Kindred Themes (Quotes)

Question 1

Quotes for Freedom and Privilege/prejudice
1. Gender based
- The Fire (Rufus talking to Dana; looked like a man)

2. Race based
   - The Fire (calling names to the blacks, treatment of Dana’s question; patrollers)
   - The Fall (talking like a white; being able to observe because Kevin is white)
3. Time-based
   - The Fire (seeing whippings on television vs real life)
   - The Fall (irony of her modern workplace name; time based cushioning)

Answer 1

a. Gender based
The Fire
- Rufus: “You were wearing pants like a man”

b. Race based
The Fire
- Dana: “Your mother always call black people niggers, Rufe?”
Rufus: “Sure, except when she was company. Why not?”
- Patroller: Instead he slapped me stunningly with one hand while he held me with the other. He spoke very softly, “You got no manners, nigger. I’ll teach you some!” (after Dana asked “what are you doing here?”)

The Fall
- Nigel: “Why you try to talk like white folks?” Nigel asked me. “I don’t,” I said, surprised. “I mean, this is really the way I talk.” “More like white folks than some white folks.”
- Dana: “You might be able to go through this whole experience as an observer” (to Kevin)

c. Time based
The Fire
- I had seen people beaten on television and in the movies. I had seen the too-red blood substitute streaked across their backs and heard their well-rehearsed screams. But I hadn’t lain nearby and smelled their sweat or heard them pleading and praying, shamed before their families and themselves. I was probably less prepared for the reality than the child crying not far from me. In fact, she and I were reacting very much alike.”

The Fall
- I was working out of a casual labor agency—we regulars called it a slave market. Actually, it was just the opposite of slavery. The people who ran it couldn’t have cared less whether or not you showed up to do the work they offered. (irony, contrast)
- Dana: “It’s nineteen seventy-six shielding and cushioning eighteen nineteen for me. But now and then, like with the kid’s game, I can’t maintain the distance. I’m drawn all the way into eighteen nineteen, and I don’t know what to do. I ought to be doing something though. I know that.”

Question 2

Quotes for Choice and Power
The Fire and The Fall
- The absolute power of the whites to do anything they want even to the blacks, whipping; treating them as lower class
- Lack of power for the blacks to do anything
- Taking away the choice of the blacks, Sarah (The Fall) and Dana

Answer 2

The Fire
- Dana: “But… your father whips black people?”
Rufus:” When they need it. But mama said it was cruel and disgraceful for him to hit me like that no matter what I did” (in 2nd meeting with Rufus)
- Narrator: “Behind him, his child wept noisily against her mother’s leg, but the woman, like her husband, was silent” (During Alice’s father’s whipping)
- Dana: “You mean, will I use it.”
Kevin: “That too”
Dana: “Yes. Before last night, I might not have been sure, but now, yes.” (After returning to present)

The Fall
- Quiet, almost frightening anger. Her husband dead, three children sold, the fourth defective, and her having to thank God for the defect. She had reason for more than anger. (Sarah about her children)

Question 3

Quotes for purpose of prologue
Build tension/mystery
- Graphic image
- Creates questions

Low priority

Answer 3

i. Builds mystery
- “I lost an arm on my last trip home. My left arm” (graphic image–> violence; short impactful statement)
- “When the police released Kevin, he came to the hospital and stayed with me so that I would know I hadn’t lost him too” (creates questions for the reader; why? what did she lose?)
- “The important thing was that he was there. I slept again, relieved” (why so intense?)
- “‘If you told those deputies the truth,’ I said softly, ‘you’d still be locked up- in a mental hospital.’ (what is it so bad about the truth?

Sense of foreboding and ominousness

Question 4

How does Butler bring out tension in Kindred?
1. Prologue
- Graphic imagery
- Creating questions

2. The Fire
   - Graphic details of first horror Dana sees in the past
   - Comparison to usual life (TV) brings out the scene’s horror
3. The Fall
   - Foreshadowing from witnessing a slave’s whipping
   - Uncertainty right before her own whipping
   - Loss of sensation due to intensity
   - Uncertainty of Kevin reaching on time

Answer 4

i. Prologue
a. Builds mystery (generates questions, adds ambuiguity)
- “I lost an arm on my last trip home. My left arm” (graphic image–> violence; short impactful statement)
- “When the police released Kevin, he came to the hospital and stayed with me so that I would know I hadn’t lost him too” (creates questions for the reader; why? what did she lose?)
- “The important thing was that he was there. I slept again, relieved” (why so intense?)
- “‘If you told those deputies the truth,’ I said softly, ‘you’d still be locked up- in a mental hospital.’ (what is it so bad about the truth?

ii. The Fire; the whipping
a. First time witnessing such horrors in real life, vivid descriptions of the scene
- Context: “One of the whites went to his horse to get what proved to be a whip. He cracked it once in the air, apparently for his own amusement, then brought it down across the back of the black man”. (quick escalation in the intensity of the scene)
- “Then the man’s resolve broke. He began to moan- low gut-wrenching sounds torn from him against his will. Finally, he began to scream” (a slow step by step description emphasises the agony being drawn out and the struggle of the man)
- “I could literally smell his sweat, hear every ragged breath, every cry, every cut of the whip. I could see his body jerking, convulsing, straining against the rope as his screaming went on and on” (vivid imagery, sensory details)
- I had seen people beaten on television and in the movies. I had seen the too-red blood substitute streaked across their backs and heard their well-rehearsed screams. But I hadn’t lain nearby and smelled their sweat or heard them pleading and praying, shamed before their families and themselves. (shock for Dana translates to shock for us)

iii. The Fall; Dana’s Whipping
a. Signifies the first time where she experiences raw 1800s, and her first major consequence of her actions in the past
- Foreshadowing from previously: “The whipping served its purpose as far as I was concerned. It scared me, made me wonder how long it would be before I made a mistake that would give someone reason to whip me. Or had I already made that mistake?” (Foreshadows the experience Dana will go through)
- “I said nothing. Clearly, nothing I could say would help. I felt myself trembling, and I tried to be still. I hoped Weylin couldn’t see. And I hoped Nigel had had the sense to get the pencil off the table. So far, I was the only one in trouble. If it could just stay that way . . .” (High tension as we do not know what would happen next; “I hoped” brings in uncertainty and fear)
- “I may have been still screaming or just whimpering, I couldn’t tell.” (Shows the serverity to the point where she was unaware of sensations; brings in shock for the reader)
- “By then, I almost wanted to die. Anything to stop the pain.” (Morbid statement)
- “I saw Kevin, blurred, but somehow still recognizable. I saw him running toward me in slow motion, running. Legs churning, arms pumping, yet he hardly seemed to be getting closer.” (questions introduced: will he get there in time?; slows down the scene “slow motion”)