Preview

How Did Octavia Butler Criticize

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
683 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
How Did Octavia Butler Criticize
For Dana to do her best for Alice, she would need to protect her from harm. The best thing for Alice is to have Dana prevent Rufus from raping her, but this is not what is best for Dana. Although it is so important for Dana to help Alice be liberated and free from being forced to do anything she doesn’t want to do, Dana knows that if she were to stop Rufus and Alice from having a baby, Dana would most likely not exist.
I do believe that Octavia Butler wants us to critique what Dana did and think about why she did it, but she does not want us to criticize her. I believe that she wants us to critique Dana so we can realize what a tough situation she is in. Although there is never an excuse for rape or an excuse for allowing rape to happen, all
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Powerful Essays

    Darren Sharper's Case Study
    • 1972 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Darren Sharper's Case Study

    Some members of society would rather victimize a rapist than to protect a victim because it is easier to act as if the issues of sexual harassment, assault and rape do not exist. Women are taught to how to avoid rape, however, young men are not taught how to not rape. The attitudes about these topics are the reason why the term rape culture is real and stronger than ever; from catcalling to slut shaming to being an innocent bystander, if people do not defend a victim they are adding to the problem simply because people begin to believe there is nothing wrong with the…

    • 1972 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Compare And Contrast Freda And Weylin
    • 500 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Compare And Contrast Freda And Weylin

    1. Rufus had grown comfortable enough to Dana to know that she could not resist helping others and not seeing others getting punished harshly without due. He used that against her when he threatened to have Alice whipped if she didn’t talk to her about having sex with Rufus.…

    • 500 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Alice Hanging By The Neck: A Woman
    • 207 Words
    • 1 Page

    Alice Hanging By The Neck: A Woman

    Although there is no way of changing the past, there is still so much purpose to learn about it. Such as learning the beauty of one’s family, culture, and history. Also, to know when, where, and how our past became our present. However, in the process of learning about one’s past, one can learn about tragic or unwanted family history. For example, on page 248, Dana sees something horrific, “... and jumped back in surprise when I saw that someone was hanging there. Hanging by the neck. A woman. Alice.” In this quote, Dana sees Alice hanging by the neck and soon after, she finds out that Rufus was the reason for her act of suicide. Although this quote demonstrates a tragic event, it also displays how Dana’s family was shaped. This major event…

    • 207 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    How Does Octavia Butler Use Prejudice In Kindred
    • 747 Words
    • 3 Pages

    How Does Octavia Butler Use Prejudice In Kindred

    As she ran into the woods to hide, Rufus and his father found her right away. Rufus had been the one to find Dana as soon as he heard a noise in the woods. When Rufus finally got ahold of Dana, he punishes her by making his father whip her to unbearable pain. As Dana awakes the next morning, she thought, “See how easily slaves are made?” (173-177). Rufus did not care that it was Dana who escaped, he still punished. Even though Rufus cared for Dana, he still made her father whip her because she was still considered a slave. Rufus also did not mind hurting Dana because she deserved it and he was raised to believe black people should be punished for everything they do wrong. Rufus shows prejudice by easily beating Kindred for escaping and showing no…

    • 747 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Connections In The Novel 'Kindred' By Octavia Butler
    • 1467 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Connections In The Novel 'Kindred' By Octavia Butler

    The exact spot where Rufus had held her in his final moments marked the loss of her arm, “from the elbow to the ends of the fingers,” It is unknown whether or not Dana’s arm is left in the past, still held between the cold fingers of the dead, as Rufus’ body was believed to be burned to ashes and never found, along with the Weylin estate. Dana’s graphic physical loss shows what slavery truly is outside of popular novels, history books, and dramatized television where the actors practice the pain and suffering that their ancestors dealt with. The loss of her arm shows many different things, like how even though African Americans today have been removed from slavery over time, who they are today was planted and rooted in the past. Also, slaves had constantly suffered from both emotional and physical abuse at the hands of their owners, yet they were extremely dependent of their owners. Dana is subjected to horrific pain at the hand of Rufus, yet she still feels pity for him when he comes crawling back to her, as he is both her master and her kin-dred, so she alternates between despising him and feeling empathetic towards him. Lastly, Dana’s severed arm is a horrible loss, and it is meant to capture the horror of slavery. It is also significant that she suffers her injury because Rufus hangs on to her. Like Rufus holding onto Dana, the past has a “hold” on the present, the sacrifices of the past shape the present today. Dana loses an arm which is an important body part, especially for a writer, although she escapes with her life. The slaves of the past had sacrificed skin, bone, and sanity, yet a lot of them escaped, albeit scarred. Dana’s horrific injury makes all of the sacrifices slaves made painfully real in order to make lives better for generations to come. Part of her lies in the…

    • 1467 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Study Guide Exam #1
    • 4554 Words
    • 16 Pages

    Study Guide Exam #1

    Historically, rape law was designed to regulate “competing male interests in controlling sexual access to females, rather than protecting women’s interest in controlling their own bodies and sexaulity”…

    • 4554 Words
    • 16 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    All The Rage Research Paper
    • 927 Words
    • 4 Pages

    All The Rage Research Paper

    The first questions people usually ask about a rape crime are “What was the victim wearing?”, “Was the victim drunk?.” But these are the wrong questions that we ask, these questions make victims feel like them being sexually assaulted is there fault for wearing something revealing or drinking to much, but that does not mean they are asking to be violated it is NOT in any way their fault. We need to ask the questions of why the abuser thinks that something so immoral is okay to do to someone. “The right question is, ‘What made him think this is acceptable,”’ (The Nation). This is the approach we need to have on rape crimes, this does not put the blame on victims and it helps people to understand what they did was not okay for any…

    • 927 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Theme Of Rape In Jon Krakauer's Missoula
    • 685 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Theme Of Rape In Jon Krakauer's Missoula

    Krakauer shows examples of that in Missoula when the women in the cases talk about how they are afraid to report their perpetrators. In the author’s note of Missoula, Krakauer talked about a survey conducted by the CDC in 2011. He shortly afterwards states that “19.3 percent of American women “have been raped in their lifetimes” and that 1.6 percent of American women-- nearly two and a half million individuals-- “reported that they were raped in the 12 months preceding the survey.” Maybe women are afraid they will be slut shamed, or called a liar. Or in like Allison Huguette's case, maybe the guy was well liked and it would be hard for people to believe that he committed such a crime. All college students need to be aware of these issues. Regardless of why women aren’t reporting these crimes, Missoula sends out a message that rape should always be reported in order to prevent it from happening again. If every college student were required to read Missoula, they would know that rape is a real life issue that happens all the time, and they would know what to do if they ever found themselves in a rape related…

    • 685 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    True Non-Consent Case Study
    • 559 Words
    • 3 Pages

    True Non-Consent Case Study

    Today, there is no national rape law in the United States instead, each state has its own laws concerning sexual assault. Many states have redefined lack of consent. Some states still require a showing of forcible compulsion or a victim’s incapacity to consent for a conviction, others have loosened the rigid resistance requirement and a handful have shifted towards removing force entirely as an element of the crime, concentrating solely on the consensual nature of the act (Lyon, 2004, p. 287).…

    • 559 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    False Beliefs About Rape Myths
    • 476 Words
    • 2 Pages

    False Beliefs About Rape Myths

    According to Burt (1980), rape myths are defined as ‘prejudicial, stereotype or false beliefs about rape, rape victims and rapists’ that serve as a kind of denial and justify male sexual aggression towards women. Burt (1980) identified the examples of rape myths such as 1) “she asked for it”; 2) “it wasn't really rape”; 3) “he didn't mean to”; 4) “she wanted it”; 5) “she liked it”; 6) “rape is a trivial event”; and 7) “rape is a deviant event”. Rape myths vary among societies and cultures(Burt 1980). Rape myths are also highly related to why the rape cases are under-reported (Grubb and Turner 2012). However, they consistently follow a pattern, which they blame the victim for their rape, express a disbelief in claims of rape, exonerate the perpetrator…

    • 476 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Rape Stereotypes: A Mythological Analysis
    • 339 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Rape Stereotypes: A Mythological Analysis

    Sociologist believes that observance of rape myths promote an abuse climate that blames the person who has been violated, excuses the person who performed the crime and blamed the victim (Belknap 2015:347). In my opinion, any act that allows a perpetrator to shift blame is creating a climate of acceptability. Most of the rape myths introduced in this chapter as reasons a person violates another human being are ridiculous. I believe that the regardless of how a person dresses they still have a right to decide who they will or will not be intimate with, so I void that myth, as a sad attempt to blame the victim.…

    • 339 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Kindred
    • 665 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Kindred

    In the book of Octavia Butler's "Kindred," one can observe the different tones, characterizations, and point of views of Dana on pages 18-27 and 59-70. For example, on pages 18-27 the use of Dana’s point of view allows her character to speak directly to the reader, and shows how she maintains control of her emotions in a strange and dangerous situation. We also see how Dana was very cautious about her surroundings, because she was in a different era and wondered who the child she kept seeing was. Dana's tone was scared, because she knew that in the past her race was not treated as good as she had lived in the present; also her rights in the past were not the same anymore so Dana had to be very cautious. Her characterization is always in control since she is a well-educated person. Throughout the story, Dana finds out that the kid she kept seeing was Rufus. Rufus is a little boy who always ends up in trouble. Rufus is not a well educated kid, because Rufus’ dad instead of giving him love treats him badly just like he does with his slaves; Rufus feels like he shouldn’t be like that and wants to be a different person. When he meets Dana, Rufus’ tone towards her was very commanding; he was not scared of her because he knew that he had the power to control her, so this makes Dana to control her emotions, because she is afraid that something can happen to her if she doesn’t respect him. On the other hand, on pages 59-70 Dana’s characterization changes, she is more comfortable with Rufus, because she notice that Rufus was not bad after all compared to the white people in that era. Dana’s tone in the second passage isn’t scared anymore of Rufus instead she cares about him. Dana doesn’t want to upset Rufus, because Rufus depends more on her then on his mother; she need to be on his side because if something happens to him she has to be right there to comfort him. Dana knows now in what era she is living in, so in the second passage, it shows us that Dana is…

    • 665 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Perceptions of Interracial and Intra-Racial Date Rape
    • 818 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Perceptions of Interracial and Intra-Racial Date Rape

    Rape is a crime that is not regularly reported in the United States and out of the 14 to 25 percent of women who are raped; only one tenth to a half of those actually reports the incident to law enforcement. That apprehensiveness in reporting rape can be accredited to some rape myths existing in the United States and those who agree with those myths are more apt to not believe the victim and place the responsibility of the attack on the victim instead of the perpetrator.…

    • 818 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Date Rape Research Paper
    • 1388 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Date Rape Research Paper

    Definition of what rape is has proven to be a complicated process- changed through out history.…

    • 1388 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Blaming Victims In Rape Culture
    • 1897 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Blaming Victims In Rape Culture

    When the topic of rape and sexual assault comes up in conversation, many people truly feel a strong sense of empathy for the victim, yet many others criminalize the victim for how they themselves got into the assault. Why does our society continue to persecute a victim? For the only ones who should be questioning in this fashion, are those investigating the crime in of itself. Rape culture has become a natural part of our society and the largest part of this “culture,” is victim blaming. Yes, there are two sides to this issue, but whether the victim was truly raped or not, it does not matter for there needs to be a better balance for this issue. Whether it is to stop blaming the victim or how the victim can avoid becoming one in the first place.…

    • 1897 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More

Related Topics