In Kindred by Octavia Butler, Essay Example

Many things happened when Dana finally met the patrollers. Some she has vivid recall and others appeared as if she was in a daze. She was abused and did not want to relate to the patroller what happen because it was felt that they would not believe her story. Subsequently, she awakes in the hospital with an amputated arm and is questioned by deputies concerning her imaginary occurrences resulting in the arm being severed. Speculations as to who committed the act began. The first suspect was her husband Kevin. Further, she relates the incident as an accident because both persons were afraid to disclose the truth of the abuse (Crossley, 274).

Clearly, she knew that as a woman the risk of being misunderstood by patrollers and police deputies was highly likely. More importantly, she was black. Dana’s character depicted by Butler disclosed courage, compassion, and independence of twenty-six-year-old African-American woman. A significant role in the story shows where Dana becomes the wife of a white writer, Kevin.  Peculiar circumstances have forced her to travel from one plantation to the next over time, which further exposes her to street violence as a black woman. On this white ancestor slave owner plantation, in Maryland, Dana takes authority in making adjustments to the life there as a survival strategy (Crossley, 274).

Dana’s brutal encounter causing her to lose her arm is just one incident of slave brutality in her time and Butler did not omit this from her account in Kindred. She articulates various aspects of gender inequality and prejudice in this novel. Even though slavery is not functional as it was in Dana’s time street violence among women is still occurring in the society, especially, when trying to take short routes to their destinations,. Young women are raped on University campuses and are ashamed to report the abuse. While police and patrollers may be more empathetic, it still takes some amount of convincing for these abused women to be heard, especially, if the officer is a male (Crossley, 274).

Further, in the novel Butler confronts her readers with questions of difference and intersectionality through the themes expressed in her writing. First the author presents a real description of slavery and slave communities as they existed in that time. She allows Dana to reflect over time upon the realities of events. Intersectionality specifically relates to an intersection between systems, cultures or just forms of existence. The features highlighted are oppression as in slavery or discrimination that has been perpetuated through gender differences(Crossley, 274).

Butler highlights these elements in Kindred by first allowing Dana to marry Kevin who is white. During the plantation era white was superior to blacks since blacks signified slavery and a less significant culture. Subsequently, when Dana went to Maryland plantation again she had to fight for her dignity as a black women being owned by a white slave master even though they were related. The intersectionality became evident when Rufus, a white male had to do his duty even though he and Dana hd ancestral ties. The boundaries had to be maintained and no intersections created in this instance as with Kevin and Dana being husband and wife(Crossley, 274).

Ultimately, Butler shows how black female sexuality was brutalized during slavery through Rufus’s exploitation fo Alice sexuality as a young slave girl. Butler exposed instances of hoe slave master relationships whereby many slave women bore children for their masters(Crossley, 274).

Works cited

Crossley, Robert. Critical Essay. In Kindred, by Octavia Butler. Boston: Beacon, 2004. 274. Print