Kindred's Critique of Progress
Octavia Butler’s Kindred utilizes time travel, a trademark of the science fiction genre, to show Dana and readers the tragedies of antebellum America simultaneously. Butler’s use of time travel works to force comparisons to the lives of America’s ancestors and remove the purely theoretical elements of questions regarding racial relations, specifically through the interactions between Rufus and Alice and Dana and Kevin The main tonal change in Kindred happens halfway through the novel where Dana observes the aftermath of Alice’s rape by Rufus, her ancestor. It is here in Kindred where it becomes apparent that the inevitable union between Alice and Rufus will not be one of of harmony and mutual reciprocation, rather rape, portrayed in the novel as the ultimate exploitation. However, terrifyingly, the novel also portrays the barbaric rape of Alice as a necessity, something that must happen for Hagar to be born, for Dana to exist. In this way, Butler uses the relationship of Alice...