Octavia Butler Kindred Themes

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Kindred Sometimes people have to make choices that they don’t usually make in order to survive.Some of those choices can be very hard to make when someone is in a dangerous situation.In Octavia Butlers, Kindred, Dana goes back to a time where slavery has not been abolished and she goes back to see her ancestors.She goes back in time when Rufus,one of her ancetors, is in danger and goes back to her modern time when she is in danger. Octavia Butler explores the theme of Survival in Kindred by showing us how different characters in the book have to make difficult choices in order to survive. One particular character,Dana, is in many life or death situations and she has to be able to make decisions she would have never done in her modern day. In Kindred, Octavia E. Butler uses Dana’s choices she had to make throughout the story to portray the idea that people often make choices they normally wouldn’t make in order to survive. …show more content…
The patroller started beating Dana and rips her clothes off wanting to rape her.When she was pinned to the ground by the patroller she knew she had to fight back.She could have jabbed him in the eye but she hesitated and missed her opportunity.”But i couldn’t do it.The thought sickened me, froze my hands where they were.I had to do it! But I couldn’t…”(42-43)At that point Dana knew she had to anything possible in order to survive.I believe that this is a good example that Butler wrote in Kindred to show the theme that sometimes people have to make choices they normally wouldn't do in order to

Kindred By Octavia E. Butler: An Analysis

Kindred, the novel written by Octavia E. Butler focuses on the experiences lived by protagonist Dana. Throughout the span of less than a year, Dana continuously travels back in time to 1815. Each time she travels back, it is to save the life of a boy, and each time she revisits him he is much older. She soon learns that she is only brought back to her present day when she truly believes her life is in danger. Her time traveling experience becomes much more meaningful when she learns that Rufus, the…

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Peer Pressure In Kindred

good side to it. In Kindred by Octavia E. Butler and the Scholastic article Peer Pressure: Its Influence on Teens and Decision Making, they both have some sort of driving force or peer pressure that causes characters to make bad decisions or take bad actions. Anyone can be peer pressured weather it is by other people or the setting you are in. While peer pressure can be a bad thing, there can be good that comes out of it. Overall, peer pressure is portrayed in the book Kindred and the article Peer…

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'Unexpected Relationships In Octavia Butler's Kindred'

Octavia Butler's Kindred tells the story of Dana, a black woman who is transported back and forth between 1976 America and the nineteenth century South. Dana's travels back in time allow her to save Rufus, her ancestor, and ensure his survival as well as her own in the future. Among other things, Kindred incorporates themes of family and relationships, especially with respect to how different people who are not truly related by blood can connect through common ground. Through this work, Dana's kindred…

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Octavia Butler Research Paper

not only have peace but to have equality. Octavia Butler believes that in the past and as well the present, white officers used violence to their advantage against black minorities and education is still limited for black minorities;therefore…

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Racism In Kindred

Through a century in time between these two books and much has changed with racist thoughts and actions. One thing that has not changed in Kindred by Octavia Butler and The Help by Kathryn Stockett is the shame and the comments made towards African Americans. In Kindred Dana, and African American woman, travels back in time to the 1850’s when slavery is in full swing in the south. This predicament happens to her so she can save her ancestor Rufus, a white slave master, from dying before her preceding…

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Kindred By Octavia Butler: Summary

In the science fiction novel Kindred by Octavia Butler the novel starts off on June 6, 1976 in California in the home of Dana and Kevin Franklin. Dana and Kevin move in to their new home in California. While unpacking Dana starts to feel ill and suddenly is transported to Maryland in the 1800s to save a boy named Rufus Weylin from drowning in a river. After that she goes back home to 1976 befuddled at what had just happened. She gains her composure later and explains what happened to her husband…

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Octavia Butler's Kindred: Racial Slavery Still Relevant Today

manner as well. In Octavia Butler’s novel, Kindred, she tries to explain the theme of how a form of racial slavery still exist today, affecting…

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Surviving In The Past In Octavia Butler's Kindred

Octavia Butler uses Kindred to show a modern women can survive in the past, where slavery and cruel punishment was the norm to the society. In this novel, Kindred uses time travel as a crucial element to mysteriously travel Dana thru time to take her back to 1815. Throughout the novel, Dana is taken back to the past where she is meant to save the lives of her ancestors in order for her family tree to survive. Kindred uses many details to distinguish between the past, present, and past present.. Throughout…

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Department of English Spring 2014 Course Descriptions Essays

Department of English Spring 2014 Course Descriptions 89S. Imagining War. Instructor M. Maiwald. WF 8:30-9:45 In this course, we will consider how the experience of war has been represented in American fiction, non-fiction, and film. We will investigate how attitudes toward war have evolved throughout American history: our timeline begins with the Civil War—the traumatic event that birthed the modern American state—and ends with the recent conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. In particular…

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