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March 26, 2007
Kindred
In the novel Kindred, Octavia Butler parallels many characters in her story. In class, we discussed a couple of them, such as Rufus's parallel to Kevin. While I was reading, I noticed several additional parallels. For example, two different parallels occur in the scene in which Dana provents Alice from going to see the birth of Carrie's baby. As Dana is cooking dinner, she says that she "sat [Alice] down at the table and gave her a knife and some potatose to peel. The scene reminded [her] of my [her] first time in the cookhouse when [she] had sat peeling potatoes until Kevin called me away" (155). Here, Octavia creates a parallel between Alice and Dana. Dana, who many characters are starting to see as "white" at this point in the story, is paralleled with Alice, a young woman who has been a slave for multiple years. Another example of a parallel such as this occurs in this same scene, only the parallel is between Sarah and Dana. As Alice begins to speak openly about running away, Dana says, "'Be careful how you say things ilke that. You could get into trouble.' I felt like Sarah, cautioning" (156). There is also the countless comparisons throughout the story of how Dana acts as both Rufus and Alice's mother. This suggests that Dana is capable of being a suitable mother for Rufus, a white man, and Alice, a black woman.
All of these parallels/comparisons are prevalent in this story. I believe Butler uses these literary techniques in order to address the idea of racism through the interactions of these characters. By bringing forth all of these parallels and comparisons among the black and white characters, Butler portrays the humanity behind all of these characters, and uses their similarities to tie all of the characters into human kind, rather than a world of blacks and whites. Using this technique, she ties us all together as human beings. Seeing these similarities, we can get a more clairvoyant view of how wrong it is to treat our fellow human beings, people like us, as slaves. In conclusion, Butler uses the relationships between characters to deepen our understanding of the times of slavery.
Posted by hlfish at March 26, 2007 11:10 PM