Category: Kindred

In the novel, ‘Kindred’ by Octavia Butler, and the poem ‘Harlem’ by Langston Hughes, they both use symbolism to communicate how racism destroys the dreams and ambitions of those affected by its grasp.

The poem ‘Harlem’ by Langston Hughes uses symbolism to communicate how racism destroys the dreams and ambitions of those affected by its grasp. Hughes opens the poem by saying, “What happens to a dream deferred, does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?” (Harlem, 1-3). Hughes uses symbolism to compare a dried up raisin to the dreams of African Americans of the time period. A raisin begins its life as a large, plump, juicy grape that is full of life. This can be compared to the freshly conceived dreams of African Americans for equality among their fellow peers. However, the dream does not reach fruition but rather has all the life sucked out of it, thus rendering it a dried up old raisin. This relates to how all the dreams and ambitions have been sucked out of the dreamers by the racist opposition until they have nothing left to hope for. Hughes goes on to make another analogy, discussing, “What happens to a dream deferred, […] Maybe it just sags like a heavy load” (Harlem, 1, 9-10). Hughes uses symbolism once more to describe how the deferred dreams of African Americans are like a heavy load that sags. Rather than how the dream began, seeming relatively light and easy to carry out, it has now transformed into a heavy load that weighs down those who still have hope of accomplishing it. Once again, the grasp of racism has transformed the dream of freedom into more of a burden than a possibility, weighing the dreamers down to the point where there is no longer a point of holding onto the dream, encouraging the dreamers to simply let go and abandon their ambitions of equality.

The novel ‘Kindred’ by Octavia Butler also uses symbolism to communicate how racism destroys the dreams and ambitions of those affected by its grasp. In the novel, Nigel describes to Dana what it’s like to have children on the plantation, saying, “‘It’s good to have children’, – he said softly. ‘Good to have sons. But it’s so hard to see them be slaves’” (209). Birthdays symbolize the cruel cycle of slavery. For the slaves on the Weylin plantation, the birth of children is truly a mix of emotions. Although the birth of a child brings with it great joy and happiness, it is also the cause of great suffering. The necessity of caring for an child links the parents more to the plantation, making it nearly impossible for them to even consider escape. As the infants grow, the parents must suffer from knowing that their children will become slaves and must live in constant fear that a member of their family will be sold and they will never be able to see them again. Their ambitions of seeing their children grow up free and live a normal life will never reach fruition as their dreams are crushed by the cruel grasp of slavery and racism. They are damned to watch their children suffer the same fates as they have with no foreseeable chance of escape anytime in the near future. At another point in the novel, Rufus and Dana get into a bit of an argument. Dana needs Rufus to mail a letter for him, and in return for the favor, Rufus says: “Listen, if you want me to get that letter to town soon, you put that map in the fire too” (142). To slaves in the Antebellum south, maps symbolize the possibility of freedom. For this reason, it is very dangerous for a slave to possess a map. When Rufus forces Dana to burn her map, she is burning her only ability to navigate through the south, and thus, her only possibility of freedom. Along with the map, Dana is also throwing all of her hopes and ambitions of escape into the fire as well because without the map, she has no chance of escape. Rufus’ racists tendencies of ordering Dana to do things that he wants has evidently crushed all hopes and dreams of escape that Dana could have ever had.

While ‘Harlem’ uses metaphors such as comparing an overbearing load or a dried-up raisin to the deferred dreams of African Americans, ‘Kindred’ tends to use actual material items as symbolizations of greater ideas in the text. For example, in ‘Harlem’ by Langston Hughes, the speaker once again makes a comparison to the deferred dreams of African Americans, saying, “What happens to a dream deferred, does it […] fester like a sore” (Harlem, 1, 4). Rather than subtly communicating how an object in the text can communicate a bigger meaning as is evident in ‘Kindred’, Hughes explicitly relates a festering sore to a deferred dream. A sore is like a dream deferred in that the longer that you wait, the worse it becomes. Just as a sore festers and becomes infected, the dream can become so distorted and influenced by the ideals of the racist opposition that it eventually turns into a gross mockery of what it oncewas, nearly unrecognizable from the original. The dream when unattended to will become less and less of a reality, destroying the hopes and ambitions of the dreamers with each passing day until it is nothing but a memory, a distant scar of the past. In ‘Kindred’, we see a more subtle use of symbolization as Dana’s encounter with a whip is described. She says: “I screamed, convulsed. Weylin struck again and again until I couldn’t have gotten up at gunpoint […] I thought I would die on the ground there with a mouth full of dirt and blood and a white man cursing and lecturing as he beat me. By then, I almost wanted to die. Anything to stop the pain” (107). Although the use of symbolization is not as clear and concrete as its use in ‘Harlem’, the same message of how racism destroys the dreams and ambitions of those affected by its grasp is still present. A whip in the hands of a white man symbolizes all of the evil that exists in the Antebellum South. The way the whip functions symbolizes the slow, soul-crushing effect of slavery and racism. Whips have the ability to kill, but unlike a gun, they kill slowly. They are instruments of slow and painful torture. In the same way that slavery and racism kills the soul piece by piece, whips slowly kill and dehumanize a human being with every striking blow, destroying any ambitions and hopes that the victim has until their only hope is for the sweet escape of death.

To conclude, in both ‘Harlem’ by Langston Hughes and ‘Kindred’ by Octavia Butler, symbolism is used to communicate how racism destroys the dreams and ambitions of those affected by its grasp. Although they each use a different approach for communicating this, they succeed at presenting this same central message with the use of symbolism.

Slavery in literature has been a crucial and defining template for understanding past and modern human rights abuse. Due to the influence that these literary works can have on our understanding of history, it is important that the content be authentic, unbiased and historically factual. The two novels: Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe and Kindred by Octavia Butler, there are two very different accounts of being a slave, both of which the readers assume to be historically accurate for the most part. In order to help prevent readers from accepting a false account of history as the truth, it is important to assess the historicity or the historical actuality of these events. Uncle Tom’s Cabin, written by Harriet Beecher Stowe, often received criticism due to the fact that Stowe is a white woman and would not have an accurate account of what being a slave is like, however, the novel also played a huge role in the abolishment of slavery, and is said to have been based off of real slave narratives. Kindred, written by Octavia Butler, shares the same anti-slavery theme, but differs in the depiction of the slavery experience, providing a seemingly more historically accurate, first-hand perspective, as the main character of the novel time-travels onto a real plantation. By examining the historicity of these novels, not only the issue of “what really happened” but also the issue of how modern observers can come to know “what really happened”, it is apparent that both novels accurately represent history, just present the facts in different contexts.

Both authors, Stowe and Butler, conducted extensive research on the topics of slavery before composing their novels to assure the utmost historical accuracy, and this proves true as the majority of events in both novels can be backed with factual evidence. Both novels include the separation of slave families, which is very historically accurate. In Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Stowe includes the heart-wrenching separation of Susan and Emmeline, and Mr. Haley splitting a mother and son as he only purchases one of them. Similarly, in the book Kindred, Butler illustrates the topic of slave family separation mainly through the actions of slave owner Mr. Weylin, who sells away members of slave families if they displease him in any way. Both novels describe topics of familial separation historically accurate. Also, in both novels, Butler and Stowe frequently rehash accounts of slaves being treated like property and abused.

Despite the similarity of the historically accurate recount of slavery and factual information in both novels, they greatly differ in how they present this information to readers. First of all, Uncle Tom’s Cabin was originally published in 1852, 4 years before slavery was even abolished, and Kindred was originally published in 1979, a time when slavery is most commonly talked about in history books. The intended audiences in both time periods have vastly different beliefs, values and opinions of slavery which influence the way in which they perceive the history in both novels. Stowe, author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin first started piecing together her novel as a response to new, strict fugitive slave laws. Her novel was soon released into a society that still largely accepted slavery and largely rejected the accurate facts and negative portrayal of slavery. Readers were so apprehensive to accept her novel and the horrors of slavery it included, that it received very harsh criticizing, and serious talk about banning it. Although the largely white intended audience was not receptive of the way Stowe presented the facts of slavery, her novel still outsold the Bible and played a huge role in abolishing slavery. In contrast, Octavia Butler’s Kindred was released long after slavery was abolished, but only a few years after the height of the Civil Rights movement. Butler was inspired to write her novel due to her belief that modern generations are beginning to minimize the horrors of slavery and lose sight of much of slavery involved. Butler was careful in how she presented modern-day readers with the facts and events of slavery and toned down the blood and gore compared to other slavery literature like Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Instead of making readers face the horrid reality of slavery like in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Butler also wanted to make readers understand the lasting effects of this dark past on present times by adding a modern twist of time travel in her story.

Additionally, the genre and way in which the information is presented in both novels has a great influence on how the reader perceives and interprets it. In Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Stowe writes her novel in third person, allowing the reader to look in from the outside without making them feel like part of the story. Most of her intended audience was still participating in slavery and gained lots of knowledge by acting as a spectator of their own heinous deeds as they read her novel. Contrastingly, Butler published her story in a time when slavery was strictly history for the majority of her readers. For this reason, she incorporated time travel in order for modern-day readers to immerse themselves into her story and more accurately understand and come to terms with the dark past and how far we have come since.

Harriet Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Octavia Butler’s Kindred novels both portray the grim reality of slavery in a very historically accurate way. However, each publication differs in the intended audience’s values, norms and beliefs at the time they were released. Due to these differences, it is important to examine the way in which the information is presented to readers because it can largely affect the way in which they interpret and understand the facts, regardless of how historically accurate they are. Overall, both texts present the same historically accurate information in different ways that best suit the society and readers of its time.

In the novels ‘Kindred’ by Octavia Butler and ‘Lord of the Flies’ by William Golding, one of the main points portrayed by both authors is how to exert and maintain power over others. Rufus from ‘Kindred’ and Jack from ‘Lord of the Flies’ both use similar tactics to maintain their power over their peers. Both boys attempt at hiding their insecurities by hurting others and abusing the power they are given, leading them both to fail at retaining their given power.

‘Lord of the Flies’, written by William Golding, is about British schoolboys whose plane was shot down over the Pacific Ocean during a time of war. The plane’s pilot is killed, but many of the schoolboys survive the crash and find themselves on a deserted island without adult supervision. The boys elect Ralph as leader; since he is the oldest, the boys assume he is also the wisest. However, Jack, a born leader and competitive individual, wishes to be chief as well, which leads him to gradually seize power and authority from Ralph. Jack quickly takes advantage of his power over the choirboys appointed to him by Ralph himself. He gradually begins to attempt at diminishing Ralph’s authority by giving the hunters permission to neglect their duties. Also, Jack constantly rejects Piggy’s ideas, argues with both Ralph and Piggy, and continuously disobeys the set rules of the conch.

Right in the beginning of the novel, the author portrays Jack as a born leader and competitive individual who in reality, is actually insecure and is affected easily by others’ opinions and actions. For example, when the boys decide to have a vote to choose their leader, Jack states, with simple arrogance, “I ought to be chief”, …“because I’m chapter chorister and head boy. I can sing C sharp” (Golding, 15). However, the only boys who vote for him were the choirboys, and they did so “with dreary obedience” (15), since they feel obligated to stay loyal to Jack. The rest of the boys vote for Ralph instead, and when this happens, “Jack’s face disappears under a blush of mortification” (15), so Ralph offers Jack the role to be in charge of the hunters, which is made up of a group of choirboys. Clearly Jack is insecure and believes that the power should belong to him. Due to this belief, he attempts to seize power and authority from Ralph by badmouthing him to the rest of the boys when stating, “He [Ralph] is not a hunter. He’d never have got us meat. He isn’t perfect and we don’t know anything about him. He just gives orders and expects people to obey for nothing. All this talk” (126). Jack constantly tries to make Ralph look like a bad chief in order to take the power away from Ralph and claim it for himself. Another way Jack attempts to diminish Ralph’s authority is by abusing his power over the choir boys. In Chapter 10, Jack makes himself the chief of his own tribe, which consists of all the ‘biguns’ except for Ralph, Samneric, and Piggy, and most of the ‘littluns’. Jack abuses his newly given power by using violence against his own tribe members as well as against Ralph’s group. He also continuously steals other people’s property for his own selfish needs. For example, when Jack is angry at Wilfred for an unspecified offense, he keeps Wilfred tied up for hours as he beats him, and when Jack determines his crew needs to start their own fires by using Piggy’s specs, he plans a midnight raid on Ralph’s camp to obtain them. During that raid, Jack, Roger, and Maurice use violence: “hitting, biting, scratching” (149). The boys do not question Jack’s decisions, and Jack uses the boys’ fear against them.

Even though Jack might be considered an effective leader because he maintains leadership, he is still not a good, successful one. A successful leader would take care of his followers, but Jack only has feelings for himself and his needs. He is not interested in trying to get his tribe rescued, nor does he care about anything besides his obsession with hunting and accumulating power. Due to Jack’s greed and obsession with obtaining more power, he allows his tribe to commit ‘savage’ doings, such as stealing Piggy’s glasses to start a fire, participating in Simon’s murder and feeling no remorse for what had just occured, and allowing Roger to drop a boulder that crushes Piggy, causing him to fall forty feet off a cliff, and the conch Piggy was holding. Jack maintains obedience using violence and fear, which is not how a good, successful leader would act, and he even attacks Ralph directly with his spear. If the boys had not been rescued, Jack would most likely have gained complete control of the island – or what was left of it, considering he nearly burned it all down; if Jack was leader, it is inevitable that more deaths would have occurred. At the end of the novel, when the boys luckily get rescued before Jack can take over the island, the author portrays Jack for who he really is: “The officers ask, ‘Who’s boss here?’. ‘I am’, said Ralph loudly. A little boy who wore the remains of an extraordinary black cap on his red hair and who carried the remains of a pair of spectacles at his waist, started forward, then changed his mind and stood still” (182). So, even though Jack is an intimidating, violent person who maintains leadership by force, he is also portrayed as just a little red-haired boy who is intimidated by others.

‘Kindred’ by Octavia E. Butler is about a modern black woman named Dana who is abruptly taken from her home in California and is transported to a slave plantation in the South. Rufus, the son of plantation owner Mr. Weylin as well as Dana’s ancestor, keeps getting himself into trouble. Dana has been summoned to save his life; she is drawn back in time repeatedly to help Rufus, even though all he does is treat others of different colors with disrespect and violence. Throughout the novel Rufus, just like his father, uses cruelty, threats, violence, his race, and the slaves’ fear of him to hide his insecurities and to maintain his power and authority. Once he inherited his father’s position as slave owner, Rufus begins to believe that he has been given the right to control the lives of others which leads him to become a tyrant.

In the beginning of the novel, Rufus Weylin is first perceived by the author as a curious and innocent young boy with slight insecurities. However, as the book progresses, Rufus turns into an over-obsessive and abusive tyrant, and the author portrays him as a stereotypical Southern slave owner. With every trip that Dana makes back in time to save Rufus, there is a clear change in the way he acts. As he grows older, instead of getting more mature, he becomes more evil and childish: he feels as though he is entitled to anything he wants and gets frustrated when things do not go his way. Rufus also does not take personal responsibility for his actions, but instead he blames everybody else for his problems and failures: “‘Rufe, did you manage to rape that girl?’. He looked away guiltily. ‘Why would you do such a thing? She used to be your friend’. ‘When we were little, we were friends’, he said softly. ‘We grew up. She got so she’d rather have a buck nigger than me!’” (122). He basically blames Alice for forcing him to rape her; he says it wouldn’t have been rape if she would have just let him. Throughout the novel, Rufus constantly misuses his power that he maintains through violence, and causes physical and emotional pain to those around him. However, even though Rufus is main perceived by the author as a cruel, abusive slave owner, there are some points in the book where he is portrayed as an insecure ‘child’: “‘Say something! Talk to me!’. ‘Or what?’, I asked. ‘Are you going to have me beaten for not talking to you?’” (215). The author shows Rufus as a harsh person who beats and punished others for wrong doing, as well as a person who is insecure and always wants someone beside him to lean on and talk with. This is also shown before Dana decides to kill him: “Abandonment. The one weapon Alice hadn’t had. Rufus didn’t seem to be afraid of dying… But he was afraid of dying alone, afraid of being deserted by the person he had depended on for so long” (257).

Rufus is not considered as a successful ruler, and that is shown when Dana ends up killing him at the end of the novel after she is fed up with his abusive ways: “I could feel the knife in my hand, still slippery with perspiration. A slave was a slave. Anything could be done to her. And Rufus was Rufus—erratic, alternately generous and vicious. I could accept him as my ancestors, my younger brother, my friend, but not as my master, and not as my lover” (260). Since Rufus is such an ‘erratic’ individual who has a tendency to make wrong choices when things do not happen in the way his wants them to, Dana believes the best idea is to end things with him before he can get worse and cause more harm to her and the others. Therefore, she “twisted sharply, broke away from him… raised the knife… sank it into his side” (260).

In conclusion, the authors of both novels portray the different ways to exert and maintain power over others. The authors have a common technique: they show their character in power as an insecure individual who attempts to hide their insecurity and maintain authority by hurting others and abusing the power they are given, which leads to an unsuccessful ending.