The Bestselling Novel: Currents in American History and Culture

Bending Genres in Kindred

The novel Kindred by Octavia Butler uses the concept of time travel to address issues of slavery, identity, and race. The author blended contemporary styles of writing that kept the readers hooked, with serious themes. Every time Dana travels back, she has a better understanding of slavery and a new realization of how sheltered and protected she had been. The timeline I created below summarizes her trips back to the 1800's with their reasons. Its purpose is to outline the time travels in the book for the reader to visualize the travels and to see what is it that spurred them. It is her connection to Rufus as her ancestor and the need to ensure she stays alive that initiates the travels, and her feeling her own life at risk that makes her travel back to the future. Throughout these trips, we see her views on the issue of slavery mature. 

I found that addressing those serious themes through a modern style of writing made the issues easier to grasp and relate to. For example, with Uncle Tom’s Cabin, it was very easy to lose interest in the text and to find it really difficult to read (not only because of the language, but because of the narration style), while Kindred is a page turner and cannot be put down. The stark difference in my reading experiences between these two books is an issue of Bestsellerism.

Bestsellerism trends vary according to popular culture, while UTC was a huge success at the time of publication, it cannot draw the interest of the contemporary reader. What played a factor in Kinderd becoming a bestseller is blending genres, as with the example of Gone Girl.

The author is trying to bring attention to how the history of slavery still haunts modern Americans and that they shouldn’t wash their hands from the past. Dana's attitude pre-time travel was more like “it is in the past and it doesn’t affect me”, which is a modern view on the issue. Her experience in the past was necessary for her to claim an identity and to serve as a reminder. The fact that the book contrasts the two attitudes bluntly shocks readers into the realizing how serious the issue is. Because the book opens up conversations about outlook on race, which is a significant issue that appeals to a large mass of readers, it is attractive to them. 

The novel is difficult to categorize because of the fact that it deals with so many different themes. It is a scientific fiction that deals with an exploration of human psychology as well as being a feminist text. Vint says in regards to categorizing Kindred that it is“Partly historical novel, partly slave narrative, and partly the story of how a twentieth century black woman comes to terms with slavery as her own and her nation's past”. It is a realistic spin on the idea of travel, which is usually foreign.

References 

Sherryl Vint. “‘Only by Experience’: Embodiment and the Limitations of Realism in Neo-Slave Narratives.” Science Fiction Studies, vol. 34, no. 2, 2007, pp. 241–261. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/4241524.

 

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