Kindred (1979) is a novel by American writer Octavia E. Butler that incorporates time travel and is modeled on slave narratives. Widely popular, it has frequently been chosen as a text by community-wide reading programs and book organizations, and for high school and college courses.
The book is the first-person account of a young African-American writer, Dana, who is repeatedly transported in time from her Los Angeles home in 1976 (alone and once with her white husband) to an early 19th-century Maryland plantation outside Easton. There she meets some of her ancestors, including Alice, a free Black woman, and Rufus, a white planter who forces Alice into slavery and concubinage. As Dana stays for longer periods in the past, she becomes enmeshed in the plantation community. Dana makes hard choices to survive slavery and ensure her return to her own time.
Kindred explores the dynamics and dilemmas of antebellum slavery from the sensibility of a late 20th-century Black woman who is aware of its legacy in contemporary American society. Through the two interracial couples who form the emotional core of the story, the novel also explores the intersection of power, gender, and race issues, and speculates on the prospects of future egalitarianism.
While most of Butler's work is classified as science fiction, Kindred crosses genre boundaries and is also classified as African-American literature. Butler categorized the work as "a kind of grim fantasy."
Plot Kindred scholars have noted that the novel's chapter headings suggest something "elemental, apocalyptic, archetypal about the events in the narrative", thus giving the impression that the main characters are participating in matters greater than their personal lives.Kubitschek, Missy D. What Would a Writer Be Doing Working out of a Slave Market?': Kindred as Paradigm, Kindred in Its Own Write", in Claiming the Heritage: African-American Women Novelists and History. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 1991. 24–51. .
Prologue Dana, a young black woman, wakes up in the hospital with her arm amputated. Police deputies question her about the circumstances and ask her whether her husband Kevin, a white man, beats her. Dana tells them that she lost her arm because of an accident and that Kevin is not to blame. When Kevin visits her, they acknowledge being afraid to tell the truth because no one would believe them.
The River Their lives were altered on Dana's twenty-sixth birthday, June 9, 1976, the year that the United States was celebrating its bicentennial. The day before, Dana and Kevin had moved from an apartment in Los Angeles to a house a few miles away. While unpacking, Dana suddenly becomes dizzy, then finds herself at the edge of a wood, near a river where a small, red-haired boy is drowning. Dana wades in, drags him to shore, and tries to revive him. The boy's mother begins screaming and hitting Dana, accusing her of killing her son, whom she identifies as Rufus. As the boy recovers, a white man arrives and points a gun at Dana, terrifying her. She becomes dizzy again and regains consciousness at home with Kevin beside her. Shocked at her disappearance and reappearance, Kevin tries to understand if the episode was real or a hallucination.
The Fire Dana washes off the filth from the river but dizziness arrives with another transition. This time, she comes to in a bedroom where a red-haired boy has set the drapes aflame. He is Rufus, now a few years older. Dana quickly puts out the fire. Rufus confesses he set the fire to get back at his father, who beat him after he stole a dollar. As they talk, Rufus casually uses the N-word to refer to Dana, which upsets her, and she comes to realize that she has been transported in time as well as space, specifically to Maryland, circa 1815.
Rufus advises her to seek refuge at the home of Alice Greenwood and her mother, free blacks who live at the edge of the plantation. Dana realizes that both Rufus and Alice are her ancestors, as they will have a child from whom she will descend. At the Greenwoods', Dana witnesses a group of young white men smash down the door, drag out Alice's enslaved father, and whip him for being there without papers. One of the men punches Alice's mother when she refuses his advances. The men leave, Dana comes out of hiding, and helps Alice's mother. One of the white men confronts Dana and attempts to rape her. Fearing for her life, Dana returns to 1976.
Though hours have passed for Dana, Kevin assures her that she has been gone only for a few minutes. The next day, Kevin and Dana prepare for the possibility that she may travel back in time again by packing a survival bag for her and doing some research on Black history in books at their library.
The Fall In a flashback, Dana recounts how she met Kevin while doing minimum-wage temporary jobs at an auto-parts warehouse. Kevin becomes interested in Dana when he learns that she is a writer and they become friends, although coworkers are judgmental because he is white. The two find they have much in common; both are orphans who love to write, and both of their families disapproved of their aspiration to become writers. They become lovers.
In 1976, Kevin is preparing to go to the library to find out how to forge "free papers" for Dana. She feels dizzy and Kevin holds her, traveling with her to the past. They find Rufus writhing in pain from a broken leg. Next to him is a black boy named Nigel, whom they send to the main house for help.
Rufus reacts with violent disbelief when he finds out that Kevin and Dana are married: whites and blacks are not allowed to marry in his time, although many white men have enslaved black mistresses. Dana and Kevin explain to Rufus that they are from the future and prove it by showing the dates on the coins Kevin has in his pockets. Rufus promises to keep their identities a secret, and Dana tells Kevin to pretend that he is her owner. When Tom Weylin, Rufus's father, arrives with his slave Luke to retrieve Rufus, Kevin introduces himself. Weylin grudgingly invites him to dinner.
At the Weylin plantation, Rufus's mother, Margaret, fusses about her son's well-being and, jealous of the attention he shows Dana, sends her to the cookhouse where she meets two house slaves: Sarah, the cook; and Carrie, her mute daughter. With Dana and Kevin uncertain about what they should do, Kevin accepts Weylin's offer to become Rufus's tutor. Kevin and Dana stay on the plantation for several weeks. They observe the relentless cruelty and torture that Weylin, his wife, and the spoiled Rufus use against the slaves because they feel entitled to treat the slaves as property. Weylin catches Dana teaching Nigel, a slave boy, how to read and whips her. The dizziness overcomes her before Kevin can reach her, and she travels back to 1976 alone.
The Fight In a flashback, Dana remembers how she and Kevin were married. Both of their families opposed the marriage due to ethnic bias. While Kevin's reactionary sister is prejudiced against African Americans, Dana's uncle abhors the idea of a white man eventually inheriting his property. Only Dana's aunt favors the union, as it would mean that her niece's children would have lighter skin. Kevin and Dana marry without any family present.
After eight days at home recuperating without Kevin, Dana time travels to find Rufus getting beaten by Isaac Jackson, Alice's enslaved husband. Dana learns that Rufus had attempted to rape Alice, who was once his childhood friend. Dana convinces Isaac not to kill Rufus, and Alice and Isaac run away while Dana gets Rufus home. She learns that five years have passed since her last visit and Kevin has left Maryland. Dana nurses Rufus back to health in return for his help in delivering letters to Kevin. Five days later, Alice and Isaac are caught.
Isaac is mutilated and sold to traders heading to Mississippi. Alice is beaten, savaged by dogs, and enslaved as penalty for helping Isaac escape. Rufus, who claims to love Alice, buys her, and orders Dana to nurse her back to health. Dana does so with much care. When Alice finally recovers, she curses Dana for not letting her die and is wracked with grief for her lost husband.
Rufus orders Dana to convince Alice to have sex with him. Dana speaks with Alice, outlining her three options: she can refuse and be whipped and raped; she can acquiesce; or she can try again to run away. Injured and terrified by her previous punishment, Alice gives in to Rufus and becomes his concubine. When she learns that Rufus did not send Dana's letters to Kevin, she tells Dana. Furious that Rufus lied to her, Dana runs away to find Kevin, but is betrayed by a jealous slave. Rufus and Weylin capture Dana and Weylin whips her.
When Weylin learns that Rufus failed to keep his promise to Dana to send her letters to Kevin, he writes to Kevin that Dana is on the plantation. Kevin comes to retrieve Dana, but Rufus stops them on the road and threatens to shoot them. He tells Dana that she can't leave him again. The dizziness overcomes Dana and she travels back to 1976, this time with Kevin.
The Storm The relief of Dana's and Kevin's reunion is short-lived. Kevin has a hard time adjusting after living in the past for five years. He tells Dana a few details about that life: he witnessed terrible atrocities against slaves, traveled farther up north, worked as a teacher, helped slaves escape, and grew a beard to disguise himself from a lynch mob. Disconcerted by the difficulty he is having in returning to his former life, he grows angry and cold. Deciding to let him work his feelings out, Dana packs a bag in case she time travels again.
She soon finds herself outside the Weylin plantation house in a rainstorm, with a very drunk Rufus lying face down in a puddle. She tries to drag him back to the house, then gets Nigel to help her carry him. At the house, an aged Weylin orders Dana to nurse Rufus back to health. Suspecting that Rufus has malaria and that she cannot help much, to lower his fever Dana feeds him the aspirin she has packed. Rufus survives, but remains weak for weeks. Dana learns that Rufus and Alice have had three mixed-race "children of the plantation" but only one, a boy named Joe, has survived. Rufus had forced Alice to let the doctor bleed the other two when they had fallen ill, a customary treatment of the time, but it killed them. Alice is pregnant again.
When Weylin has a heart attack and Dana is unable to save his life, Rufus believes that she let him die and sends her to work in the corn fields as punishment. By the time he reverses his decision, she has collapsed from exhaustion and is being whipped by the overseer. Rufus assigns Dana to take care of his ailing mother. Now the master of the plantation, Rufus sells off some slaves, including Tess, Weylin's former concubine. When Dana expresses her anger about that sale, Rufus explains that his father left debts he must pay and convinces Dana to use her writing skill to stave off his other creditors.
Alice gives birth to a girl, Hagar, a direct ancestor of Dana. Alice confides that she plans to run away with her children as soon as possible, as she fears that she is forgetting to hate Rufus. Dana convinces Rufus to let her teach his son Joe and some of the slave children how to read. However, when a slave asks Dana if his younger siblings can join the lessons, Rufus sells him off as punishment for flirting with her. When Dana tries to interfere, Rufus hits her. Faced with her powerlessness over Rufus, she retrieves the knife she has brought from home and slits her wrists in an effort to time travel.
The Rope