What Is Octavia Butler Instincttive

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. The “rifle” pointing at Dana was a common method of instilling fear on and violence towards slaves at the time. Due to her dark

Additionally, her instinctive response is something that black people and slaves get punished and hurt for since they were considered inferior to white people at the time; the past to which Dana travels to is dangerous due to the treatment black people received. On her second trip to the past, Dana was almost raped by a white patroller: “I was only able to move a few inches before he pinned me down, but that was far enough for me to discover that the thing I had hit my head on was a heavy stick― a tree limb, perhaps. I grasped it with both hands and brought it down as hard as I could on his head” (Butler 43). In a moment of danger, Dana used her instinct to help ward off her predator. She was “[pinned down]” by a white patroller, whose job in the 1800s included monitoring and disciplining the slaves, but often led to torturing and harassing them in various inhumane ways. Moreover, this violent encounter left Dana defenseless until she “[discovered] the thing [she hit her] head on.” By instinct, she “brought it down hard on his head,” giving her the ability to prevent the rape from proceeding. The danger for black people that is common in the 1800s led to the need for Dana to be instinctive to protect herself. Thus, the characterization of Dana as instinctive helps reveal how dangerous the 1800s is for black people and