Kindred: Definition of HOME
Kindred, by Octavia E. Butler, follows the story of Dana’s experiences of time-traveling back to her ancestor’s plantation in the pre-Civil War era. Dana starts her journey as an observer, watching the atrocities of slavery. As Dana’s trips increase in frequency and duration, she becomes increasingly involved in this dangerous world. At one point, Dana makes an interesting observation on how the 19th-century plantation feels more like home than her new house in California. Such a statement appears nonsensical, as living as a colored woman constantly places Dana in grievous slave labor and physical danger. Dana’s story raises a powerful question regarding the definition of home: would one define home by the hard frame of chronological and physical location, or the intangible measures of time spent and the people one shares it with?
One of her returns to the present, Dana expresses how she feels out of place. She struggles with simple tasks such as looking for aspirin and kitchen knives. Only looking at the series of modern appliances reminds her that she is actually at home, and this place “was where I [she] belonged” (Butler, 115). This quote shows that although Dana intellectually knows that she is home, she still experiences emotional confusion as the house feels unfamiliar to her. This feeling of unfamiliarity was reinforced in a later passage, where Dana states that while “the time, the year, was right, but the house just wasn’t familiar enough…Rufus’s time was a sharper, stronger reality. The work was harder, the smell and tastes were stronger” (191). The quote reveals that the habitual, gruesome labor of slavery internalized a routine on her. Dana’s discombobulation in the 1976 house stems from the removal of the habits she built in the past. In addition, because the California house is so new to her, she finds no purpose or routine in it, both of which contribute to her lack of sense of belonging. Dana’s confusion highlights the importance of routines in defining one’s sense of home.
In contrast to Dana's unsettlement in the present, she finds the home on the plantation more familiar and grounding. In the 4th trip, after Dana helps Isaac and Alice’s elopement, she returns to the Weylin house to get help for Rufus and thinks to herself that she’s finally “home at last” (127). This thought itself and the sense of relief it brings are both surprising and distorted, considering that Rufus’s timeline constantly poses physical danger to Dana. The Weylins treat Dana as a complete slave, subjecting her to a range of atrocities such as whippings and verbal assaults. I think much of Dana’s feeling of home stems from her social bonding with the people. In 1976, Kevin was her only family (disagreements on career distanced her from her aunt and uncle); in the 19th-century timeline, Dana has Sarah, Carrie, and Alice, who treat her warmly and protectively. Sarah plays the guiding elder to Dana. Sarah protectively scolds Dana for her dangerously outspoken comments and helps Dana survive by teaching her to cook (81). Carrie and Alice play sister-like roles in Dana’s life. During Dana’s recovery from a brutal whipping, Alice tells Dana that “Carrie and me’ll take care of you as good as you took care of me” (177). Although they are not biologically related and not even from the same time period, the earnest care frames their relationship as family-like, something not offered in Dana’s 1976 life.
Dana’s progression from an outside visitor to a family member to the slaves on Weylin’s plantation demonstrates that one’s sense of home depends more on the routines and social bonds rather than the factual time or location, even when the environment appears to be miserable and oppressive. This appears counterintuitive, however, for Dana, regardless of level of comfort, living in the past established her a lifestyle and family-like relationships with people with bones and flesh. Thus, it becomes natural that her definition of home leans toward the past.
Thank you for reading! Any feedback is appreciated :D Toodles!
Works Cited:
Butler, Octavia E. Kindred. Boston, Beacon Press, June 1979.
Great post! I think your ideas definitely show how much this book fits the Hero's Journey template, where the main character is "away" for a good portion of the book. It's cool to get a different perspective on this journey than we do in a traditional Hero's Journey because we get to see how much she identifies with her "away" world even when she comes back momentarily to "home". I also completely agree that the concept of home is grounded more in relationships and normalcy than it is location, and this shows that even the "away" can become home with enough time there.
ReplyDeleteHi Ruijing, I really liked your blog post! I agree with your sentiment that the reason why Dana feels at home at the Rufus plantation is really because of Carrie, Nigel and Sarah, all the people she's grown a connection to. I think it's really telling that she views this place as more of a home than her 1976 home, showing really how much this time period had an impact on its people.
ReplyDeleteRuijing, this post is really interesting as it highlights the way Dana feels about the Weylin Plantation. I honestly think this is used by Butler to show that although there are certain "romanticized" parts of slavery that might seem pleasant, the danger and abuse was still overpowering. Dana grows more comfortable with the location and closer to the enslaved people throughout the book, sometimes forgetting how bad the situation really is. However, she is consistently jolted back into reality, whether it be by Rufus hitting her, getting whipped, or sent to work in the fields. Great post!
ReplyDeleteHi Ruijing!! I really enjoyed reading your blog post. I never really thought about how Dana feels like the plantation feels more like home to her, but I completely agree with the points you are making. I find it interesting how, as Dana starts to become not just an observer but when she becomes more a part of the plantation, that's when she starts to feel like the plantation is more home to her. Good Job!!!!
ReplyDeleteHi Ruijing! This blog post is really well constructed! Dana's feelings toward the plantation do offer her to slip into a role. She tries to stay an observer but eventually it becomes to difficult to differentiate between 1800s Dana and 1976 Dana. Over the course of the book Dana seems to be more comfortable on the plantation than in her new apartment, mostly because she had spent a significant amount of time on the plantation. Really good job Ruijing!
ReplyDeleteHi Ruijing! I really liked the question you proposed, and just how well you expanded and developed your hypothesis. I agree with your statement that the label "home" that is connected to a time or place is less important than the connections and routines one makes somewhere else. It is obvious throughout the book and even highlighted by Butler that because of the intimate connections and time she has spent at the Weylin plantation, she think of there more of a home than her own apartment. I feel like this may be obvious, because the time of the Weylin plantation is not any less real than her original time where she "lives", and if she was living at the plantation for months at a time, fully living and experiencing the world, there is no reason that it shouldn't be her home to her. This constant routine of living at the plantation molds her into her "role" even more that it becomes her, not just a role she feels like she has to play. I really like the ideas you brought up in your blog post, great job!
ReplyDeleteHi Ruijing! Your post does a great job showing how Dana’s idea of home shifts as she builds routines and relationships in the past, even though the plantation is a dangerous and violent place. I like how you highlight the contrast between the unfamiliar calmness of her 1976 life and the harsh but structured world she falls into when she time travels to the past. You make it clear why it starts to feel more real to her, and your explanation gives a lot of depth to the question of what “home” really means. Fantastic work!
ReplyDeleteHi Ruijing! I like how you talked about Dana's relationship with Sarah, Carrie, and Alice, as it's a part of the book that's sometimes over looked but very important to Dana's character and the story. Dana seemed to not have that many close friendships in the present, so that definitely contributed to her viewing the plantation as another home. Great post!
ReplyDeleteHey Ruijing! You did a great job detailing how one's idea of home can include the people you are surrounded by and the routine that you fall into. One thing to consider is that for some home isn't a positive place. It is simply all they've ever known. However, this is not true in Dana's case and I agree that she sees the plantation as her home because of the routine she's fallen into. Something that stood out to me is that there was no mention of the people she was close to in the plantation when she remarked that it was her home, which leaves me inclined to believe that it was solely her routine that led her to say that comment. I believe that the definition of home varies per person. For me, home is a place of warmth and comfort. Somewhere I am welcome and somewhere I can relax. I would never consider a place such as the plantation as my home, routine or otherwise, which I think goes to show how the word means different things to different people. Great blog post!
ReplyDeleteHi Ruijing! I really enjoyed reading your blog post. I completely agree with what you have to say. I liked the ways you took your time to go through all the quotes and cleanly explain how it ties back into your writing.
ReplyDeleteThe unsettling ways in which Dana starts to think of the Weylin house as "home" underscores the ways in which this novel forces Dana to engage and confront the *human* side of slavery: when she feels like she's "home" in nineteenth-century Maryland, that has a lot to do with her relationships with Sarah, Nigel, Carrie, and the others. She worries about them and wonders about them, and she is eager to hear good news about Nigel and Carrie's budding family. It is indeed hard to fathom how this alien and hostile place could seem like home to Dana, but "home" doesn't necessarily imply a feeling of comfort and belonging--depending on the personnel, "home" can be a site of conflict and tension, and Butler emphasizes the ways in which Dana's ambivalence about Rufus (she is even sort of "glad" to see him a few times, and she does in fact wonder how he's doing as he gets older) mirrors the ambivalence of the other enslaved people on the plantation. She says that slavery fosters "strange relationships": we see such a strange relationship in Rufus and Nigel, or Rufus and Alice, but also in Rufus and Dana, probably the "strangest" in this whole novel.
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