Tuesday, October 14, 2014
Kindred by Octavia Butler
Kindred was a very confusing book for me when i first started reading it, but
as i continued to read the book i started to understand it better. I wondered at
first why Dana kept going back to the year of 1815, but came to understand
more as i kept reading and learned she was being sent back to an era with her
ancestors. What i felt was kind of weird was the way they sent her back to her
ancestors time. What Dana didn't realize about where she was sent was that
they were her ancestors until the second time she was sent there. She was also
always sent back when Rufus was getting into trouble.
As I continued to read the book I did not like that closer to the end when
Dana was sent back again she ended up being one of the slaves for Rufus and
she was treated horribly even after everything she did every time she was sent
back. One time she was sent back she had to nurse Alice back to health so
Rufus could rape her repeatedly and keep her as his own while they sold her
husband Isaac to someone in Mississippi. Another time she was sent back Dana
was beaten so badly i didn't think she would survive. I got a bad feeling every
time they sent Dana back to 1815 as to whether she would be killed or not and
if she would ever find her husband either.
While reading this book you get a very good idea on how the slaves were
treated and how much they were sexually assaulted by their masters. You also
learn about how the slave owners treated their own families also. I personally
would not have chose to read this book only because its not what i like to read.
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You raise a good point--the structure of the book really highlights the suffering that women who were slaves faced.
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