Ayat Jaber History as Fiction

Throughout Kindred , we see how Kevin's ideas transform as he struggles between the early 18th and late 20th centuries. Even in the 20th century, we see how Kevin innocently still held some watered down ideas of white supremacy and power over Dana. We can see this in the way he rudely asked Dana to type his writing on the typewriter and how he assumes Dana will unpack the boxes when they move to their new house. We also see this play out from the beginning of their relationship, though in a good way, as Kevin buys Dana lunch and generally supports the marriage. None of these cases are life threatening or outrageously terrible, but the relationship has a trace of male white supremacy and female black subordination. However, Kevin starts to resemble the white man of the antebellum South as he is pulled back in time with Dana. For one, there is a lot of danger in the role he plays acting with Dana as her slave master. He adjusts to his role pretty fast, and even seems like a harsh ma...

In class yesterday, we talked about how Octavia Butler doesn't just portray the affects of slavery on blacks, but also on whites. However, she doesn't just use Kevin as our white reference point from the 21st century, but she also uses Rufus. We see how Dana's ideas affect Rufus in a unique way that the society of the 1810s and 1820s couldn't have accepted, making us see Rufus in whole new light of... sympathy? From the beginning, we see that Rufus isn't "as bad" as his father, Tom Weylin. He doesn't treat the slaves as badly, as he is even buddies (to a certain extent) with Nigel. He still has many issues, which we will just begin touching on, but he seems to be a bit kinder than most. Even Dana cares for him a bit, and tries to influence him when he is younger, which works to a certain extent. Butler doesn't just show us a 2-D monstrous slave master, but she shows us how that slave master came to be, and how under the surface, he is much more th...