Saturday, April 14, 2007
Octavia Butler's Kindred
I (along with everyone else I'm sure) find this book very interesting. It's a real page turner. Something that ouccured to me as I was reading this was how Dana was treated concerning her relationship with Kevin. She is really his wife, but they have to play the roles of slaveowner and slaveholder. Does anyone have any reflections about how they dealt with this difficulty?
6 comments:
Good question, Amy. Kevin's going back w/Dana there in "The Fall" indeed introduces an interesting twist. I find the couple's discussion in chapter 7 of "The Fall" very interesting, e.g., where Dana marvels "How easily we seemed to acclimatize" (97). It seems like at times (like this) they are dealing with the difficulty quite well. (Or are they?)
I think that Dana and Kevin's relatively easy adjustment to the radically different roles is not a good thing. Although it is important to adapt in order to preserve their safety, I think Kevin and Dana should have had a more difficult time in adjusting to the immoral practices of slavery. Even Dana asserts at the end of Chapter 7, "I never realized how easily people could be trained to accept slavery."
Kevin and Dana try to be cautious about their husband-wife relationship, but apparently they are not that cautious because Sara sees them when they talking under a tree (their secret spot). I think Kevin is trying really hard not to act as Dana’s husband in from of people but he is having a hard time doing so, because he is also suffering when he sees that Dana is being treated bad or sleeping in the attic in bad conditions or obeying orders. But even though both are suffering a lot being in this situation they deal with it pretty well.
Considering that they have traveled back in time 150 years and find themselves in a completely different culture, I think they did a great job of playing the slave owner/slave relationship. Although I do not think that Dana and Kevin sleeping in the same room was a very discreet way of hiding something more, it seems that they do a good job or keeping their distance from each other when in the spotlight.
They are dealing with the situation as best they know how. They are in a different era and are adjusting to not being allowed to be married. Kevin has to keep his distance in order really for Dana to live. I don't think it really is easy for them to be in such different roles, but they are adjusting in order to insure their safety.
I think that it must have been really hard to play the role of slave owner and slave, especially on Dana. She is made to feel inferior to her white husband after all these years of her ancestors and others figthing for their rights. I don't think that they were really able to adjust that well. They had a hard time keeping apart, even though they knew that it was causing problems in the Weylin household.
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