I don’t really know what to write about,
since we’ve covered a lot in class and discussed the things I had thoughts on. Now,
I can only think of one passage that grabbed my attention. In the chapter
following her first whipping, Dana flashes back to before her and Kevin got
married. Actually he had just asked her to marry him and she thought back to
when he wanted her to type his manuscripts:
He
[] had asked me to do some typing for him three times. I’d done it the first
time, grudgingly, not telling him how much I hated typing....The second time he
asked, though, I told him, and I refused. He was annoyed. The third time when I
refused again, he was angry. He said if I couldn’t do him a little favor when
he asked, I could leave. (109)
At first I
wondered why this detail would be included in the story, least of all why
Butler would include flashbacks amidst the story (which is already a giant
flashback).
To answer the latter, I think it helps
connect the past to the present on another level (aside from what Dana is
already experiencing by traveling back in time). This conclusion really comes
from why she would write this about Kevin, so let me explain.
We spoke of doubling between the two
settings in the novel, and I think this passage shows that the doubling goes
beyond the characters and into the situations as well. Here Kevin, a white man,
feels strongly that Dana, a black woman, type for him and gets upset when she
refuses (and basically kicks her out). Then when she returns, he still asks if
she would do this for him (see title). So one could argue there’s a part of
Kevin that has a bias towards women, and the color of their skin only adds to
the conflict (from a reader’s perspective). What’s also interesting is this
passage’s placement within the novel. We experience this horrible and violent
moment with Dana and Weylin before she leaves, then relive this seemingly
opposite moment with her and Kevin before coming back to the “present”. On the
surface it might serve as a break for the reader after the climactic events
that just happened, but Butler seems to challenge the reader to really pay
attention at what is happening in this flashback. Dana just got punished by Weylin
for not doing what she was told (to stop reading); here she did not do
something that was expected of her and wasn’t punished, but did get in a fight
and left.
I’m not trying to compare Weylin and
Kevin, just the fact that these two events are similar and that Butler put one
right after the other. Remember that later in this chapter (“The Fight”) we
also learn of Kevin’s sister and Dana’s aunt and uncle. So, this passage is the
first of many subtle comparisons Butler makes between Maryland 1815 and
California 1976. Are the times/eras really that different? It’s a bit scary
seeing the two worlds tied this way – through Dana’s ancestry, the time travel,
her relationship with Kevin – much like how now Dana (and Kevin) have trouble
differentiating between their two “homes” and keep comparing the two.
This may sound a bit repetitive, but it’s
all I’ve got. I just think this is another good example from the novel that adds
to what we were discussing in class.
Work
Cited
Butler, Octavia.
Kindred. Boston: Beacon Press, 2003.
Print.
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ReplyDeleteI think an interesting concept has been brought up in regards to Dana and Weylin in this writing. This is an opinionated post, however it works well in the fact that it has the potential for a phenomenal interpretive problem in the text if elaborated on more thoroughly. The fact of Dana’s punishment from Weylin is one of irony in the fact that, she was punished once for reading, however when she was asked to do something that demanded literacy, she was not punished. Normally when a slave in 1815 disobeyed orders, they would be whipped, lynched, and a plethora of brutal things, but not Dana. I encourage you to look into the text further and find more examples to support your claims. You may even use a few passages and/or concepts from The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, a story that focuses on the concept of literacy and how it was not tolerated in the slave trade, however in Kindred, it is. I believe that if you did talk more about literacy, your argument would be stronger. Maybe elaborate or compare literacy and its significance in the two time periods and settings from 1815 to 1976. Overall, there are many ideas in your writing with massive potential, just make sure you structure them well in your writing and support why all these concepts are interesting to you.
ReplyDeleteI think that you bring up an excellent point about the comparison that Butler makes between early 1800s Maryland and California in the 1970s. I also came to the same conclusion around the same part that you did. It really occurred to me when the novel shows the struggles that Dana and Kevin had to get married (Butler 108-112). I thought that fact that both of the families were unhappy about the marriage was extremely interesting and this is mainly what sparked the connection that you made. I found it quite bizarre too that a novel with time travel in it also included flash forwards to the past of their present. It gets a tad bit confusing and Butler must have known that so she must have had a good reason in doing it. This explains how important it was to show how little our society has changed since then and that we are still suffering from the effects of slavery.
ReplyDeleteI do not see the typing scene as an issue of race, but only as an issue of sexism. The two are linked in that they are both different forms of repression, but it is important to acknowledge the difference. After rereading the passage I did not see any evidence of racism, but only of sexism. The fact that the chapter is about Kevin and Dana getting married supports the idea of the patriarchal structure of marriage. If there are any about racism they must have slipped over my head. On that note, I think that Butler’s point in not making the typing incident about race makes her argument stronger for several reasons. First, she acknowledges that there are all sorts of different ways for people to be repressed. She links the idea of repression far past simply race, but also to gender equality by including this incident.