Time-Travel--A Fluid Past and Present?
- Paige
- Nov 27, 2018
- 1 min read
Both Kevin and Dana know that they can't change history. They say: "We're in the middle of history. We surely can't change it" (p. 100); and "It's over...There's nothing you can do to change any of it now" (p. 264). What, then, is the purpose of Dana's travels back to the antebellum South? Why must you, the reader, experience this journey with Dana?
Jennifer Greeson argues that the South is always seen as an internal other--the antithesis of what the rest of the nation is, but does a critical reading of the setting of Kindred ask us to consider a different South? Dana is located in California, when she travels back in time, she finds herself in Maryland? What might this suggest about the geographical borders of the South?
Additionally, how is writing about the antebellum South through the genre of science fiction important especially when considering Donna Haraway's claim that "it matters what stories make worlds, what worlds make stories." Consider how some of the most popular novels set in the antebellum South ( Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell) have failed to examine the intersections of race, class, and gender in the way that Kindred does.
Brian Marquez – 0006
1. I believe the reason Dana and Kevin travel back and forth between 1976 California and the antebellum South, and why the reader is taken along for the journey, is to provide them as well as us a first hand account of what life was like at that time and place, while still maintaining a semi-safe distance from the real horrors of slavery. I think Octavia Butler wanted to highlight the differences between “present-day” California and the antebellum South, but more importantly, I think she wanted to highlight how similar they could be. When Dana talks about first meeting Kevin, she refers to the temp agency as a “slave market”. This could be an attempt to…
Julia Lindley-0006
The purpose of Dana travelling back is so that she can see first hand what the antebellum south was like. She knows she can't change history, but I think she just wanted to see it for herself. You have to go through it with Dana for the same reason you need to follow any main character in any story. When you see something through somebody else's eyes, it gives you a new perspective. When we talk about slavery, of course we feel sympathy for the people of the past, but there is a limit to that feeling of pain, because you could never truly see or experience it. When you go along with Dana on her journeys, you…
Dan Shumate - Section 6
Dana traveled back because, while she could not change the past, she still needed to see what it was like. She needed to understand her own history in order to better understand herself and we, as the readers, needed to see it because this perspective of the antebellum south is rarely depicted.
Kindred definitely seems to present an alternate south that is often not depicted; the South is far too often depicted as backwards and anti-progressive. The South's borders aren't necessarily geographical, as now there are many states that are west of it, but rather cultural. The divide between the South and the rest of the country seems to have definitely come from the Civil…
David Mathews - Section 0004
It's very important for the reader to journey back in time with Dana, and the fact that she can't change anything about that past is absolutely essential to the final effect the novel has on its readers. By simply facing the past as it was, we're forced to realize that is indeed how it was. We're left to face that the racism and discrimination and language and other practices we try to diminish now were commonplace and considered completely normal back then, and the things we deem normal today would be strange then. The inability to alter any of that establishes and upholds the distinct contrast between the past and present, making Dana and the…
James Hurley
Section 0006
I think that the novel isn’t just about time travel as the setting I think raises important questions when it comes to looking back into our pasts as a people. I think that it plays with the idea of looking into the past to understand/change the future as we as a people study history to find patterns and experiences that have led to have repercussions into the modern world. I think that the antebellum south is especially one of these places that requires a re-visit because of the mythology behind it. Dana’s purpose in these experiences are to learn about her history and her past, to further understand the culture and hurt that she comes from.…