Comparative Essay Sample: Kindred by Octavia Butler and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

📌Category: Books
📌Words: 864
📌Pages: 4
📌Published: 15 January 2022

In a small town where everyone has the same ideas and beliefs, it's hard for people to grow up and challenge those beliefs. As a kid, you're told who's good and who's bad, who should be treated with kindness, and who shouldn't. When huck and Rufus grew up their opinions were just handed to them on a silver plate, have a slave, black people are bad, etc. It's all they knew. But when Jim and Dana came into their lives, it showed them that it's not all that simple and there are different ways of looking at the world. With the effect of Jim and Dana, they slowly but surely changed the way they thought. In both Kindred by Octavia Butler and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, using techniques such as character relationships and setting to show how people change when societal norms are challenged by people they love. 

There are two different types of relationships in these novels, the first is brotherly love. This is between Jim and Huck. They lean on each other for help, tease each other, occasionally fight, but always come back and always have each other's back. The other type of relationship is an old married couple, this is Dana and Rufus. Though they do truly love each other and try their best to make their relationship work it doesn't always. The more they fight, the more they grow apart and the harder it is for both of them. It's not always easy for them to be there for each other (even when they try) and when the last blow comes, everything falls apart. Both relationships are very different in ways but also very alike in many ways too. They respected each other “Rufus never took anything from [Danas] bag without asking- though he could have easily done so” (Butler, 170) he knew his boundaries and respected her, he made sure not to overstep because of the thought of losing each other is gut-wrenching. This went for Huck Finn as well, they cared for each other so much that the thought of losing each other brought tears to their eyes “... en I could get down on my knees en kiss yo’ foot” (chapter 10, twain). The connection between these characters is so strong, they care for each other and listen to each other. Each character comes from a different branch of life, some harder than others. So naturally, they have different beliefs. When Dana came to Rufus early on that's when she started speaking out about her beliefs. She showed him the different perspectives of life, saying “Rufe, how’d you like people to call you white trash when they talked to you?” (Butler 61). When a black person in that time would say something like that they would get whipped and hurt badly, but when Dana talks to Rufus he understands her and emphasizes her. He cares enough for her to listen to her point and ideas (the way she challenges societal norms) and in a way the more she brings up her ideas the more he slowly changes for the better. He had loved her so much that he understood her and realized the way he needed to change. That's when he first started seeing things a different way when Dana challenged societal norms. Things came a little more naturally in the novel Huck Finn than in Kindred. Throughout the book, Huck and Jim slowly became closer after they agreed not to turn each other in. So much so that when faced with life or death huck choose to save Jim “‘all right, then, I'll go to hell”’ (twain 236). No one would ever think to do something like that for a colored man at that time, but Huck does the unthinkable and helps his friend in need.

The setting, time and location, was a harsh time. Slaves being treated horribly and just overall how horrible people were to each other in that time. In Huck Finn they say it plain and simple, “Human beings can be awful cruel to one another.” (chapter 33, twain) Today, it's easy to have different beliefs, but back then nobody did. The time pushed Dana and Jim to speak out because if not bad things would happen. They were treated horribly and couldn't keep living like that. Due to people with such strong opinions during a time like that, it draws attention to the importance of love and how it can transform a person. It shows that everyone can change and everyone has room to grow even the worst of the worst people. Dana was not only hurt emotionally, but also physically, “I never saw where the whip came from, never even saw the first blow coming. But it came— like a hot iron across my back, burning into me through my light shirt, searing my skin…” (Butler 107) she knew that she couldn't keep living like this.

Expressing your ideas and beliefs is important. Not only may it affect you, but it affects the people around you as well. You as a human affect the people you love, they look up to you and care about you. When they see you hurting it hurts them too. You shouldn't be put into a box sharing what everyone else's believes because what good does that do to you, innovation, and the quality of life you're living in. No matter the relationship you have with the people around you, everyone can change for the better, it just has to start somewhere, and that somewhere can be you.

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