaves’ hardships traveling on ship.

Survival:Putting Trust in Others In the novel Kindred, the main story centers on the struggles and hardships the main character, Dana Franklin faces as she is stuck in the Antebellum South, a world that isn’t so accepting of her. She desperately tries to return to her own time in Los Angeles 1976. The fact that Dana is a person of color and is stuck in the Antebellum South makes her subject to cruel, bitter treatment by white slaveholders. In Kindred, Octavia Butler describes survival as putting trust in others and making decisions one might regret otherwise; Dana’s personal decisions affected not only herself but others including Rufus, Alice, and Kevin. In one of Dana’s trips back to the Antebellum South, Dana and Kevin were separated in a different time with Dana returning without Kevin.

Inhumane What is a slave? The word slave in the dictionary is as stated; a person who is the legal property of another and is forced to obey them. Many have heard the word slave before but few are familiar with the brutality and horrors slaves endured in the past and still sometimes today. Through the book Kindred, written by Octavia E Butler, the movie Roots, Incidents in the life of a slave girl seven years concealed, and the diary of a slave we are exposed to some of the gruesome and appalling ways slaves were treated. Not only are we exposed to the physical inhumanity but we also get a glimpse of the emotional expedition slaves overcame and overcome on a day to day basis.

In the United States, two groups of people were largely marginalized, black people and women. Glossing over the treachery inflicted during slavery, in the 1800-1900s a set of laws known as the Jim Crow laws, made black lives remarkable difficult. At a similar time, women were being made inferior to men, partly by law and partly by a sociaterial system of sexism. Both groups made so inferior that neither group has fully recovered. The repercussions of institutionalized prejudice are far too great for any group to overcome.

The author tells how sad is the life of a slave girl and how, as soon as she is old enough, and against her will, she would learn about the malice of the world. Meanwhile, male slaves rarely suffered from such abuse, and different from women, slavery mostly affected their manliness. As Douglas says while describing one of the oversees: "It was enough to chill the blood and stiffen the hair of an ordinary man to hear him talk." By saying so, he proved how, at a very patriarchal time, male slaves completely lost the bravery and "superiority" often used to describe white men. Therefore, slavery did have some different effects towards women and men, but always towards a worse condition.

The South was a slave society, with nearly every aspect of life touched by the presence of a brutal institution rooted in the dehumanization of black people and the supremacy of white males. At the time of Celia’s trial, Southerners felt that this way of life was being threatened by heated politics playing out both in Kansas and at home. Her fate was guided by the decisions and reactions of Southerners living in this uncertain atmosphere. These decisions, though they are what logically led to Celia’s death, were inevitably and inseparably connected to the institution of slavery. In a sense, the individual decisions were merely a means to an end, an end decided by the fact that Celia lived in a slave society that couldn’t afford the cost of her justice.

She was very lonely in much in pain. The loneliness only got worse and the pain got unbearable. Hester was also a victim because, “Her imagination was somewhat affected, and, had she been of a softer moral and intellectual fibre, would have been still more so, by the strange and solitary anguish of her life”. (Hawthorne pg 85) The pain she went through started shaping her into a different person. She is now a totally different person and the pain only got worse, an example of this is; “Hester Prynne did not now occupy precisely the same position in which we beheld her during the earlier periods of her ignominy”.