Kindred by Octavia Butler
Kindred by Olivia Butler is a story of Dana, a 1976 Black Woman who time travels to the 1810s in the slave-holding antebellum South (Civil war was 1861-1865), and must keep herself alive on a slave plantation.
SPOILERS The rest of this post will contain spoilers.
First of all, I've not read many books by black authors, and I've noticed feeling quite different about their handling of race, compared with books I've typically read.
Holly and End of Watch by Stephen King both included diverse characters ... but most of them were there to show how bad and racist the bad people were. Black, gay, and hispanic characters were a prop for the story. Whereas in Kindred (and Fifth Element by N.K. Jemisin), black characters are the story. And there's white characters too, and I they don't feel like props either.
Kindred was exquisite. Butler is an excellent writer and story teller. Kindred moved quickly, is well-paced.
And this book is one hell of a look into what being a slave was like (assuming she was well-researched, which it seems she was, based on the index of sources in the back of the book, plus discussion of the book in critical essays at the end). The contrast from a 1976 woman to ... trying to fit in in 1819 is ... it's a lot. It makes it feel a lot more real. It helps me fit myself in her shoes. I think having the main character be born into slavery, during slave-times, would have been harder to connect with.
Anyway. The book ends with (I think) 20 discussion questions. I would like to answer them here, or try to answer some at least.
(Note: Above I mention "surviving" slavery. There's something to be said about Dana not just "surviving" but LIVING while under oppression. Maybe this comes up in the discussion questions.)
1. Both Kevin & Dana know they can't change history. What, then, is the purpose of Dana's travels back to the antebellum South? Why must you, the reader, experience this journey with Dana?
Kindred does not much concern itself with the paradox of time travel, except to the extent that she must keep Rufus alive so that she can survive. I could consider that she was always part of the history (of keeping Rufus alive), but I don't think that's the point. I don't think abstract time-travel stuff is the point.
This could have been a story about an 1819 woman who was born into slavery and must live under slavery. I think the benefit of the time-travel narrative is: the complexities and difficulties that are uniquely imposed when someone with 1976 values, who lives with freedom (even if it was still an extremely racist and oppressive time) ... There is a unique tension here with this contrast between 1976 values and 1819 realities. It helped me to connect more with Dana, as her values and experience are far closer to mine than if she had been slave-born.
I think the two-eras just brings up different tensions and questions in the reader's mind. Plus there is the constant tension of ... how will she escape it. There is the expectation of her traveling back to the future and continuing to be a free woman. And her experience of freedom (and ability to escape it) is contrasted with what the slave-born people are going through. She once expresses guilt over ... she'd had only a few days of freedom before being jolted back into 1819, and it ~"wasn't enough" freedom. But she recognizes that Nigel (iirc) would probably never experience any freedom.
So TDLR, the benefit of the time-travel perspective is that it allows us to contrast and connect more easily with what Dana is going through. What would I do if I were transported back to that time? I can imagine how "I didn't get enough freedom" before being transported back would feel. And I can imagine the guilt with regard to the other slaves.
2. How would the story have been different with a third-person narrator?
The story is Dana's story, rather than being about Dana. The "I" - "I got dizzy", "I got caught" (or whatever, those aren't real quotes) makes her central and humanizes her. And hearing "I ..." thoughtspeak in my head as I read puts me in her shoes. Reading "Dana was whipped" rather than "I was whipped" would put her farther away from empathy, it would other her, as somebody who is not-me.
3. Many of the characters in Kindred resist classification. In what ways does Dana explode the slave stereotypes of the "house-nigger, the hand-kerchief-head, the female Uncle Tom"? In what ways does she transcend them?
I don't understand the question. "explode the slave stereotypes"? Hmm.
She addresses the sterotypes, having Sarah as "Aunt Sarah" later on, and speaks of slaves referred to as "Mammy". In general, she provides depth to characters, presenting them as whole-people (though we get much less depth with them than we do with Dana), and they are more complex than a sterotype like "house-nigger" would imply. She does paint tensions between the house slaves and the field hands, and some slaves (such as Dana and Alice) being referred to as "white niggers" by some of the other enslaved people on the plantation. So there is this tension presented in the book.
But also many characters go above this tension, dismissing the "white" namecalling. Carrie (a mute, and one of my favorite characters) makes a gesture where she wipes at her face as to say "it [brown skin] doesn't come off", as-in "you're black, you're one of us, you're not white regardless what some of the others say.
I'm not exactly sure how to address the "explodes" part of the question, but I think I've discussed the transcending question.
(I didn't address the "hand-kerchief-head" (which I'm clueless about) or "the female Uncle Tom" specifically because ... I don't think i connected with those as much as some other aspects.)
4. Despite Dana's determination to refuse the "mammy" role in the Weylin household, she finds herself caught by it. Others see her as the mammy as well. How, if at all, does Dana reconcile her conscious efforts with her behavior? How would you reconcile them?
I must admit my shortcoming in understanding the "mammy" stereotype, as my only real understanding comes from this book, and I feel the book counts on (but does not require) the reader to have a broader understanding, prior to reading it.
If I'm not mistaken, she largely does play the mammy role. (I might be mistaken) I don't think she meaningfully reconciles it. She has some exchanges (like the one with Carrie about being 'white') that push back against this categorization, maintains her humanity, maintains her blackness, and keeps her as a whole person so she does not just become a stereotype. The book also presents many of the internal challenges she goes through, so we see that filling a particular role is not comfortable for her, even if she mostly does it. She does resist Rufus's orders at times, but mostly unsuccessfully.
To some extent, I think she keeps herself in denial. Rather than accepting that she's playing this role, and accepting her discomfort with it, she tries to reject it. Of course she is more than a "mammy", more than any stereotype, but knowing that doesn't change what her role ended up being on the plantation.
How would I reconcile it? I think I'd own it. Like "fuck, I guess I am a Mammy" and try to sit with the feelings that come with regard to that (not that the slaves get much time to sit with their feelings. So much hard work, so much toiling). And it seemed like her Mammy role brought her greater comfort than many of the other slaves. Not that it is much comfort, as none of them had freedom (though Dana did hold much more freedom than the others, even if it was miniscule).
5. "I never realized how easily people could be trained to accept slavery." Dana says this to Kevin when they have returned to the present and are discussing their experiences in the antebellum South. Do we also in the twenty-first century still have conditioned responses to slavery?
I might swerve a bit here.
In 2025, we are conditioned to many things. We are conditioned to work for money, to work in order to live, and to work in order to have value. We are conditioned such that our value is not in our humanity, it is not inherent, our value is from what we provide to the capitalist system. And much of that work has very little, if any, relation to the production of food, shelter, clothing, or other necessities. There is a lot of service work, and there is a lot of indirect work (like banking supports the agricultural industry). So that gets complicated.
But we are conditioned to value work for work's sake and for personal income's sake, rather than for the meaning and benefit that it actually produces. Work is seen as valuable just because it is work and you get paid. We are conditioned to believe that the Capitalist system of distribution is one that appropriately assigns value, not just to labor, but to people who do that labor.
And to some extent, we are conditioned to see slavery as ... a terrible thing that happened in the distant past. But it was not that distant. My Grandma's Grandma was probably alive before the civil war. My ancestor immigrated to the U.S. between 1800 and 1850 and was given a plot of land. My family still owns this farmhouse and land around it, and my grandma gets annual checks, profits from the farm. My family does not work the land - they hire a farm worker who does all the labor and management of the farm. Slavery was legal when this farmland was given to my family. And we still have this land.
I think we are conditioned to ... not reconcile these two pieces of information - that my family's farmland is implicated in the white supremacy and slavery that persisted until 1865 (I don't think my family had slaves, but I don't know). The main conditioning, I think, is just to separate slavery from the world of today. Like today's world is not impacted by the shameful slave-holding past.
6. How do you think Butler confronts us with issues of difference in Kindred? How does she challenge us to consider boundaries of black/white, master/slave, husband/wife, past/present? What other differences does she convolute? Do you think such dichotomies are flexible? Artificial? Useful?
She presents a world where white people are "better" than black people in the eyes of society at-large - whites have rights and power. Yet she presents a story where the whites are really awful, where their superiority exists only as a power-structure, where whites are not superior.
She also presents similarities, though. She does provide depth to Rufus's character, allows him to be loveable at times, and shows him compassion and understanding for the fact that he is a product of his time - like he never had a chance. And for black characters, she also shows complexity, where black folks sometimes betray one another or help uphold the white supremacist power structure (one of the slaves rats on Dana after Dana runs away). Or then other slaves beat the rat for her betrayal, resorting to silence for compliance, similar to how the masters do.
Dana is also presented as being superior, in basically every aspect (except physical strength and ability to wield power and rights) to her masters. Her differences with Kevin, her husband, are also quite stark. I didn't feel the husband/wife differences was explored all that much, but their different experiences in 1819 were examined, with Kevin surprised by how tame the oppression was, compared to what he imagined, and Dana challenging that by pointing out that slaves slept on floors, ate mush, and got whipped (but not as much as kevin expected).
The husband/wife issue was addressed some when Kevin had wanted Dana to do his writing for him - as if marrying him meant she should serve him. And as the essay at the end pointed out - Rufus also had Dana write for her, because he didn't like to do it (Kevin's reason was the same). And I suppose this also brings in a man/woman dichotomy, where some roles (like writing) are seen as more womanly, and not something a man ought to bother with if he has a woman to do it for him.
I think that it can be useful to have ... some ideas around what "man/woman" or "husband/wife" means. Hell, having "master/slave" is useful - It allows white people to live easy lives and put black people to work for them. It's not good, but it can be useful. Gender roles and relationship roles can be useful without being oppressive, but I think this depends on the two people involved, and the type of relationship they have.
I'm personally not a fan of gender roles, and do not believe that being a man or "husband" means you make the money, or that being a woman or "wife" means you are the housekeeper. I'm more partial to a "partner" situation, where each individual in the relationship brings their own strengths and weaknesses to the table. But I acknowledge that some people do like gender roles, and do fit gender roles, and I think that's okay.
But I do also think these different roles and positions are entirely artifical - constructs of human society, constructs of our current social order. There probably are some evolutionary roots to some of them. Men do tend to be stronger than women, so might be more inclined toward certain tasks. But this doesn't mean that only men can be strong, or that only men can do tasks requiring strength. Women do grow humans in their bellies and can breast feed, so there's some necessary inherent nurturing required that a man doesn't go through. But of course, not all women are baby-loving nurturers, and many men are baby-loving nurturers. So, yes I think the roles are artificial (as in, a construct of the social order), but I also think they are sometimes informed by biology or evolution.
7. Compare Tom Weylin and Rufuss Weylin. Is Rufus an improvement over his father? How, if at all, is Dana's influence evident on the adult Rufus?
In ways Rufus is an improvement, and in ways he is worse. While Tom is a cruel and oppressive master, he fills this role mostly as a matter of business, not one of passion or desire to harm others. Neither one of them sees black people as ... people. But Rufus degrades people out of anger and spite and with a desire to harm. Rufus is unpredictable in this way, where Tom seemed much more predictable.
Trying to label one of them as worse or better is kind of silly though. They were both horrible in some of the same ways and some different ways. Even my suggestion that Tom did his cruelty as a "matter of business" and Rufus did it out of passion ... The outcome often ends up being the same, or so very similar that saying one is "better" diminishes the harm that the "better" one does.
So no, neither one is really better. They're both horrible, just in slightly different ways. Tom's horribleness is maybe more manageable because he's less emotional, but Rufus sometimes limits his horribleness, such as in not wanting to split up families (yet then he does sell a man to get him away from Dana, also causing him to leave his family. And let's not forget that he raped Alice repeatedly.).
Dana's influence on Rufus is clear at times. Like when Alice ran away, Rufus sent her kids to be with his ... mom? instead of actually selling them. The result was that Alice killed herself, because Rufus said he sold her kids. So the outcome isn't really much better than if he had just sold the kids. But there was like, I guess, a glimmer of him trying to be slightly less of a piece of shit. And Alice would have been reunited with her kids. I don't think Tom would ever have done something like that. Tom did split up families without concern, and no interest of reuniting them, and sold off his own kids that he'd had with slaves.
So I do think Dana had an influence. But I also think that influence didn't really have any meaningful impact. At the end of the day, even if the book showed him having some depth or complexity or glimmers of goodness, he repeatedly showed that he was an utter piece of shit, who didn't value blacks as people, who ultimately believed it was his right to control his "property".
8. Of the slaves' attitude toward Rufus, Dana observes, "Strangely, they seemed to like him, hold him in contempt, and fear him all at the same time." How can they feel these contradictory emotions? How would you feel toward Rufus if you were in their situation?
Well, being a person is complex. We don't always feel the way we think we should feel, or the way we want to feel. Simply being near a person for so long can bring feelings of closeness, of concern. But then Rufus also contrasts some of his father's behavior, and, at times, shows the slaves a tiny sliver of respect more than what Tom would have shown. Much is relative. If you eat rocks every day for 10 years, then you start eating dirt, you'll think dirt is pretty good. Rufus is dirt and Tom is rocks. Neither one is nutritious, both could kill you, but dirt might just have a better mouth feel.
I'd probably feel pretty similarly. It's VERY rare that I fully dislike or fully hate someone. I would not be proud of liking Rufus or having any positive feelings toward him, but there were even times as a reader that I had positive feelings toward him. Not proud of that, but it's what it's.
9. Compare Dana's "professional" life in the present (i.e., her temporary work) with her life as a slave.
In both, she is the smart one who can be counted on to do things the right way. As a slave, she is less trusted because she is a "troublemaker". As a slave, she has no freedom. As a temporary worker, she gets to leave at the end of the day, gets to sit down for lunch, and doesn't have the constant fear of physical violence. But as a temp worker, she gets bullied by her boss, and she does have the fear of getting fired, which would threaten her ability to eat and have shelter.
10. When Dana and Kevin return from the past together, she thinks: "I felt as though I were losing my place here in my own time. Rufus's time was a sharper, stronger reality." Why would the twentieth century seem less vivid to Dana than the nineteenth century?
1976 is just a hell of a lot more comfortable, a hell of a lot easier, and there isn't a constant threat hanging over her. She actually can relax, she doesn't need to be alert and on-guard at all times. She doesn't need to watch what she says or does. She doesn't fear being beaten to a pulp in 1976. It's also not nearly as novel.
11. Dana loses her left arm as she emerges - for the last time in the novel - from the past. Why is this significant?
The critical essay at the end spoke about this, and quoted Butler about it. The conclusion was basically that she couldn't come back from 1819 entirely "whole". That she lost part of herself there. It's just a very apparent, visual representation of the psychological trauma she endured.
12. Kevin is stranded in the past for five years, while Dana is there for less than one year. Why did Butler feel Kevin needed to stay in the past so much longer than Dana? How have their experiences affected their relationship to each other and to the world around them?
Their relationship to eachother was not significantly affected, per Dana's own narration/thoughts. I think because Kevin is white, the time in 1810s was not nearly as hard on him, not nearly as impactful, not nearly as brutal. So for him being stuck there for so much longer would make him disconnect and feel mentally stuck in that time, even after he returned to 1976. Whereas Dana's time in 1819 was much more vivid, as previously discussed, so it didn't take her as long to suffer those effects.
Kevin, especially, lost his sense of how to live in the modern world. He gave up driving entirely because of how confusing and overwhelming the traffic was, and forgot how to work his TV, and just seemed severely out of place. Dana didn't appear to have these problems.
13. A common trend in the time travels of science fiction assumes that one should not tamper with the past, lest you disrupt the present. Butler obviously ignores this theory and her characters continue to invade each other's lives. How does this influence the movement of the narrative? How does it convolute the idea of cause and effect?
It keeps the story focused on the story - a modern woman figuring out how to live in 1819, and the personal journey in all of that. Something the reader can connect with.
Focusing on the time travel cause/effect whatever stuff would just muddy the story. This book was not about time travel. It was about being a slave. Dealing with time travel would have taken away from that.
It does not convolute the idea of cause and effect. It quite frankly just ignores it and considers it a non-issue. Major strokes are addressed - Alice still has to give birth to Hagar. There's another world where we consider the messiness of cause/effect in this time travel scenario, but Kindred is not that world.
14. Dana finds herself caught in the middle of the relationship between Rufus and Alice. Why does Rufus use Dana to get to Alice? Does Alice also use Dana?
Because it is easier, and holds some hope of Alice on day liking or even loving Rufus. He wants Alice, does not respect her as a person (she is his property, he'd say), but he also "loves" her (in a sick, desperate, needy way that isn't actually love), and he wants her to love him back. Beating her wouldn't help with that. I say he doesn't love her because beating her as a path to raping her is ... proof that it's not really "love".
Does Alice use Dana? Alice has Dana help her prepare for running away. That was a tense exchange, and I recall Alice holding something over Dana's head. But no, I don't really think Alice used Dana. And it's not remotely the same thing, it's not comparable. Rufus used Dana by holding physical violence over her head (the threat of beating Alice). I don't recall what, if anything, Alice held over Dana's head ... But it's just not the same.
15. The needs and well-being of other residents of the plantation create a web of obligation that is difficult to navigate. Choose a specific incident and determine who holds power over whom; assess how it affects that situation.
WELP, There are 5 more questions after this one iirc, but I guess I lost motivation to continue working on them. So I'm posting this now! I wrote these by July 26th, 2025 and am posting Aug 11th.