kindred critical essay

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Octavia E. Butler

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Welcome to the LitCharts study guide on Octavia E. Butler's Kindred . Created by the original team behind SparkNotes, LitCharts are the world's best literature guides.

Kindred: Introduction

Kindred: plot summary, kindred: detailed summary & analysis, kindred: themes, kindred: quotes, kindred: characters, kindred: symbols, kindred: theme wheel, brief biography of octavia e. butler.

Historical Context of Kindred

Other books related to kindred.

• Full Title: Kindred
• When Published: 1979
• Literary Period: Contemporary literature
• Genre: Fantasy, Science Fiction, Neo-Slave Narrative, Literature
• Setting: California, 1976 and Maryland, pre-Civil War
• Climax: When Rufus finally crosses the line of Dana’s freedom and attempts to rape her, Dana manages to stab Rufus and kill him. She returns to her present, but loses her left arm in the process.
• Antagonist: Tom Weylin, the institution of slavery, racism and discrimination
• Point of View: First person

Extra Credit for Kindred

Contemporary remake. As of 2017, Kindred has been adapted to a graphic novel by writer Damien Duffy and illustrator John Jennings, bringing this visceral account of slavery to a new audience and updating it to address the racial upheaval of recent years in America.

Gender dynamics. Dana, the main character of Kindred , was originally planned to be a male protagonist. Butler then developed a female protagonist in order to explore the ways that women would be treated as if they were weak and safe when they could really be powerful and dangerous.

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Teachers' Guide: Kindred

• Pre-reading
• The Prologue & The River
• The Fall 1-4
• The Fall 5-8
• The Fight 1-10
• The Fight 11-16
• The Rope & The Epilogue
• Final Writing Assessment Options

Supplemental Texts, Resources & Assessments

Pre-reading:.

Octavia Butler's novel Kindred is a tremendously engaging text for students; the narrative structure and ethical dilemmas make a close reading of the novel, through multiple critical lenses, very accessible to students. In order to build on traditional Formalist and Reader Response textual analysis,¹ students can be encouraged to examine Kindred for its postmodern structural experimentation; to consider the novel's contribution to the slave narrative genre (even though the work is fiction)²; or to examine the text through the lens of Postcolonial Theory. ¹ There are several excellent text books for introducing literary theory into the high school classroom: see the supplemental texts list. ² Robert Crossley's critical essay, included in the study guide on page 265, is an excellent resource for students, which discusses the novel as part of the slave narrative genre.

Day 1: Suggested pre-reading homework journal:*

Part 1: Incorporating ideas from the section "Theme, Model, and Vision," explain the difference between theme and message. How is fiction realistic? What does it mean to use a reading "lens" or "filter" according to your homework reading? Part 2: Incorporating ideas from the section "A Dark Vision of Literature," explain what happened to our happy ending. How is the human condition represented in literature? Define Modernism and identify writers (whom you have read) that "fit" into this definition—be sure to explain your reasoning.

• What kinds of experiments have writers of fiction in the 20th century carried out? Why?
• What is the value of literary experiment?
• The answers to the above conceptual questions are not simple, but considering these larger concepts about the postmodern literary period will support class discussions throughout the reading and analysis of the novel; for example, how this late 20th century novel contributes to the slave narrative genre and engages its readers in a critical conversation about race, justice, humanity, and history.

*Sections of this essay would also be a very good pre-reading selection.

CCSS.ELA-W.9-10.2. Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas, concepts, and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.9-10.2 Determine a central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.9-10.3 Analyze how the author unfolds an analysis or series of ideas or events, including the order in which the points are made, how they are introduced and developed, and the connections that are drawn between them. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.9-10.8 Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, assessing whether the reasoning is valid and the evidence is relevant and sufficient; identify false statements and fallacious reasoning.

Day 2: Kindred , "The Prologue" & "The River"

• What is the purpose of Butler's literary experiment?
• Why is she writing a first-person slave narrative in the late 20th century? What "lens" is she using?
• What does she want her 21st century readers to think about and consider?  If she only wanted us to think about the atrocities of slavery, then there would be no need to have her protagonist travel back and forth through time.

Prologue: The purpose of a prologue is to provide necessary backstory for the novel which cannot be told in any other way. Often, it serves to provide a general background or to set the stage for the drama to come. En Medias Res: In medias res is Latin for "into the middle of things." It usually describes a narrative that begins, not at the beginning of a story, but somewhere in the middle—usually at some crucial point in the action. Given the above literary terms and their definitions answer the following questions: What is the purpose of this prologue, be specific? What effect does the use of en medias res have on the audience, as the story begins?

• how you think the character is feeling
• the qualities or personality traits the character is displaying that make her/him deal with the given situation in a particular way
• the circumstances that are affecting her or his actions
• what seems to be motivating this character
• how the character reacts to other characters and the key conflicts in the scene

"Before me was a wide tranquil river, and near the middle of that river was a child splashing, screaming…"(13). Try to capture what you think is going on in Dana's mind based on how Butler has characterized her thus far. Subtext what she could be thinking and feeling that Butler has not given us? If you're stuck go through the list above regarding what should come through in your subtexting.

"'What the devil's going on here?' A man's voice, angry and demanding"(14). Who is this man? What is he doing here? What do you think the man is feeling? Thinking? How will he deal with the given situation? How might he react to the other characters in the scene?

"He spun around to face me. 'What the hell…how did you get over there?' he whispered" (14). What could be going on in Kevin's mind and what might he be feeling? How would he deal with the given situation?  How would the circumstances affect his actions? What might motivate his actions/decisions? How would he react to Dana in the scene?

"'Oh, no…' I shook my head slowly. 'All that couldn't have happened in just seconds.' He said nothing" (16). Now, choose to write from either Dana or Kevin's perspective in this situation. This occurrence is unbelievable what is the character, you are writing as, feeling? Thinking? What does s/he believe happened? Does s/he believe the other person's story? Why or why not? Be sure your writing is grounded in what Butler has provided us with thus far in the narrative: context, plot, characterization. Circle One : Dana or Kevin

CCSS.ELA-W.9-10.10. Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of tasks, purposes, and audiences. MA.3.A. Demonstrate understanding of the concept of point of view by writing short narratives, poems, essays, speeches, or reflections from one's own or a particular character's point of view (e.g., the hero, anti–hero, a minor character). CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.1 Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.3 Analyze how complex characters (e.g., those with multiple or conflicting motivations) develop over the course of a text, interact with other characters, and advance the plot or develop the theme. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.5 Analyze how an author's choices concerning how to structure a text, order events within it (e.g., parallel plots), and manipulate time (e.g., pacing, flashbacks) create such effects as mystery, tension, or surprise.

Day 3: Kindred , "Fire" (computer lab time)

CCSS.ELA-W.9-10.7. Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects to answer a question (including a self-generated question) or solve a problem; narrow or broaden the inquiry when appropriate; synthesize multiple sources on the subject, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation. CCSS.ELA-W.9-10.9. Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.9-10.7 Analyze various accounts of a subject told in different mediums (e.g., a person's life story in both print and multimedia), determining which details are emphasized in each account. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.9-10.9 Analyze seminal U.S. documents of historical and literary significance (e.g., Washington's Farewell Address, the Gettysburg Address, Roosevelt's Four Freedoms speech, King's "Letter from Birmingham Jail"), including how they address related themes and concepts. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.6. Analyze a particular point of view or cultural experience reflected in a work of literature from outside the United States, drawing on a wide reading of World Literature.

Day 4: Kindred , "The Fall" 1-4

• The book calls Kevin and Dana "kindred" spirits (57); how is the way they see the world similar? How does this connect to the title of the work?
• How is the following quote ironic and why is it significant to the plot's development? "' People don't learn everything about the times that came before them,' I said. 'Why should they?' "(63).
• Foreshadowing is used extensively in these sections; how will "The Fall" end? What are the clues (you may paraphrase, but include page numbers)? Continue to analyze the narrative structure; what is the effect of the structure on the characters, and thus the readers.
• How does Sarah's situation represent one of the many paradoxes that exists in slavery?(76)
• How is the following quote ironic, as well as an example of the key difference between Kevin and Dana in 1819? " I hate to think of you playing the part of a slave at all "(79).

CCSS.ELA-W.9-10.10. Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of tasks, purposes, and audiences. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.2 Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.3 Analyze how complex characters (e.g., those with multiple or conflicting motivations) develop over the course of a text, interact with other characters, and advance the plot or develop the theme. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.4 Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the cumulative impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone (e.g., how the language evokes a sense of time and place; how it sets a formal or informal tone).

Day 5: Kindred , "The Fall" 5-8

• What is the theme of "The Fall" (look back at your pre-reading journal)? Theme is what controls all the expressive choices a writer makes in a story—what to put in, what to leave out, how to decide on the angle of vision, narrative structure, tone. The theme itself responds to the writer's vision of life; this vision is based on the writer's "filter" for reality (social group, class, race, sex society, etc.). The filter acts as a schema or "lens" through which the writer sees and writes about the world.(Clayton)
• What lens is Butler asking the reader to look through in the following passage? "'You might be able to go through this whole experience as an observer,' I said. 'I can understand that because most of the time, I'm still an observer. It's protection. It's nineteen seventy-six shielding and cushioning eighteen nineteen for me. But now and then, like with the kids' game, I can't maintain the distance. I'm drawn all the way into eighteen nineteen, and I don't know what to do. I ought to be doing something though. I know that'…'Just started to teach Nigel to read and write,' I said. 'Nothing more subversive than that'"(101).
• Which events make Dana's reality more "real" for the reader?

Find a quote …It can be a statement that you have already thought a bit about or something new, but you need to choose a quote that you feel in some way speaks to this section of the book and its purpose.  Perhaps it takes up an interesting issue or dilemma that has followed a character throughout the book thus far, be sure to use supporting evidence. Answer a question …There are pressing ethical questions that are raised in Kindred ; choose one that has not yet been answered.  Fully analyze and explore a question that has been on your mind about the book.  Be sure to support your analysis and exploration with evidence from the book. Take up an issue …This book is overflowing with issues that overwhelmingly affect the reader historically, culturally, and socially.  Discuss an issue that interests you as it relates to this section of the book, again support your analysis and exploration with evidence from the book.

CCSS.ELA-W.9-10.2. Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas, concepts, and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content. CCSS.ELA-W.9-10.4 .Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience. (Grade-specific expectations for writing types are defined in standards 1–3 above.) CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.1 Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.2 Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.5 Analyze how an author's choices concerning how to structure a text, order events within it (e.g., parallel plots), and manipulate time (e.g., pacing, flashbacks) create such effects as mystery, tension, or surprise. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.6. Analyze a particular point of view or cultural experience reflected in a work of literature from outside the United States, drawing on a wide reading of World Literature.

Day 6: Kindred , "The Fight" 1-10

• What are Kevin and Dana's families' reactions to their decision to get married?
• Why does Dana's Aunt accept her desire to marry Kevin?
• How has 1819 permanently left its mark on Dana?
• What realization does Dana have when she regains consciousness on her bathroom floor?
• Explain why Dana is so disoriented—"It was real"(115), "Nothing was real"(116)
• What is Dana's ethical dilemma as she is drawn back to Rufus this time?
• Who is Isaac and why is he fighting with Rufus?
• How much time has passed and where is Kevin?
• What will happen to Alice now that she and Isaac are runaways?
• What are the key differences between what Rufus wants in 1825 and what Dana and Kevin have in 1976?
• How does Rufus try to justify attempting to rape Alice?
• Rufus has leverage to control Dana now and he's not afraid to use it, what is it?
• Why is the marriage ceremony between Nigel and Carrie significant?
• Dana says that Tom Weylin "wasn’t a monster…[he was] just an ordinary man who sometimes did the monstrous things his society said were legal and proper"(134).
• Why does Dana make this distinction? What bigger statement about society is Butler making?
• What happened to Luke? What does this incident teach Dana?
• Why does Weylin essentially own Dana at this point? Explain.
• How can the conversation Dana and Rufus have about history be part of Butler's purpose? "No it isn’t," I said. "That book wasn’t even written until a century after slavery was abolished." "Then why the hell are they still complaining about it?"(140-141).
• Why is Rufus "blackmailing" Dana? Is this manipulation apparent in his personality earlier in the book?
• How do you feel about Dana's attitude toward Sarah's "acceptance" of begin a slave (145)?
• How is Rufus’ purchase of Alice another paradox of slavery?
• Dana has deluded herself into thinking she has some sort of control over Rufus, when does she realize that she has none? Explain.
• Who was the father of some of Sarah's children? How does this impact Dana's earlier judgments and attitude toward Sarah?
• What is Rufus "buying" from Nigel (155)?
• When Dana has to explain to Alice that she is now a slave there are several role reversals, what are they? Explain.

Day 7: Kindred , "The Fight" 11-16

• Read through the thought questions to get started.
• Think about similar experiences these women have had.
• Think about what freedom means to both of them, but keep in mind that their knowledge of freedom is very different.
• Think about the similarities and differences in their relationships with other characters in the novel.
• Why is Rufus' statement "But I'm not going to give up what I can have"(163), so important?  What does it show you about him in general?
• Rufus threatens Dana with an ultimatum regarding Alice, what is it?
• What is Dana's moral dilemma?
• Psychologically and philosophically why wouldn't Dana go to Rufus?
• Why won't Alice run again? What are her other options?
• What finally makes Dana decide to run?
• Dana has an important realization when she says, "I crept away from the Weylin house, moving through the darkness with even less confidence than I had felt when I fled to Alice's house months before. Years before. I hadn't known quite as well then what there was to fear…"(171).
• Who betrays Dana and why?
• After Dana is captured she is unable to go home, why?
• Again, Butler seems to reverse Dana and Alice's roles; she makes them seem so similar, how does she do this?
• Why does Dana compare her failed attempt to runaway to Harriet Tubman (177)? What does she realize?
• Even Liza seems to think Dana and Alice are interchangeable, hurt one to hurt the other, why is this important?
• Why does Tom Weylin write to Kevin?
• Explain the difference between what Dana "gives" Rufus and what Alice "gives" Rufus (180).
• How does Dana describe Rufus' view of her?
• Explain the following quote "Slavery was a long slow process of dulling"(183).
• How old is Kevin?
• How does Alice show her strength when Kevin comes? a. Why doesn't she acknowledge Dana’s "good-bye"?
• How does Rufus' reaction to Dana and Kevin leaving bring us back to another moment in the book? Why would Butler do this?
• At this point who is the bigger monster, Rufus or Tom Weylin?
• Dana and Alice have seemed to become the same woman to Rufus, how and why?

CCSS.ELA-W.9-10.1. Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts, using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence. CCSS.ELA-W.9-10.5. Develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach, focusing on addressing what is most significant for a specific purpose and audience. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.1 Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.2 Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.3 Analyze how complex characters (e.g., those with multiple or conflicting motivations) develop over the course of a text, interact with other characters, and advance the plot or develop the theme.

Day 8: Kindred , "The Storm"

Activity: Enlarging the Lens Step 1: For this assignment, each student selects 3 short passages from "The Storm" and lists them by page number in their journal. After each page number ask the students to summarize what happens in the section, include key events, actions and details. Step 2: Now, choose one of the three sections and complete the following enlarging the lens journal. Explain why this is an important part of the story. Respond personally to this passage. Select several words or phrases in the passage and explain which emotions the words evoke; then continue to explain your personal reactions and/or associations to the material? Reflect more broadly, on the cultural connotations the words/phrases may carry, as well as on what this passage tells us about people or the world in general? Make broad, general connections here (hint, hint, Butler's purpose?). Create a symbol or image in pencil, pen, marker, whatever, which shows the meaning you have assigned to the page. Then explain why you chose the symbol/image you did.

CCSS.ELA-W.9-10.2. Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas, concepts, and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.1 Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.2 Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.4 Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the cumulative impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone (e.g., how the language evokes a sense of time and place; how it sets a formal or informal tone). CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.6. Analyze a particular point of view or cultural experience reflected in a work of literature from outside the United States, drawing on a wide reading of World Literature.

Day 9: Kindred , "The Rope" and "The Epilogue"

• Who does Kevin get to bandage Dana's wounds a. Why won't suicide work to bring her home again?
• How long has it been in 1976? a. How long has it been in 1831?
• Kevin wants Dana to let Rufus die, why can't she?
• Why is the following quote important?: "You know someday, you're going to have to stop dragging that thing around with you and come back to life"(244).
• How is the following quote part of Butler's purpose?: "'I'm not a horse or a sack of wheat. If I have to seem to be property, if I have to accept limits on my freedom for Rufus's sake, then he also has to accept limits—on his behavior toward me. He has to leave me control of my own life to make living look better to me than killing and dying'… 'If your black ancestors had felt that way, you wouldn't be here'"(246).
• Why did Alice commit suicide? a. Why did Rufus "trick" Alice? Think Critically! b. What does Dana demand from him?
• Look up catharsis . When does the process of writing become cathartic for Dana? a. How could this moment also be part of Butler's purpose?
• What does Rufus want Dana to do now that Alice is gone?
• How does Alice's death make Dana's situation more dangerous? a. How does Rufus reveal the way he sees Alice and Dana?
• What is the one weapon Dana has that Alice didn't?
• What does the Epilogue leaving your thinking about?

CCSS.ELA-W.9-10.10. Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of tasks, purposes, and audiences. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.2 Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.3 Analyze how complex characters (e.g., those with multiple or conflicting motivations) develop over the course of a text, interact with other characters, and advance the plot or develop the theme. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.5 Analyze how an author's choices concerning how to structure a text, order events within it (e.g., parallel plots), and manipulate time (e.g., pacing, flashbacks) create such effects as mystery, tension, or surprise.

Day 10: Final writing assessment options for Kindred

Step 1: In the final journal have students reflect on Achebe's quote and the role of the writer in society. Step 2: Summative expository writing prompt: explain how the purpose of Butler's novel fits into Achebe description of the writer's role.

CCSS.ELA-W.9-10.2. Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas, concepts, and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content. CCSS.ELA-W.9-10.5. Develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach, focusing on addressing what is most significant for a specific purpose and audience. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.1 Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.2 Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.5 Analyze how an author's choices concerning how to structure a text, order events within it (e.g., parallel plots), and manipulate time (e.g., pacing, flashbacks) create such effects as mystery, tension, or surprise. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.6. Analyze a particular point of view or cultural experience reflected in a work of literature from outside the United States, drawing on a wide reading of World Literature.

Step 1: Have students journal about an ancestor or relative they would "go back" and meet if they could. Step 2: Homework: What facts can you discover about this ancestor or relative that you could build a story around? If the person is still alive can you get in contact with her or him to learn some details? If the person is deceased do you have other relatives you can talk to in order to get the information you need? Ask questions that are curious. Sometimes people don't believe that they have lived through or seen anything "important." This is part of your challenge. Step 3: The next task is to tell a family story from that person's first-person narrative voice. This assignment may seem difficult at first because of the person's historical or physical distance from the writer; however, fiction is often based on fact. This could be a story that was told to you long ago or one that is told to you solely for this project. The topic of this story ought to have something to do with your family history. Here, strive to capture the storyteller's voice . Often this is what is lost over time, and this is one of the most important aspects of the story. Think about why first person family narratives are both engaging and important? Butler is allowing her fictional character to tell a first-person slave narrative, which is a first-person family narrative.

• Create a voice that is seemingly from the time period (yes, you must go back in time) and the narrator's actions/statements/ thoughts must be reasonable and convincing (this voice should not sound like YOU) .
• Fully describe the story's setting/time period , and the story should be organized (conflict, complication, climax, resolution) and well-told (that means clearly understood by your audience).
• Fully develop the narrator and character(s) ; the actions/ thoughts/statements of the narrator and character(s) must be reasonably accounted for; create a good sense of who the narrator and character(s) are.
• The story should make sense and there should be little confusion as to why you are choosing this part of your family history to tell .

CCSS.ELA-W.9-10.3. Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences. MA.3.A. Demonstrate understanding of the concept of point of view by writing short narratives, poems, essays, speeches, or reflections from one's own or a particular character's point of view (e.g., the hero, anti-hero, a minor character).

Appleman, Deborah. Critical Encounters in High School English: Teaching Literary Theory to Adolescents . 2nd ed. New York: Teachers College, Columbia University, 2009. Print. Butler, Octavia E. Kindred . Boston: Beacon, 2004. Print. Gillespie, Tim. Doing Literary Criticism: Helping Students Engage with Challenging Texts . Portland, ME: Stenhouse, 2010. Print. Hooks, Bell. Black Looks: Race and Representation . Boston, MA: South End, 1992. Print. "Introduction: On Fiction." Introduction. The Heath Introduction to Fiction . Ed. John Jacob. Clayton. 5th ed. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath, 1996. 27-32. Print. Schade Eckert, Lisa. How Does It Mean? Engaging Reluctant Readers Through Literary Theory . Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2006. Print.

Day 3: The Fire - Discovering Artifacts Certificate of Freedom of Harriet Bolling, Petersburg, Virginia, 1851. "Free Blacks in the Antebellum Period." African American Odyssey. The Library of Congress, 21 Mar. 2008. Web. 21 July 2013. ‹ memory.loc.gov/ammem/aaohtml/aopart2.html ›.

Patrol Regulations for the Town of Tarborough "Patrol Regulations for the Town of Tarborough." Documenting the American South. University Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2004. Web. 21 July 2013. ‹ http://docsouth.unc.edu/nc/tarboro/tarboro.html ›.

Slave pass for Benjamin McDaniel to travel from Montpellier to New Market, Shenandoah County, Virginia, June 1, 1843. "Slave Pass for Benjamin McDaniel." NYPL Digital. New York Public Library, 25 Mar. 2011. Web. 21 July 2013. ‹ http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/dgkeysearchdetail.cfm?trg=1 ›.

Mount Harmon Plantation originated as a land grant of 350 acres to Godfrey Harmon by Caecilium Calvert the second Lord Baltimore, in 1651. It prospered as a tobacco plantation during the 17th and 18th centuries, growing and exporting tobacco to the British Isles. "National Scenic Byways Program: Mount Harmon Plantation at World's End." #64015: Mount Harmon Plantation at World's End. National Deparment of Transportation: Federal Highway Administration, n.d. Web. 21 July 2013. ‹ http://library.byways.org/assets/64015 ›.

"Bible Pages." Barnett Family Genealogy. WordPress.com, 2008. Web. 21 July 2013. ‹ http://vycurry.wordpress.com/bible-pages/ ›.

"The State of Maryland, from the Best Authorities by Samuel Lewis. W. Barker Sculp. Engraved for Carey's American Edition of Guthrie's Geography Improved." David Rumsey Map Collections: Cartography Associates. Cartography Associates, 2010. Web. 21 July 2013. ‹ http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~129~10016:The-State-of-Maryland,-from-the-bes ›.

Family History Project I will tell you something about stories… They aren't just for entertainment, Don't be fooled. —Leslie Marmon Silko My history is bound up in their history and the generations and the generations that follow should know where they came from to know better who they are. —Jewish Immigrant, Minnie Miller This project invites you to learn the stories of your own family—immediate and extended. This is one way that our history becomes real, full of shape and voice. The idea is to more fully realize how our history is about the people who lived it versus events that get written down in history books. There is a partnership that is often overlooked.

Place your family history on poster board or paper—we will hang these in the class for all of us to read. I encourage you to go back as far as you can on all sides of your family (it makes the project more interesting for you and our class). Create an historical timeline that "holds" the 1st person family narrative. It is important that the timeline designates the important people and events in your family history. Think about important locations and "artifacts" for your family. The bible in the book Kindred is a good example of an artifact that the character Dana remembers which contains the names of her ancestors: Alice Greenwood Weylin and Rufus Weylin. Take time to ask family members questions— Why is this important to our family? When was this? What else was going on in the world, society, our family when this happened? Who else knows about these events and might have more information? Include your 1st person family history narrative written in the storyteller's voice. The event it is about must be part of your timeline. Include 2-4 photographs of (or copies of—even in black and white) the people you choose to focus on, or people who are in some way connected to what you want to share (create captions for these photos to tie them into your project).

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“Kindred” by Octavia Butler Literature Analysis Essay

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“Kindred” is a book that tells the story of slavery, survival, and love. Octavia Butler employs the thriller genre to present her slavery narrative. Butler’s narrative can be summarized as the main character’s journey in which she meets her ancestor, saves her ancestor, and then kills her ancestor. “Kindred” does make use of strong emotions such as those used in Tony Morrison’s book “Beloved.”

Also, the author does not invest too much in her characters as Hailey did in “Roots.” However, the book manages to present the reader with a realistic possibility of being involved in slavery. The author of “Kindred” labels the book as a work of science fiction even though the book fits more into other genres such as thriller, time travel, black history fiction, drama, and love story genres.

The book begins in 1976 when a couple is moving into a new house. The couple consists of Kevin, a white novelist and his wife, twenty-six-year-old African American aspiring writer Edana Franklin. When the two are unpacking their belongings, Dana starts feeling dizzy, passes out, and finds herself in an unfamiliar world. Dana finds herself in front of a river where a white boy is drowning. Instinctively, she jumps into the river and saves the boy.

This is in spite of the fact that the boy’s mother is yelling to Dana to “get her black hands off her son” (Butler 11). The boy’s father points a gun to Dana’s head, and before he shoots her, she is taken back to her apartment where Kevin is looking at her in awe. Dana’s husband informs her that she had been teleported, but even before she processes this information, it happens again.

Dana meets with the same boy while he is trying to burn down a house and manages to rescue him in time. This time Dana manages to ask some questions, and she learns that she is involved in time travel and the little boy is his ancestor. Dana has been picked to be the one who keeps the boy alive until he can start his ancestry (Butler 24). Therefore, if the boy dies before starting a bloodline, Dana’s existence will be in jeopardy.

In the course of her time travel episodes, Dana comes face to face with many misfortunes including almost being raped and killed. Her biggest challenge is to identify herself in 1815 because she does not have the necessary identification documents (Butler 78). In the next few weeks, Dana is involved in various instances of time travel where she is supposed to rescue Rufus, her ancestor.

In the course of these events, she becomes close with some of the slaves in Rufus’ plantation. Also, she is involved in several adventures, including time traveling with her white husband. For instance, at one time, her husband is left stranded, and Dana “has to go back five years to rescue him” (Butler 135).

The book mostly relies on the main character when telling the slavery story. The main heroine is a knowledgeable African American woman who is married to a white novelist. Dana’s wide knowledge of historical and social matters is very instrumental during her time travel episodes. The author uses the heroine to explore black history. When Dana is transported to the past, she adapts to that environment with ease. Her intellect helps her in understanding the plight of a nineteenth century black woman.

During her time at the plantation, Dana faces her predicament with dignity. In spite of all the things that happen to Dana, she just shrugs them off and keeps on going. She avoids getting involved in any of the modern Civil Rights palaver. It would be correct to assume that any person from the Civil Rights’ Era would be too eager to preach the equal rights gospel to the stakeholders of slavery. However, the author chooses not to delve into this angle and creates a character who understands the history and the scenarios surrounding slavery.

Moreover, Dana’s attitude towards the characters she encounters during her time travel is civil and compassionate. Dana’s role is to be an observer of slavery and not a critic. The main character recognizes that her protests will not change either the past or the future. All she needs to do is to ensure that the past is not distorted so that her current life is guaranteed.

For instance, she does not try to ‘change Rufus’ behavior’ during her interactions with him (Butler 102). By not being vocal against slavery and the other injustices she encounters, Butler’s main character acts as a trustworthy slavery observer. Dana seems to understand that the characters she encounters are a product of their time, and that is why she carries on with her life unperturbed by people’s actions.

Nevertheless, Dana is not ignorant of the challenges she witnesses during her time travel. This is in line with the author’s aim of exploring slavery from the inside while still maintaining a periodical distance. The same applies to Kevin when he travels back to 1815. Although he has the advantage of not being mistaken for a slave, he does not try to alter the dynamics of the past. The only radical activity Kevin engages in is “aiding escaping slaves” (Butler 199). However, this was a common practice during the slavery period.

The metaphor of time travel is used extensively in this book. The author uses time travel to subdivide the sections in her book. Each time-travel episode in the book gives a complete section of the story. The time travel metaphor is not used as a scientific aspect, but it is used to show the passage of time. The author does not explain the mechanisms of time travel, but she uses it as an interface between the past and the present. The simple nature of this time travel shows how people consider slavery as a simple occurrence.

At the beginning of the book, time travel is a little shocking, but as the book progresses, it becomes mundane. The metaphor of time travel shows how easy it is for people to get used to the institution of slavery in the same Dana gets used to time travel and slavery.

The main character’s inability to control her time travel episodes is a metaphor for how the people who were entrapped in slavery were unable to control their fate. Dana moves back and forth in her time travel episodes, just like the people who were involved in slavery were moved around by its events.

“Kindred” is more about fantasy time travel than it is about science and fiction. First, the author does not try to explain the metaphysics behind the time travel aspect. This implies the science behind the time travel is irrelevant to the story being told. Butler’s characters just find themselves in a tricky situation, and they try their best to maneuver through their predicaments and come out alive. The essence of time travel is to allow the plot to develop.

The author explores how modern people would fare in slavery, Maryland irrespective of their race. In one instance, Dana claims that reality in 1815 is “a sharper and stronger reality” (Butler 191). The author uses Dana and her husband as a thought provocation mechanism. Through these two main characters, the reader can contemplate what it would be like to survive through the most difficult days of slavery. Also, readers can think about how this experience would change their historical outlook.

Depending on whether the reader is white or black, his/her survival chances would vary. The question of how an individual might react to the slavery environment also comes up. Several people would react differently to how Dana reacted. For instance, most people would be too eager to demand their rights and freedoms, while others would most likely urge the enslaved characters to revolt.

The author makes Dana’s quick adaptation to slavery seem easy. However, readers find it hard to believe that an ordinary human being would adapt to such hardships with ease. The author wants the readers to believe that the main actor easily adapted to her new environment with few reservations. For instance, Dana observes that “the slaves seemed to like Rufus and fear him at the same time” (Butler 229). However, this outcome is quite unlikely in such a scenario.

Although the book is fictional, it would be more realistic if the main character put up a resistance against her new predicament. The author fronts her book as a work of science fiction. However, her work ignores the parameters of science fiction. Science fiction readers would find the book substandard in various aspects. The author also seems to misuse several literary genres in a bid to pass her message across. Science fiction is one of the genres that the author associates her work with but fails to abide by their disciplines.

Moreover, the author touches on time travel and love story genres but does not fully commit to these genres. The author avoids abiding in any specific genre in a bid to remain true to her core themes. However, the author risked producing substandard literary work by not abiding by any specific genre.

The book’s author presents a near accurate 1815, but her 1976 is too idealized. According to the author, the main character has not encountered any major racial prejudice in her life. This would be an unlikely development in 1976 because racial prejudice was common. Therefore, Dana would have encountered racial prejudice in the course of her education, her social encounters, or her part-time job.

According to the author, Dana could have been “the little woman who knew very little about freedom….the female Uncle Tom” (Butler 145). This assumption prompts the reader to speculate that the main character was living in a 1976 Utopia. This would also mean that the book was a challenge to African Americans who are ignorant of their slavery history.

Although the author makes several genre-related oversights, “Kindred” is a fascinating and thrilling time-travel account. The author strikes a perfect balance between fiction and human drama. The author relies on her well-balanced main character to deliver her message to the readers. Overall, the book is a well-researched time travel cum black history account on the effects of slavery on a modern white or black American.

Works Cited

Butler, Octavia. Kindred , New York, NY: Beacon Press, 1988. Print.

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Kindred by Octavia Butler: Research Guide

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• Kindred: Teacher's Guide (Penguin Random House) Octavia Butler’s novel Kindred is a tremendously engaging text for students; the narrative structure and ethical dilemmas make a close reading of the novel, through multiple critical lenses, very accessible to students. In order to build on traditional Formalist and Reader Response textual analysis,1 students can be encouraged to examine Kindred for its postmodern structural experimentation; to consider the novel’s contribution to the slave narrative genre (even though the work is fiction)2; or to examine the text through the lens of Postcolonial Theory.
• University of Iowa Kindred Teaching the novel Kindred with The New Jim Crow by I typically begin the semester with a few short readings and then go directly into Kindred. I find that students are intrigued by the premise and enjoy speaking (sometimes yelling) about the characters. While it's not challenging by any means, the text does force them to talk about uncomfortable subjects—violence, slavery, race, sexual assault, suicide—and offers a good introduction to ground rules for further controversial subjects. After teaching it for the third time, I am VERY bored, but they respond so well to it that I find myself continuing to use it. I find that they trust me more easily and they learn how to communicate with one another more effectively. On the last day, I pair it with the introduction to The New Jim Crow and/or the documentary 13th. A warning: it does not lend itself easily to close reading (in my opinion), but assignments based on characterization or historical context work very well. The middle sections can be slightly boring, so make sure to do some more hands-on exercises. [C. Simmons]

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Octavia Butler: The Brutalities of the Past Are All Around This

Gabrielle bellot on a writer who changed her life.

As a preteen, Octavia Butler decided she’d had enough of second-rate science fiction. “Geez,” she said after watching Devil Girl from Mars , a 1954 B-movie. “I can write a better story than that.” Anybody could, really, she mused. “Somebody got paid for writing that awful story,” she concluded in high dudgeon. A year later, she was submitting stories to magazines.

They were “terrible pieces of fiction,” she admitted jocularly in a 1998 talk at MIT, but she had embarked on her journey to write something epochal, a story that could forever reshape a genre’s landscape. A dream architect, she wished to be, whose fabulous and frightening creations would remain after we woke up. One of those transformative stories appeared in her 1979 novel, Kindred , which strikingly reimagined the neo-slave narrative genre by making a 20th-century black woman (and, once, her white husband) slip back into 19th-century Maryland through unceremonious, frightening time-travel. (Though time travel is often associated with science fiction, thanks largely to H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine , Butler instead describes Kindred as fantasy because its temporal traversing is never explained scientifically.) Kindred , a novel explicitly designed to make its readers uncomfortable, has a special, if controversial, resonance for America today: how we teach and talk about texts that contain depictions of bigotry and violence.

Butler was accustomed to the weight of others’ bigotries; she grew up with insecurities about her body, some of which stayed with her into adulthood. Her body was large—she was six feet tall by the time she was a teen—and her voice was deeper than that of the girls around her, its gentle rumbling tone and pitch varying from androgynous to masculine, and students teased her mercilessly. Some of them called her a boy, others a lesbian. Butler did not identify as gay, as she told Larry McCaffery and Jim McMenamin in 1998, but she ruminated about her sexuality and sense of gender, at times musing that she might indeed be what others called her and even going twice to a “Gay and Lesbian Services Center” to “talk about such things… at which point I realized, Nope, this ain’t it… I’m a hermit.” Already socially awkward and lonely, the schoolyard taunts and jeers pushed her into a cavernous isolation. An outsider, she retreated inward, carving out a deep inner space, a lamplit palace of the self.

“I’m very happy alone,” she said later to David Streitfeld, a sentiment I understood well as a queer only child who, also, learned to live inside as much as out, learned to step through the pools of topaz light in the cities of me when the lonesomeness became too desert-heavy. Aloneness, sometimes, becomes its own familiar, gentle comfort. “If I had to change myself into something else,” Butler continued, “I’d probably be unhappy.”

Yet she was still lonely, and the blue music those of us who live in the sadness of solitude know well would play inside her for most of her life. She avoided being photographed and asked publicists not to reproduce photos of her. But she never let the indigo melody become a shipwrecking siren-song; she turned it, instead, into art. She learned how the blue songs can, sometimes, be soothing, even lovely, though they make us cry. “I shall be a bestselling writer,” she wrote to herself in 1988. She became a respected public speaker, even as she remained, endearingly, the shy, awkward black girl—the black girl, subversively, in a time when American science-fiction and fantasy had few women of color in its ranks. At her heights, she wore her difference like a sidereal pearl necklace.

The effect of all this was indelible. In Butler’s writing, the themes of her young exile and gender-non-conformity frequently resurfaced, Kindred a veritable album of them. It is no accident how frequently Dana, the protagonist of Kindred , is mistaken for a male by strangers both by her clothing and how she looks, while her voice and comparatively educated manner of speaking also confound 19th-century Southern expectations, causing her to be labeled white, just as Butler, too, seemed to defy simplistic societal norms. “You were wearing pants like a man—the way you are now. I thought you were a man,” Rufus, the white Southerner who unwittingly calls Dana into the past each time he becomes morbidly scared, describes the first time he saw Dana. Later, Dana takes this further. “I had decided to become a boy,” she writes. “In the loose, shabby, but definitely male clothing I had chosen, my height and my contralto voice would get me by.” While this is a temporary disguise, it is difficult not to see echoes of the very images of gender non-conformity—in voice and appearance—that preoccupied Butler in real life. While a novel like Parable of the Sower depicts Butler at her more literarily luxuriant in terms of style and mythologizing, the shorter and more minimalist Kindred , arguably, contains more of Butler herself.

It also contains a cubist portrait of Butler’s mother, who Butler described as one of the germs of Kindred . “My mother did domestic work and I was around sometimes when people talked about her as if she were not there,” she told Randall Kenan in 1991. “I got to watch her going in back doors,” she continued,

and generally being treated in a way that made me… I spent a lot of my childhood being ashamed of what she did, and I think one of the reasons I wrote Kindred was to resolve my feelings…  Kindred was a kind of reaction to some of the things going on during the 60s when people were feeling ashamed of, or more strongly, angry with their parents for not having improved things faster, and I wanted to take a person from today and send that person back to slavery.

Kindred , read through the prism of Butler and her family, becomes a representation of invisible women, forgotten women.

When I first heard Butler speak, I was surprised for a moment by her androgynous voice, then fell in love with that bashful, articulate figure. How we naturally sound should not matter, but it always, cruelly, does. As a trans girl, I knew—still know—what it felt like to be nervous every time I opened my mouth to speak, lest the sound not match my appearance, as hormone therapy does not affect our voices after puberty. Knew what it was like to avoid readings, parties, any events at all, because I couldn’t rise above my self-shame. Knew what it was like to beg people not to post photos of me because of how much anxiety my appearance gave me. Knew what it was like to practice shifting my vocal resonance, the thinness of my vocal cords, the shape of my throat, nearly every day for two years to try to get a voice that would make me feel less discordant about myself, less scared of what so many cis people take for granted. Knew what it was like to practice before making every phone call after coming out as trans, to record myself each day to see if I sounded “passable,” to prepare to be told sorry, sir , may I speak to Gabrielle , to be asked to “prove” my gender in a hospital in Tallahassee, to be afraid each time I opened my mouth in public that someone would frown or flee or flip out. The clip of Butler I’d seen was from 2002, nearly two decades past, yet I felt I was right there with her, for a moment, admiring her and hearing the midnight music all at once.

Butler was inspired to write Kindred partly because she had heard so many young black Americans minimizing the horrors of slavery and claiming that if they had been enslaved, they simply wouldn’t have tolerated this or that. Such naïveté and ahistorical braggadocio upset Butler. She wanted to write a novel that showed such young people what it might feel like to become a slave: not merely to teach them the brute facts about this American institution, but to show them, on the page, teeth getting kicked out, backs being torn open from whips, white slaveholders casually attempting to rape black women, who would be savagely beaten, even killed, if they resisted, what it would be like for a reader to live in the night-day of European slavery.

Sometimes we educate best by unsettling, by pulling back the curtain of a world and saying, look, scream, and never forget . (Ironically, Butler ended up toning down Kindred ’s violence, thinking it would be a difficult sell if she wrote a bloodier—and thus more “accurate”—version; compared to the slave narrative The History of Mary Prince or Solomon Northup’s account of becoming a slave, Twelve Years a Slave, Kindred is somewhat tame, and Dana, for all her abuse, gets off easier than many other slaves in her era, partly because the privilege of her education allows her to almost entirely escape working in the field, and largely because she can time-travel.) Historical novels are also always contemporary novels, and Kindred drew clear connections between the antebellum South and Butler’s America.

Dana’s return to a slave-holding world appearing to have scarcely aged while those around her have grown older was novel for its genre, echoing less a neo-slave narrative than fantastical science fiction, like, Edgar Rice Burroughs’ pulp classic, A Princess of Mars (serialized in slightly shortened form in 1912 and published as an unabridged book in 1917), in which protagonist John Carter returns to the South in the 19th century multiple times without appearing to age. “I was much surprised to note that he had not aged apparently a moment, nor had he changed in any other outward way,” Burroughs’ narrator notes. Unlike the white Carter or Dana’s husband, however, Dana’s blackness prevents her from escaping and returning to the South so simply; she may seem to age slowly, but her body is increasingly scarred by brutalities: back-bloodying whippings, teeth kicked out, an arm lost—the latter the most terrifying, unforgettable reminder.

Kindred erodes the naïve idea that the brutalities of the past are no more in the present. This confluence of violence is clear from the first sentences: “I lost an arm on my last trip home. My left arm. And I lost about a year of my life and much of the comfort and security I had not valued until it was gone.” Rufus, who begins relatively kind, becomes increasingly brutal, like his father; the moral impossibility of being a “good” slave-owner passes from father to son. Later, returned to the present, Dana hears on the radio “a story about South Africa—blacks rioting there and dying wholesale in battles with police over the policies of the white supremacist government” and reflects that “South African whites had always struck me as people who would have been happier living in the 19th century, or the 18th. In fact, they were living in the past as far as their race relations went. They lived in ease and comfort supported by huge numbers of blacks whom they kept in poverty and held in contempt.”

Here, Butler braids past to present. “The past is never dead,” Faulkner famously wrote in Requiem for a Nun . “It’s not even past.” And much of 21 st -century America, for all its outward progress, still thrives and flowers out of blood and chain, even if white America has learned to hide them better, such that the unaware do not believe the blood and chains even still exist, or see only the scarlet blossoms.

On the one hand, Kindred is yet another of an old type: a story in which violence against black bodies, brutal despite Butler’s bowdlerization, is put to the fore, a theme that obsesses American media, as exemplified by HBO’s forthcoming show about that hackneyed conceit, the South separating itself and slavery not being abolished. (Imagining something else instead, like the Haitian Revolution spreading across the colonies, seems too subversive.) Despite the novelty of Kindred ’s time-traveling conceit—tessering, scarier than in A Wrinkle in Time —it is still, ultimately, another slave narrative in an America that often seems surprised if black artistic production does not center or orbit around such violence.

On the other hand, despite the novel’s expurgation of more extreme violence, it remains gutsy. Kindred , like Paul Beatty’s outlandishly and intentionally offensive The Sellout , was not merely willing to make readers uncomfortable; it was designed to do so. Beatty’s novel was rejected by 18 publishers; it seemed too raw, too controversial, like Kindred before it was cut down.

On some days I fear such books becoming a fading, fugacious type, a fear exacerbated by how much non-nuanced, reductive outrage proliferates nowadays—particularly on social media—around “problematic” books, whereby one person’s dislike of a text can celeritously turn into a mob mentality of widespread inquisitorial condemnation. This represents a vocal minority, but the trend is still worrisome, even if well-intentioned. It’s important to highlight who gets to tell stories at whose expense, why trolls and bigots are given prestigious and well-paying platforms, and why diversity is both necessary and itself worthy of critique when it becomes reduced to a pandering marketing buzzword. Yet much “discourse” on social media—which can easily reach publishers and reviewers—rarely rises to the level of critique, devolving, instead, into toxic call-outs, clinquant self-righteousness, and scattershot, superficial accusations, whereby those who dissent with particular claims often feel nervous to voice their opinion, lest they be labeled, without nuance, superlatively condemnatory epithets. Kindred , which challenges notions of “purity”—racial, moral, societal—remains popular, even as it symbolically defies the tenor of such purity-testing outrage. We need open-hearted, open-minded critique, not conservative authoritarianism masquerading as liberalism.

When I taught texts like Heart of Darkness, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Small Island, and Carmilla , there were, inevitably, uncomfortable moments: some students were angry at passages, while others failed entirely to understand the uproar. This was good. It prompted open-ended conversations: why do you think this , and, always most importantly, do you have evidence to back up your claim? This was what animated Chinua Achebe, who, rather than simplistically advising people not to read a problematic tome, instead produced “The Image of Africa,” a lecture and, later, essay that revolutionized Conrad criticism. When I put our books into historical context for my students—everything from looking at Kipling’s “The White Man’s Burden” and fin-de-siècle advertisements for whitening soaps to Irish nationalism and Edward Said’s thoughts on Orientalism—the texts came alive. We came to a place of hopefully conquering prejudices by confronting rather than avoiding—but also by speaking, without condescension, to each other. Such pedagogy is optimistic, especially in Trump’s America, but necessary.

But it’s taxing if you are a marginalized person already overwhelmed by others’ bigotries. It’s painful to read many a vile passage in Heart of Darkness , even if understanding Conrad helps me better combat his assumptions. It’s harder, more stressful, for me to read The Man in the High Castle —in which the Axis wins WWII, slavery is reinstated in America, and Africans are nearly extirpated by genocidal Germans—now that Nazis have re-entered the mainstream of European and American discourse; but Dick’s novel of chance and luck, for all its casual depiction of government-sanctioned bigotry and evil, remains instructive of how thin the thread of our status quo is. How evil remains, regardless of who wins wars. We fail if we read only what comforts and confirms.

“A society,” James Baldwin wrote in “A Talk to Teachers,” an essay delivered as a lecture in 1963, “depends on certain things which everyone within that society takes for granted. Now,” Baldwin continued,

the crucial paradox which confronts us here is that the whole process of education occurs within a social framework and is designed to perpetuate the aims of society. Thus, for example, the boys and girls who were born during the era of the Third Reich, when educated to the purposes of the Third Reich, became barbarians. The paradox of education is precisely this—that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated. The purpose of education, finally, is to create in a person the ability to look at the world for himself, to make his own decisions, to say to himself this is black or this is white, to decide for himself whether there is a God in heaven or not. To ask questions of the universe, and then learn to live with those questions, is the way he achieves his own identity.

We must teach, in other words, what the world contains, so that our students—and, we, in turn, as teachers are always also students—can make informed decisions. The true leaders and shakers of tomorrow, like Baldwin, do not shy away, but, rather, are informed well enough to take down their opponents ( as Baldwin did with Buckley ), are unafraid to turn into pillars of salt by looking back. “I would try to make him know,” Baldwin wrote of a hypothetical black student, “that just as American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it, so is the world larger, more daring, more beautiful and more terrible, but principally larger—and that it belongs to him… that he has the right and the necessity to examine everything.”

So, in part, is how we survive, even if that survival is harsh, scarring. “I couldn’t let [Dana] come all the way back,” Butler told Kenan about why Kindred ’s protagonist loses part of her arm on her final return to the present. “I couldn’t let her return to what she was, I couldn’t let her come back whole… Antebellum slavery didn’t leave people quite whole.” Time heals, but also hurts; the past is indeed a different country, but less so than we may think. This is Kindred ’s painful, portentous power.

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A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.

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Use these essay questions as writing and critical thinking exercises for all levels of writers, and to build their literary analysis skills by requiring textual references throughout the essay. 

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Student Prompt: Write a short (1-3 paragraph) response using one of the below bulleted outlines. Cite details from the play over the course of your response that serve as examples and support.

1. The central dilemma that Dana faces is her obligation to save Rufus Weylin in order to avoid a time-travel paradox despite the fact that he is a slave owner.

• How does her lack of free will mirror the predicament of the enslaved people on the Weylin plantation? ( topic sentence )
• In what other ways are the characters in this book trapped by power systems and mutual need?
• What is the book trying to say about the relationship between enslaved people and slave owners?

2. Dana’s marriage to a white man is controversial, even in her time.

• What is the book trying to say about contemporary race relations? ( topic sentence )
• How does Dana and Kevin’s relationship represent some of the challenges faced between Black and white people in America? In what ways do they struggle to understand each other, both in the present and in the past?
• Is this tension resolved in the book?

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Kindred Octavia E. Butler

Kindred is a book by Octavia Butler. Kindred literature essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Kindred.

Kindred Material

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Kindred Essays

Chronotopic shaping and reshaping in h.g. wells' the time machine and octavia e. butler's kindred hadas elber.

Mikhail Bakhtin, in his essay "Forms of Time and Chronotope in the Novel," argues that the "chronotope" of a literary work – the configuration of time and space in the fictional world that the text projects – is inextricably connected with its...

Cultural Trauma Narratives' Use of Supernatural Elements Christine O'Connor College

Novels that are centered on traumatic events in history have used different tools to access the past. The Piano Lesson by August Wilson is a film (based on a play) that is set during the Great Depression while Octavia Butler’s Kindred is a novel...

The Concept of "Home" Christine O'Connor College

Home is oftentimes perceived as one of the places where a person feels safest and as one of the places where one likes being most. This seems to be very straightforward, but in her novel Kindred , Octavia E. Butler complicates this concept of home...

The Many Forms of Home Anonymous College

In the novel Kindred , by Octavia Butler, Dana, a modern day black woman, time travels between her present day and the time of slavery in the South. Between her various travels, Dana and her husband Kevin experience a series of both cruel and eye...

Individuals that Transcend Time: Non-linear and Fantastical Narratives of Kindred and The Rag Doll Plagues Selena R Barron College

The sociopolitical and cultural landscape of the present is undeniably shaped by that of the past. Past sociopolitical and cultural tensions serve as foundation for the contemporary psychology we experience. However, alongside this connection is a...

Kindred Character Analysis: Alice Greenwood Jaclyn M. Brown 9th Grade

Octavia E. Butler’s novel Kindred details the harrowing journey of 26-year-old Dana Franklin. A modern black woman from 1970s Los Angeles, Dana is continuously jerked back through time to the land of her ancestors: early 1800s Maryland. Her task?...

A Reflection of the Past: The Links Between Dana and Alice Madison Williams College

As one may look into a mirror, the reflections that they see may vary. For Dana Franklin in Octavia Butler’s Kindred (1979), she sees her long lost ancestor Alice Greenwood. The story tells the tale of Dana, a young black woman in the 70’s, and...

For the Love of Family: Conflicts and Bonds in 'Kindred' Megan Wenzel College

Relationships between brothers and sisters can be complicated; relationships between parents and children can be even more so. Family often varies in definition from one person to the next. For the majority of the population, the idea of a “...

Non-Senseless Violence Anonymous College

In today’s world, Western society has grown incredibly desensitized to violence. Children play video games such as Grand Theft Auto in which they murder civilians and sexually assault women without a second thought in order to win the game. Turn...

Power in Kindred: The Development of Dana’s Agency Over the Course of the Novel Stella Kaval 9th Grade

In the novel Kindred , Octavia Butler tells the story of Dana and Kevin, an interracial married couple living in 1976 who repeatedly travel back to the time and place of Dana’s ancestors. Butler’s plot brings up agency, which can be defined as one’...

Mythical Norms in Kindred and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Anonymous College

The mythical norm impacts female characters Dana from Kindred and Hermione from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Since these characters are female they are both impacted differently by the mythical norms within their societies. While their...

Razor Sharp Freedom Anonymous 8th Grade

If a boy gives a girl a rose, what does this mean? A rose is a widely used symbol of affection or romance, and one as a present would usually signify certain feelings of love. Symbols like roses are used in literature since people first started...

Tom and Rufus as Slave Masters: Similarities, Differences, and Personal Changes Anonymous 10th Grade

Every father should remember that one day his son will follow his example instead of his advice. In Kindred, Octavia Butler depicts similarities and differences to the characterization between Rufus, and his father Tom Weylin, because they were...

Female Autonomy and Status-Based Manipulation in 'Kindred' Anonymous 9th Grade

Octavia E. Butler gives readers an insight on the cruel reality of slavery in the antebellum period through her novel, Kindred. Throughout her narrative, Butler shines a light on the brutal conditions those enslaved must endure by heavily shaming...

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Introduction & Overview of Kindred

(approx. 1 page at 400 words per page)

Kindred Summary & Study Guide Description

Prior to the publication of her fourth novel, Kindred, Octavia Butler was primarily known only to fans of science fiction. While her first three novels—all part of the "Patternmaster" series— received favorable reviews, her work was marginalized as genre fiction. Since the 1979 publication of Kindred, however, Butler's work is known to a wider audience.

The novel focuses on many of the issues found in Butler's fiction: the abuse of power, the limits of traditional gender roles, and the repercussions of racial conflict. The science-fiction elements of the story are limited, however, to the unexplained mechanism that permits a twentieth-century African American woman to travel into the past. Each time Dana Franklin is drawn back into the early 1800s to save the life of her white ancestor, she learns more about the complex nature of slavery and the struggles of African Americans to survive it. The result is a powerful and accessible story that resembles a historical slave narrative—but one told from a modern perspective and in a modern voice.

Butler's exploration of this era has led many new readers to discover her work, from feminist critics to students of African American literature. These individuals have learned what fans of science fiction have long known: Butler crafts some of the most imaginative and thought-provoking fiction today. "In K indred," Robert Crossley wrote in his introduction to the novel, "Octavia Butler has designed her own underground railroad between past and present whose terminus is the reawakened imagination of the reader."

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(approx. 1 page at 400 words per page)

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