The Bestselling Novel: Currents in American History and Culture Main Menu Introduction Intersectionality and Power Relations in Bestsellerism An intersectional analysis of the concepts of gender, race and power relationships, highlighting how the overlap between these concepts fueled the novels’ rise as bestsellers. Slavery Beyond Chains The Variation of the Forms of Slavery Inflicted on Charlotte in Susanna Rowson's _Charlotte Temple_ and Dana in Octavia Butler's _Kindred_. Perception of Women in Society Inspecting the ways in which the woman’s default “doomed” status can be blamed on the society's narrow perception of women in Susanna Rowson's Charlotte Temple and Edith Wharton's House of Mirth. Gendered Violence and Racism: The Short End of the Stick The Struggle of the Black Woman Across the Centuries Brief summaries of course texts

Time is the Enemy

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Dana has to endure the terrors of travelling to the past (the way past) and to a different geographical location. 

Time travelling sounds exciting, doesn't it? Well, not for Dana. 

As seen in the map below, Dana travels from her present time in Los Angeles in the year 1976 to her ancestors’ residence in Maryland in the year 1815. 

The problematics with her travels is that she has no control of how and when it happens; thus, she is enslaved to the act itself. 
Dana expresses in a conversation with her husband Kevin that,

“somehow, my travels crossed time as well as distance. Another fact: The boy was the focus of my travels—perhaps the cause of them” (Butler 24).

With that being said, Rufus is the initiator of her confinement—physically and metaphorically—because he controls her and her travels when he is in danger.
 
Later on, Alice’s mother (in Maryland, 1815) asks Dana where she is from because her dialect denotes that she is not from here. Dana could not say that she is from Los Angeles because it has not yet existed in 1815; thus, she lied and said that she is from New York. Alice’s mother asks Dana if she was “carried off” and Dana replies “Yes.”

Following her response, Dana states, “Maybe in a way I had been kidnapped” (Butler 40). That statement was not spoken out loud, which makes it appear ambiguous. It could have been a mental explanation in response to Alice’s mother as to how slaves could have physically been kidnapped. On the other hand, it could have been directed to the readers as a signification of her literal capture—which we know of.
 
After a few years in Maryland, Dana and Kevin attempt to leave The Weylin Plantation (in Maryland) but Rufus, Dana’s captivator, physically obstructs their departure. Not only has he enslaved her through time and space, but he now granted himself the authority to impose a form of ownership over her life in a physical and metaphorical sense.

Rufus commands and claims,“Damn you, you’re not leaving” (Butler 186-187).

He points his gun towards Dana and threatens her with her life if she were to refuse staying with him. The scenario portrays the problematics of the inability to escape a physical, spiritual, emotional and social confinement. 


Butler, Octavia E. Kindred. Beacon Press, 2009. 

 

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  1. Slavery Beyond Chains Students in ENG 410: American Novel, an upper-level undergraduate seminar

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