“Kindred” by Octavia Butler is the story of Dana, a young black woman who travels through time and place. Butler, born in Pasadena, California, in 1947, is one of the few female authors to write in the science-fiction genre. A boy named Rufus is drowning in a river, and Dana goes from her home in California to give him artificial respiration as his mother screams for help. Later Dana sees Rufus as an older boy setting the drapes of his mansion house on fire because he’s angry at his father. When she asks, he tells Dana they were in Maryland in 1815. he uses his whip on horses and “niggers.” This boy could be one of Dana’s ancestors, her great grandfather? Rufus sees a resemblance to Alice Greenwood, who might have been married to Rufus, who is white. Alice is free like her mother was.
Rufus says Dana should call him Master or Mister, or she’ll get in trouble with his father. He shows her the road to Alice’s cabin, and she starts there. Suddenly a group of white men—patrolmen—looking for runaway slaves catches her. Dana is beaten by them and badly hurt. When she awakens, she hears her husband Kevin’s voice. She is back home in California in her bed, Kevin beside her. Did she honestly believe she went three thousand miles away and met ancestors? The assumed danger sent her home, or so Kevin thinks. She and Kevin talk about their books, and the next day she finds herself in the woods, and Kevin is with her. Dana tells Rufus and Nigel it’s 1976 where they’re from. Rufus has fallen from a tree and broken his leg, and Nigel finds Rufus’ father and a wagon to take him home. Rufus only comments on the cost of fixing it. The father, Weylin, knows Dana can read and write and doesn’t trust blacks who can. Kevin says he’ll take Dana to New York as his property. They’ll try to keep Rufus from growing up like his father. Dana will work in the cookhouse, and Kevin will help educate Rufus. Dana wants to stay here to ensure her ancestors have a better life. She reads to Rufus Robinson Caruso and enjoys getting into someone else’s problems. Kevin tells her to be
Careful, and she is as she plays the slave role. Nigel asks her to teach him to read. She knows they can go home eventually and won’t be harmed. Is this true?
She sees how easily people can accept slavery when they are children playing games. Weylin finds Dana in the cookhouse reading to Nigel and is furious. He drags her outside and whips her. It hurts, and she screams for Kevin, but he’s gone, back to the present. She gets into the tub of warm water and tries to ignore the pain, takes aspirin, and goes to bed. She’s home, but Kevin is still years, maybe centuries away. Eight days later, she is at Rufus’ side as he’s in a fight with a black man who is winning. Rufus gives Isaac and Alice time to get away as Dana reminds him how she saved him from drowning and from the fire before. He shows her letters from Kevin from Boston and Maine, and though she longs to find him, she must wait for him to come to her. Isaac and Alice have five days together then are caught by patrolmen and dogs. Rufus buys Alice though she is in bad shape from dog bites and beatings. Isaac is in Mississippi, his ears cut off. Rufus is kind to Alice though he has destroyed her. Rufus sends for Alice. She can either run away, go to him or kill him.
Dana begs Rufus not to make her his mother’s caretaker. She doesn’t know how to care for someone on Laudanum, a drug used in those days for calming. Alice plans to run after her next baby is born. Dana tries to talk her out of it. The new baby is named Hagar, in Dana’s bible in 1976. Dana arrives in 1976 with her wrists bandaged. She has cut her wrists to return home to Kevin.
Why does she keep going back to the time of slavery? Does she want to know her ancestors? Or to be sure that they become free? The author helps us understand and like these characters; she’s one of the few women writers of the sci-fi genre. She’s won many awards and a scholarship to the Clarion Science Fiction Writers’ Workshop. Find this fascinating history of slavery on the new fiction shelf of your local library.
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