Kindred
How Dana's mindset changed
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Throughout the book Kindred I had noticed many things involving the characters, it was an interesting book and did go through a more different trajectory compared to Mumbo Jumbo and Ragtime which focused on narrating multiple characters and how their different stories would intertwine. But one thing that particularly interested me about Kindred was the main character Dana herself. As most of you know , Dana is a African-American women who lived in 1976 California and was transported to 1815 Maryland. She meets the child of a plantation owner named Rufus Weylin who she finds out to be her ancestor which she was not even aware that one of her ancestors was white. Her main goal was to essentially make sure that she exists by getting Rufus and one of his slaves who he would soon fall in love with named Alice to have her distant grandmother. While this is her main goal, she also has a side goal of trying to change Rufus as he was simply a child at the and would soon take over after his father died so she hoped that she could change is outlook on slavery and ensure the safety of the slaves as well as Alice. However, here is where the problem I have with Dana begins to arise as when she tried to do this, she continuously fails at it. Now, while she did soften Rufus' approach to slavery in some degree, the main problem comes to his relationship with Alice as most of the stuff about her trying to change Rufus' outlook on slavery were not really her fault. The main reason being that she could only return to him when he got hurt which would happen every few years so it would be hard to try and change someone if you could only see them once every few years. Given that Dana was unaware of this heritage, it wouldn't hard to believe that the circumstances behind the conception of her ancestor may not have been through mutual love given that it could be seen as a scar of her family past. When Dana starts to think of this, she tried to make sure that, in some degree, that there could end up being mutual love between Alice and Rufus but that continues to become less and less unlikely mainly due to the fact that Alice was in love with one of the other slaves on the plantation named Isaac and also because he (Rufus) had attempted to rape Alice after figuring out that he was in love with her which also highlights the lack of change that Dana brought to him since he would still end up mimicking the actions of his father Tom Weylin who was much crueler though. The irony though behind the two is that despite the fact Tom was a cruel racist and Rufus is painted as this sort of "troubled child", there is one thing that Tom Weylin possessed that could make him seem a bit more "respectable" than Rufus which was his honesty and it is quite surprising to me that as Rufus grew up he began to become more like his father but lacked the only redeeming quality that his father had. That quality being his honesty as Tom Weylin would condemn Rufus for intentionally hiding the letters sent to Kevin and would send it himself.
Now getting back to the subject of Dana, as time goes on for her, she begins to see there being no chance of actual mutual love between the two and tries to paint the situation in a good light which to me also shows how much the world of 1815 had changed as given that this was a time that slavery was depicted as being "normal", these horrific factors that she once condemned in her timeline are now seen as being ordinary to how common it has become around and also her mind has adjusted to this idea of her being a slave especially since she spent months in this time and when she would go back to her present time she would only be there for a few days or maybe even less. Another factor was because of how desperate she was becoming in order to maintain her existence as she began to lose faith in the both of them. However, I believe this desperateness had also clouded her judgement in a way as when Dana acted as the messenger for Rufus to demand that Alice become his sexual partner or else she will be whipped. When Alice asks Dana for some advice on what to say, she gives out pretty vague answers and despite the fact that she tries to act like she's on Alice's side is more like "Do what you want, I don't care either way" instead of actually trying to be supportive of her.
(ik it lowkey sounded like i snorted coke while writing this)
I like how you mention specifically that Rufus being a complete screw-up of a person is not Dana's fault. Yes, she introduced him to the idea of interracial love, and yes, he wouldn't be screwed up like he got if she hadn't done that, but she has no way to control how Rufus reacts to these things, and it's not like she could magically predict what was going to happen. I feel like Dana is by far the most morally complex character we have met this semester (sorry Mr Walker) because she makes bad choices and she makes "more selfish" choices that some of the other enslaved people on the plantation would have made, but she is forced into choosing between rocks and hard places, and she has these debatable motives, but she also very deeply wants to help people, and I think that Butler wants to make a point in how even someone like Dana, who is a deeply caring person, can be morally compromised by self-delusion.
ReplyDelete(your note in parentheses is relatable. sometimes you just throw words at the page and you look down and there's words on the page and they make sense and that's enough. you did it there's words on the page. the words make sense. it's good.) But seriously, you make good points.
Hey Elliot, I like how you explained how Dana did not have enough time to influence Rufus for the better. She overestimated her abilities and the effect she could have on Rufus in the short bouts of time that she spent with him. I found your point about how Rufus managed to adopt all of his father's traits except the one good trait he had (honesty) to be funny and completely true, and it goes to show just how troubled Rufus has always been. Dana never really had the chance to fully mold him into a great person, and it's not really her fault. Overall, great post!
ReplyDeleteHi Elliot, I really like your take on Dana. I agree on a lot of what you say because, just in the setting that is the antebellum south, I think it would be possible to have mutual love. And I think it is especially interesting how you say (or I guess more imply) that Dana originally thought there was a chance of mutual love, as she has seen the two acting as equals as children playing together, but ultimately as Rufus grows up and takes on more characteristics of his father, it eventually becomes impossible that Rufus and Alice can have a mutual relationship.
ReplyDeleteIt's especially interesting to compare Rufus and Tom Weylin in this context: as you note, Rufus reflects at least some of Dana's influence, while Tom is essentially a cog in the system. He is "honest" in that he honors his word when he makes a promise to anyone, black or white, but this isn't some moral virtue of honesty--he's just predictable and consistent within the bounds of the system. There's something cold and calculating about Tom: he doesn't seem to have a strong opinion about the justice of slavery either way; it's the system he was born into, and he maintains his farm with a rational sense of pragmatism. He DOES psychologically torment the enslaved people on his plantation--just ask Sarah about him selling off all but one of her children--but for him it's "all business," never emotional. As we discussed, Rufus is in many ways a more frightening proposition, as his *feelings* get involved. He's much more erratic and unpredictable, and in some respects he is more actively *cruel* than his father. And eventually Dana has to confront the fact that HER efforts to "reform" him have largely led to this unique kind of cruelty--remember that his treatment of Alice makes no sense at all to Tom. It doesn't make *economic* sense, and that's the only standard he uses. Which is what aligns him with "the system."
ReplyDeleteHello Eliot, great post! I think Butler is definitely making the point that slavery is a system that causes suffering to most (probably not Tom, but Rufus definitely---although, obviously, at a different level than Dana and the slaves). In the pipeline that is society, even the kinder, more malleable souls are molded into either a slave or a slave-master. We see this early with Rufus, who at first respects Dana, and also with the little children who are playing the auction "game." With this in mind, it definitely makes sense how powerless Dana can be in an uphill battle against an entire "system."
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