Slavery in Octavia Butler's Kindred Essay Sample

Kindred by Octavia Butler is a story which details the experiences of slavery through the eyes of a modern black woman named Edana(Dana) Franklin who is transported to the antebellum south. Butler uses her book to show how slavery transcends generations, specifically how aspects of slavery persist through time. Dana’s first person experiences reveal Butler’s message that slavery transcends generations.

Butler shows how prejudiced views of the present stem from past through Dana’s experiences in and around interracial relationships. Romantic relationships between a black person and a white person were illegal in Rufus’s time, and because of that, she witnesses the stigma surrounding interracial relationships. “There was no shame in raping a black woman, but there could be shame in loving one,” (124). Rufus would be shamed by society had they known his affections for Alice. In loving Alice, he goes against societal norms, loving a person of lesser status than him, someone who is black. Because he, a white man, loves someone that society forbids him from loving, his love turns possessive and destructive. Crossley writes in his essay that in Rufus’s time period a “black woman was the sexual property of a white man,” (276). In order to fit under societal norms, Dana and Kevin must play the role of a slave and a master. Because of the sexual connotations of a black woman spending the night with a white man, as seen in the relationship between Alice and Rufus, other people view Dana and Kevin’s interactions with a stereotypical lens at that time. This view carries over into the future, where interracial couples are viewed differently than same-race couples. Butler uses Dana’s interactions with family in the present to further communicate prejudice from the past. When Dana talks to Kevin about her family’s views on her marriage, she says,“I think my aunt accepts the idea of my marrying you because any children we have will be light,” (111). This relates to Butler’s message about the shame associated with an interracial relationship. An era of slavery created a prejudiced view that those with lighter skin color are superior to those with a darker complexion and so, with Dana’s aunt’s view, the reader sees just how this view carries over to the present. Dana’s experiences in both the present and past shows how prejudice affects the views on interracial relationships.

Butler’s use of language and how language is sustained over time shows how the effects of slavery transcend generations. Words and expressions from the past are used today. In the past, these words had negative connotations, relating to a darker time of slavery.  “If anything happens to him, I’ll flay you alive!” (201). In the past, in this time period of slavery, this threat is entirely realistic and is something that slave owners would act upon. Such acts of violence were completely normalized in Rufus’s time period, and although the act of flaying someone does not occur today, the language persists. When Dana experiences this threat, her mind jumps to a similar threat used when she was younger, “My aunt used to say things like that to me (...) ‘Girl, I’m going to skin you alive!” (201). Dana’s aunt’s use of this expression shows how language from the past persists in the present. In this context, this is not a threat literal to its meaning as Dana’s aunt would not actually skin Dana alive. This phrase does not hold the same weight as it did in the past, but it shows how language used on slaves is used today. Another example of how language persists is through the nicknames of the temporary labor agency which “operates as a benign, ghostly version of institutional slavery’s auction block,” (Crossley 268). Crossley shows why people refer to the agency as a slave market and although it is not the same, the ideas and the language surrounding the agency remains relatively the same to a time of slavery. The agency is only a shadow of its more dehumanizing counterpart, however, the similarities are not missed out upon by those who refer to the agency as a slave market. Language is an important part of history and what language is used today displays how negative aspects of the past have their hold today.

Ultimately, Butler uses Dana’s experiences in an interracial relationship as well as her experiences with language to show how slavery transcends generations. In the real world, people also use language dating back to a time of slavery and hole the same prejudiced views as the character’s inside Kindred. If one were to look at the world around them, they would see just how many similarities in language and ideas persist in the present.