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Publication information

During an interview, Butler revealed that Kindred's working title was To Keep Thee in All Thy Ways. The novel was first published as a hardcover by Doubleday in 1979. It was first published as a Beacon paperback in 1988, edited and with an introduction by professor Robert Crossley of the University of Massachusetts at Boston . It was first published as a Women’s Press book in 1988 and reprinted in 1995. In 2003, Beacon Press created a Reader’s Guide for the novel, which was added to its 25th Anniversary reprint in 2004.

In an interview with Butler, she had a difficult time getting Kindred published--she had at least fifteen rejections--because book publishers could not figure out a proper commercial label for its narrative. They (and Butler) did not consider it science fiction because “[t]here’s absolutely no science in it,” according to Butler. One editor thought that, with some changes, it could be sold as historical romance. Finally, Doubleday published it as general fiction.

Dr. X's feedback: Nice.

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Master-slave power dynamics

Scholars have argued that Kindred complicates the usual representations of chattel slavery as an oppressive system where the master regards the slave as a mere tool/economic resource to be bred or sold. Pamela Bedore notes that while Rufus seems to hold all the power in his relationship with Alice, she never wholly surrenders her self to him; in fact, Alice’s suicide can be read as her way of ending her ongoing power struggle with Rufus with a “final upsetting of their power balance”: an escape through death. By placing Kindred along other Butler narratives such as Dawn, Bedore further reads the bond between Dana and Rufus as reenvisioning slavery as a “symbiotic” interaction between slave and master: since neither character can exist without the other’s help and guidance, they are continually forced to collaborate in order to survive. Thus, the master does not just simply control the slave but depends on her. From the side of the slave, Lisa Yaszek notices conflicting emotions: besides her understandable fear and contempt, there is also the affection bred by familiarity and the occasional kindnesses of the master. Kindred, then, refuses to reduce a slave who collaborates with the master to survive to a simple "traitor to her race" or to a "victim of fate."

Kindred also portrays the historic exploitation of black female sexuality as a main site of the struggle between master and slave. Diana Paulin describes Rufus’ attempts to control Alice’s sexuality as a means to recuperate the power he had lost when Alice chose Isaac as her sexual partner. Compelled to submit her body to Rufus, Alice then divorces her desire from her sexuality to preserve a sense of self. Similarly, Dana’s time traveling reconstructs her sexuality to fit the times. While in the present Dana chooses her husband and enjoys sexual intercourse with him, in the past her status as a black female requires that she subordinate her body to the desires of the master race for pleasure, breeding, and as sexual property. Thus, as Rufus grows into adulthood, he attempts to control Dana’s sexuality, ending with his attempt at rape to turn her into a replacement of Alice. Since Dana sees sexual domination as the ultimate form of subordination and dehumanization, her killing of Rufus serves to reject her identity as a female slave, distinguishing herself from those who did not have the power to say “no.”

Joe0312 (talk) 19:55, 19 May 2014 (UTC)Pacer87 (talk) 19:57, 19 May 2014 (UTC)US:Mayday (talk) 19:58, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

Dr. X's feedback:After much thought I combined "master-slave power dynamics" with "female sexuality.' I think you will agree they go well together. This section is ready to move to the live article.

Motherhood/mothering

The Future of Female: Octavia Butler’s Mother Lode by Dorothy Allison

For all the women who also happen to be mothers it is commonly known that children and family come first. This is something that all the women in Butler’s novel share, the sense of doing anything to protect their children. Therefore, being a mother becomes a humanizing element in society because it is the only thing that the cruelty of slavery cannot seem to tear apart. Butler demonstrates in very different levels how women do not only inherit biological characteristics but rather the imbalances and injustices that are passed down through their generations. Nonetheless, it is also obvious that all the women in Kindred make some type of resistance to the domination of slavery so that their children’s lives can be better even if that means sacrificing their own personal freedom. On the other hand, another way to protect their children is to adapt and adjust to the institution of slavery.

Joe0312 (talk) 19:55, 19 May 2014 (UTC)Pacer87 (talk) 19:58, 19 May 2014 (UTC)US:Mayday (talk) 20:00, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

Older drafts

Dana has to act as a submitted slave in order to survive: “And her greatest challenge eventually becomes to keep from internalizing the personality she projects, thus succumbing to a slave mentality” . By this, the author means that it was very challenging for Dana to keep her own identity and not lose herself completely to the slavery. Moreover, the author of this article points out how Butler shows the transition of an educated woman of our present time who at first acts as a slave and then becomes “psychologically enslaved” just like other slaves on the Weylin’s plantation . Another important fact by McEntee pointing to the transition of Rufus from a nice little boy to the vicious slave owner who, despite Dana’s influences to educate him, becomes a white master who likes the obedience. Butler demonstrates the lives of the slave women during the antebellum women who had to endure the constant manipulation through their children or husbands so that their masters ensure their obedience. Also, they all were viewed “as sexual objects at the mercy of their masters’ whims” . Also, McEntee suggests that Dana was worried that her husband, Kevin, seeing other white slave owner's cruelties and acceptance of the slavery as the norm, would influence him in the same way. Butler gives us examples of abuses of power through Dana’s experiences of the slavery, raising the race and gender issues. Also, it is the authors believe that Dana’s race confrontations in 1970 and also in antebellum slavery is deeply embedded throughout the history that it is not solved even today. I believe this article is very useful for the research papers, since it includes very important details and analyses.

Dana’s inability to think of giving up her body and seeing such act as the ultimate way of dehumanizing someone speaks for more than just trying to retain her own personhood. The bodies of the slaves represent “tools” that maintain the articulation and functioning of the plantation. Their bodies signify an economic resource, since they can serve for breeding or their can simply be sold. This dynamic however, establishes and puts the slaves into a dependent position with respect to their owners. To the slaves, the only way in which they can escape the system and protect their bodies is to either try (most times unsuccessfully) to escape or to eradicate their relationship by killing themselves. Alice, is a great example because her body was abused both sexually and physically as she tried to escape from her reality. Such abuse resulted in her own death.Yet, the interdependent relationship requires both the slave and the owner to collaborate with each other in order to maintain the stability of of the very own institution of slavery.

The Interdependent relationship between slave and master although consider oppressive, it is suggested that there is a sense of symbiosis. Both master and slave depend on each other, in the case of Rufus and Dana each are forced to collaborate in order to survive.Within the concept two dissimilar organisms living together or a relationship between a mother and child. The symbiotic relationship between Dana and Rufus is vital, each one can’t exist without the other help and guidance. Although each one has a mind set of their own they are forced to put aside their differences and cooperate.

For the complexities of slave collaboration with the slaveholder, see Yaszek 1062; Beaulieu 129-130

In the article, “Black Women Writers and the American Neo-Slave Narrative,” Elizabeth Beaulieu points out that Butler intentionally positions Dana as partially responsible for taking part in Alice’s rape by Rufus. This is so that Dan can understand what is “black motherhood” is like. This means that Dana nurtured Aliced as a mother would do to her child and yet Dana acknowledges Rufus’s sexual intentions towards Alice.Nonetheless, Dana was not able to save her from the violence of slavery. Dana herself did not experience any kind of sexual abuse towards her, but she was able to experience and really observe what rape was like through Alice. The author of the article states that the moment when Alice dies, Rufus, tries to replace her by Dana and justifies his actions by implying that these two women are so alike to each other. Rufus argues that both women are halves of each other and that together, they are one “whole” woman. Alice satisfies him sexually and Dana does emotionally.

For a summation of the master-slave relationship, see Bedore, "Kindred," 4.

Rufus and Alice’s relationship is forced by his slave owner --power. He takes away Alice’s freedom and abused her both sexually and emotionally by raping Alice and beating her, thinking that she would accept him eventually. Therefore reaching the maximum way of humiliation and dehumanization that a person could experience. Even though Alice and Rufus conceived children together, that would not stop her from committing suicide. Alice’s death was her own way of ending the ongoing power struggle with Rufus. Kevin and Dana’s relationship differs from Rufus and Alice’s because they both were together willingly. With both experiencing the past together, their relationship is transformed into a more eye-opening and emotionally distant bond. Bringing to surface the struggles and issues that an interracial marriage had to face. Dana has to act as a submitted slave in order to survive: “And her greatest challenge eventually becomes to keep from internalizing the personality she projects, thus succumbing to a slave mentality” . By this, the author means that it was very challenging for Dana to keep her own identity and not lose herself completely to the slavery. Moreover, the author of this article points out how Butler shows the transition of an educated woman of our present time who at first acts as a slave and then becomes “psychologically enslaved” just like other slaves on the Weylin’s plantation . Another important fact by McEntee pointing to the transition of Rufus from a nice little boy to the vicious slave owner who, despite Dana’s influences to educate him, becomes a white master who likes the obedience. Butler demonstrates the lives of the slave women during the antebellum women who had to endure the constant manipulation through their children or husbands so that their masters ensure their obedience. Also, they all were viewed “as sexual objects at the mercy of their masters’ whims” . Also, McEntee suggests that Dana was worried that her husband, Kevin, seeing other white slave owner's cruelties and acceptance of the slavery as the norm, would influence him in the same way. Butler gives us examples of abuses of power through Dana’s experiences of the slavery, raising the race and gender issues. Also, it is the authors believe that Dana’s race confrontations in 1970 and also in antebellum slavery is deeply embedded throughout the history that it is not solved even today. I believe this article is very useful for the research papers, since it includes very important details and analyses

Vint, Sherryl In Sherryl Vint’s essay, “Only by Experience:” Embodiment and the Limitations of Realism in Neo-Slave Narratives the author discusses how Dana is a woman able to cope with all forms of subordination except rape. Dana sees rape as the ultimum way of dehumanizing someone and stealing all the meaning of her personhood and individuality. Vint maintains that, “Dana insists on some part of her mind remaining untouched by the experience; once she realizes that bodily experiences shape this interior and cannot be separated from it, she feels the need to identify the physical experiences she will not endure ” . Rape therefore marks the line between what Dana can and cannot tolerate both as a woman and as a human being. The very action of assaulting someone and raping a woman is degrading, it reduces, shrinks and deprives Dana’s body to a degree that she has never experienced before. Dana being a modern 1976-woman is able to acknowledge her body as part of her identity and she will not submit herself to rape and the ultimum way of objectifying and owning that slavement provides.

Raffaella Baccolini Raffaella Baccolini’s essay, “Gender and Genre in Feminist Critical Dystopias” claims that Dana values her body not only because it is part of her identity, of who she is a woman and as a person but rather because it helps her resist slavery. Dana’s body has been harshly abused, whipped, beaten and slashed. However. Baccolini claims that, “Her mutilated body reminds us of the power of slavery. But, without ignoring history, it also becomes an empowering site of resistance and freedom” . For all the marks in Dana’s body represent all the struggles she had to face and all of the suffering she had to endure in order to survive. Dana’s body is part of who she is but it is also a vehicle through which Butler exposes the brutal nature of slavery.

In the article, “Not enough of the past: Feminist Revisions of slavery in Octavia E. Butler’s Kindred,” by Angelyn Mitchell gives a very good insight about Dana’s sexuality in the 20th Century and 19th Century. For example, Mitchell points out that Dana “assumes complete control over her sexuality in her twentieth century,” while in nineteenth century she had to suppress her sexuality . Moreover, Mitchell points out that Dana as modern woman chose Kevin as her husband and she enjoys the sexual intercourse with him while Alice’s sexuality is forcibly traumatized. So, when Dana transfers to the slavery time, she has to learn her first lesson that black women’s sexuality is only supposed to serve to satisfy the lust of slave masters . Another fact, the author of the article mentions that slave owners control their slaves’ sexuality by forcing their slaves to choose partners only from the slaves of the same plantation so that they could breed only for their masters. So when Dana sees, how Alice’s father was forcibly taken away from his family by the patrollers makes her understands the reality of the slavery. Later when Dana encounters one of the patrollers, who tries to rape her, she defends herself. This situation shows her that she and other black women are sexually vulnerable in the time slavery time . Furthermore in the article Mitchell gives a very good example of Dana when she is cruelly lashed across her breast by overseer, just because she didn’t work hard enough, makes Dana realize that slaves are not valued as a future mothers or simply human beings. Another example, given by Mitchell in this article is the moment when Dana and her husband are transferred together and Dana have to pretend that she is his sexual property and her constant sneaking to his bedroom makes her feel uncomfortable. So Dana contemplates on how easily they accepted the “construction of 19th century black female sexuality and identity” .

In the article, “What would a writer be doing working out of a slave market?” by Kubitscheck points out how Rufus grows into adulthood as he starts dominating and having more control over Dana’s sexuality. The author starts referring to Rufus’s feelings towards Dana as a mother when he is a child. Then grows up as a vicious slave owner who likes to control his slaves and at that point Dana’s being black allows him to treat her the same way as his other slaves. Even though Dana saved him many times, this doesn’t stop Rufus’s growing sense of power of wanting to control her. Kubitscheck, gives several examples of his sexual control over Dana, especially when he sells Sam just because he noticed Sam’s interest in Dana. Also at the end Rufus considers Dana his property, as the person who is supposed to replace Alice.

For how Rufus' rejection of Alice's agency reveals his loss of power and his need to recuperate it, see Paulin 18

Rufus refused to give in to the fact that he was in love with a slave, moreover he believed that rapping a black women was acceptable but loving her was not. When it comes to Alice, he was in control of all her decisions. Nonetheless, Alice’s feelings and thoughts are still intact, she does not want Rufus. Even though she accepted him physically, she still refuses to have any emotional attachment. Feeling underpowered when he loses Alice, because he drives her to commit suicide he tries to seduce Dana to take Alice’s role. Thus trying to establish himself as Dana’s master in body and soul. Dana refuses to comply and does not allow Rufus to control her and fights back with him diminishing his power. Dana eventually kills Rufus in order to reassure her own personhood .

For how Alice must divorce her desire from her sexuality to preserve a sense of self, see Mitchell 60-62 Alice was forced to divorce her desires as a person and a woman in order to preserve her own sense of self as well as to survive. Alice is sold to Rufus because she helped her husband, Isaac to escape when he brutally beats Rufus. Rufus wants Alice to just give herself to him rather than him forcing her into sex. Since Alice loved Isaac and not Rufus she had to separate her soul from her body to allow Rufus to abuse only of her body. Alice never showed any love, affection or appreciation for Rufus, which is what he desired from her. Nonetheless, Rufus was not heavily affected because Dana was giving him the affection and care that he wanted. Rufus had a constructed idea that Dana and Alice were two halves of one “whole” woman. Although, Alice “allowed” Rufus to take her body, she was constantly thinking and fantasizing on ways to escape the crude reality she has forced to live .

Joe0312 (talk) 19:55, 19 May 2014 (UTC)Pacer87 (talk) 19:57, 19 May 2014 (UTC)US:Mayday (talk) 19:59, 19 May 2014 (UTC)