Gender and Literature- Kindred

Gender, Identity and Resistance in Postcolonial Literature
997309728
University of Toronto
Gender, Colonialism and Cultural Resistance – WGS 369
Professor Tahmasebi- Birgani

Literature has always been an outlet used by postcolonial societies and disadvantaged groups to address issues that were either frowned upon or disapproved of in the past. One such concern is that of slavery and how it was defined and accepted as a natural preordained act. The superiority of one group outweighed the other and left them in a position of lacking and belittlement. This is an ongoing physical, psychological and social constraint that all work together to keep one particular group in “their place” while creating a universal understanding that the other is intrinsically better. Kindred a novel by Octavia Butler, is one of the greatest works that gives voice to the position of reductionism that the African American community faced but from the removed position of a woman from our current time. This science fiction novel captures the heritage of Butler who has roots in a Grandmother who was a slave and a single parent mother who worked relentlessly as a maid to provide for her family’s needs. It is this rich legacy that gives birth to the interest and relevance of the issue her story tackles. This essay seeks to analyse how Octavia Butler’s Kindred uses characters such as Dana, Kevin and Rufus as tools to boldly speak to the issue of colonialism and slavery and how these acts affects identity and gender relations of both the enslaved and enslaver. The story begins with a happily married interracial couple who had just moved into a house of their own. The main protagonist Dana, is on the dawn of her twenty sixth birthday when her life is turned upside down in a strange change of events. Time travelling form her present 1976 life in California she is transferred into the deep South in the early 1800’s, a time when slavery was still prevalent. Dana’s world is now centered on these time travelling episodes that are all in an attempt of saving her white ancestor Rufus, while grappling with the 20th century reality and being perceived as a slave in her episodes. Though she is always returned to her present life every time she faces a dangerous or life threatening event, she is forced to continue this involuntary task to ensure her existence. It is these experiences that allow Dana to realize and understand her history and the challenges that ones skin color creates for them. Her present life may not be free from racism and discrimination, but the one that she is forced into in her time travelling, points out the differences and paints a clearer picture as to where she really stands in history as a black woman. One of the greatest issues that Kindred tackles is that of identity. Identity not only speaks to the way an individual may define themselves but also how society witnesses, perceives and understands that person. Factors such as status, skin color, economic standing etc may all come into play and have an impact on identity. Kindred presents the unique case of Dana. This is an independent strong black woman in the 20th century but a property and looked down upon in the 19th century, two opposing identities that she must balance. These two contrasting identities points out the difficulties in how context affects the lives we live and the paths we take, especially in the lives of women. Butler cleverly hides the race of both Kevin and Dana for the first chapters of the novel. The reader is only made aware of the fact that they were two lost souls who needed each other to feel complete. In her present life, Butler represents Dana as a modern, strong and compassionate character. She is a black woman who is educated and knows exactly what she wants. Being in an interracial relationship, though it was discouraged by their family and associates, had no direct effect on their lives, as by this century, marrying out of ones race was not necessarily a great taboo that could lead to death. Kevin, her husband, is represented as being unconditionally in love with Dana and as a result he appears to be blind towards her skin color. They seemed to work equally in all that they do and this ensured a balanced relationship free from inferior superior labelling roles. This was however not the case when Kevin was allowed to time travel with Dana. Immediately a change had to take place. Their identity as a couple had to be redefined in order to ensure their safety. Interracial relationships in the 1800s were simply forbidden. It was frowned upon as blacks were merely property and their bodies used for sexual pleasure nothing more. Love between a black slave and white slave owner almost never existed and society would not condone such behaviour. It is because of this reasoning that Dana had to take on the identity of Kevin’s slave. Her agency is stripped from her and she is reduced to the definition of her husband, as property. This is a prevalent feature of colonialism. No one but those who are in a position of control has an autonomous self. Property is the means that describes who has power and who does not, who is considered a full human and who is not. On one instance, Rufus outright asks Kevin about Dana’s relationship to him. He asks “does Dana belong to you now?”1 He is unable to fathom the idea that they could have an equal relationship. This was a completely new and revolutionary idea for a man that grew up with the idea that it was perfectly acceptable for blacks to be used and abused at the owners dispense. By reducing Dana to this level, Butler speaks directly to how the act of colonizing dismisses individuality and groups people together based solely on their race. Her identity is not conjured by her own existence but instead it is defined by relationships with the people in her life. Kevin, Dana’s white husband has to make little to no change when he is immersed in the past. The fact that he is a man and the colour of his skin creates a different experience for him. In a patriarchal society that values his race and existence, the task of integrating becomes almost intrinsic. While Dana is stripped of her personality and identity, he automatically picks up the role that is expected of him. The fact that he is from the future and knows that the imbalance is not reasonable makes him more lenient and likeable, yet he has to prove himself as a man that is in control in order to be taken seriously. Because of the advantage of his white skin color, he has the ability to help slaves escape even though he knows that this may cost him his very own life. He is trying to adjust to the times and still live up to his values of the 20th century. However this becomes even more complicated as the reader witnesses that he often times take Dana’s agency from her as he prefers to be in control. He is unable from the advantaged position to truly understand that it is not simple about the big picture of how slavery dehumanises African Americans, but about giving identity and a voice to the lives that he has direct contact with. From his removed perspective, he is unable to comprehend the difficulties and reality of being enslaved. Colonialism has the same effect. Octavia points out the fact that not everyone in the position of superiority may not have agreed with the practices that took place during slavery, yet society is structured in such a way that it becomes acceptable, and as a result individuals may become complacent and unwilling to change. Rufus, Dana’s white ancestor has the most complex identity in the text. Being raised in a time period where it is common knowledge that he is entitled to whatever he desires because of the color of his skin leaves him feeling invincible. His father, Tom Weylin, is a proud but harsh slave owner and as such, he has a sense of entitlement and power. While he has good intentions on many occasions, he still demonstrates atrocious behaviour in order to prove himself and his position. He fails to recognize that Dana is there to provide help to him and often times only see her on the surface as apart of an inferior group and nothing else. Her life saving acts often goes unwarranted and ends up in more repercussions rather than having good effects. His relationship with Alice, a free black girl is a intricate one. The reader is made aware that he has genuine feelings for her, yet the dichotomy that exists between them makes it acutely clear that he only desires her in the sense that he has total control and power over her, never an equal relationship. Rufus is thought to accept that he should have whatever he desired and he is unable to deal with the fact that Alice is in love with Isaac. He will stop at nothing, even inflicting pain on her to have her as his own. His overwhelming desire to have her as property leads to him buying her and making her a simple sex slave, later leading to her own downfall. Dana and Rufus’s relationship is a peculiar one. Once he realizes that Dana holds his future in her hands and can choose to either allow him to live or watch him die, he is both terrified and threatened by her which is a new experience for him because she is a black woman. It is out of this dilemma that he develops sexual attraction towards her in an attempt to fully control and reduce her as a woman. Her body is the site that he chooses to control and invoke ownership on in order to regain his patriarchal agency. He orders that she be whipped on more than one occasions to put her in her place and degrade her. This was a consistent feature of slavery and colonialism. The act of degrading a woman by using her body as their masters pleased was a way of proving that they were not valued or seen as humans who could either consent or refuse the act. Butler proves that fear and force were agents implemented in the society that kept the black community in their place and allowed for horrific acts to be repeated throughout history. Butler uses these three main characters in a unique way to explore how colonialism truly works by stripping or creating identities of people. For the white characters in the novel, their identity is based off of the fact that they are always in a position of control or power regardless of the situation they find themselves in. This is not the reality for the black characters, especially Dana. Her identity in her present life is juxtaposed to the one she takes on in the slavery invested society her time travelling episodes takes her. She suggests that “I don’t have a name for the thing that happened to me, but I don’t feel safe anymore”.2 At first she distances herself from the acts that are taking place with the comfort that she is from a different time, but as the time she spends in the past becomes longer, this is not possible anymore as she too takes on the characteristic of a slave. Dana witness how slaves can become a part of the regeneration of a cycle as she watches children play out the act of being auctioned out for sale.3 She becomes afraid of the possibility that the brutality that she experiences will strip her of all she has accomplished and knows in her present life, and in order to preserve her wellbeing and understanding of herself she kills Rufus. Butler represents this act as a trade which had to take place to ensure that her identity was secured. Dana is aware of the trauma she suffered as she had to live through being treated as an object, harsh whippings and abuse, witnessing sale of human beings and killings before her eyes, yet she is aware that the past is simply the past and it cannot be changed. Slavery and colonialism was a part of history which society may tend to want to forget, but this novel reminds us that “slavery is a long slow process of dulling”4, a history that has created the present world we encounter and still has its remnants on our lives.
Octavia Butlers Kindred not only forces its reader to go back into time and witness life in the antebellum South, but to realize how much slavery depending on the disfiguring of identities and gender relationships to ensure its continuity. The characters of Dana, Kevin and Rufus all suggests how slavery was not a simple issue that was only rooted in cruelty, but transcended and influenced by other factors. The book has made major accomplishments in identifying and dealing with an issue that is often swept under the rug and by having a female character as the narrator and protagonist; it gives agency to a group that was always undermined, black women.

Bibliography

Butler, Octavia. Kindred. Boston: Beacon Press, 1979.

Bibliography: Butler, Octavia. Kindred. Boston: Beacon Press, 1979.