RSS
Home
Discover how long it would take you to be indoctrinated into slavery
Print
Email
RSS
Subscribe
Kindred is a remarkable novel. It answers a question many of us have never had the occasion to answer: how long would it take a modern-day person to get used to the horrors and indignities of the antebellum South? 
Octavia Butler takes us on such a journey in Kindred, one of her most popular novels. It is 1976 when the book opens and Dana is working with ther husband to unpack their Los Angeles apartment. During the unpacking, Dana faints and awakens just in time to save the life of a white plantation owner's son. This begins Dana’s long, wild ride.
She discovers that she has traveled to the 1800s to save her ancestor, Rufus, a reckless young man who, if left for dead, might not grow up to give birth to the girl who ultimately begins Dana’s family tree. So in the interest of self-preservation, Dana repeatedly saves his life at significant risk to her own.
Dana spends hours, days, and sometimes months on Rufus’s plantation as a slave. She is only able to return to modern times when she believes her own life is in danger. When that happens, she has another spell and awakens back in her 20th century home.
She is at first contrary with Rufus, determined to literate the plantation slaves and appalled at the way the slaves acquiesce to their masters. During one of her first visits, Rufus’s mother slaps Dana and her response is wholly unusual.
“I stood very still, gazed down at her with frozen calm. She was three or four inches shorter than I was and proportionately smaller. Her slap hadn’t hurt me much. It simply made me want to hurt her. …
“You filthy black whore! She shouted. “This is a Christian house!”
I said nothing.
“I’ll see you sent to the quarter where you belong!”
Still I said nothing. I looked at her.
“I won’t have you in my house!” She took a step back from me. … It occurred to me that she was a little afraid of me. … Slowly, deliberately, I turned my back and went on sweeping.
During a later visit, Dana tried to escape only to be caught and whipped. Originally, the whipping might have caused her to fear for her life resulting in her return home. But she grew to realize the flogging, although painful, would not result in death. She survived, but the beating made her doubt she would ever try to escape again. She was haunted by her own thoughts: “See how easily slaves are made?”
Soon after her attempted escape, Dana angered Rufus and he sent her to the fields. She had yet to experience that intensity of work, and the overseer beat her constantly. But, again, the pain didn’t result in her return home. She healed and to more quickly settled into a routine with Rufus. One of the other slaves commented on her new attitude.
“Marse Rufe really put the fear of God in you, didn’t he?”
“Fear of … What are you talking about?”
“You run around fetching and carrying…. And half a day in the fields was all it took.”
In just two months, Dana had become completely engrossed in her role as a slave. She recalls, “Slavery is a long slow process of dulling.” Today, we believe if we were ever faced with such atrocities, we’d be able to stand firm, but Butler shows us how quickly we can become programmed for the unthinkable.
Dana’s time travels end when Rufus dies after fathering the young child that will soon become Dana’s ancestor. When Dana finally returns home for the last time, she is surprised to discover – for the first time – an injury th
at results in her losing her arm.
at results in her losing her arm.When asked why Dana had to suffer the amputation during her last voyage through time, Butler responded, “I couldn’t really let her come all the way back. I couldn’t let her return to what she was…and that, I think, really symbolizes her not coming back whole. Antebellum slavery didn’t leave people quite whole.”
Like many of Butler’s books, Kindred forces me to recognize certain sociological realities. After Kindred, I realize that regardless of how we come to stomach such modern-day atrocities as prostitution, abuse, discrimination, and poverty, it always comes at a price. We, as a society, are not left quite whole.
Related Articles:
Add a Comment
.jpg)
Today marks the 50th anniversary of the death of probably one of the most influential authors of the 20th Century (and one of LA’s most notable …
.jpg)
Caveat: My job as the LA Literature Examiner is to write about literature about Los Angeles or written by an author from Los Angeles. I am taking a …
