Octavia E. Butler’s short story entitled, “Next of Kin” explores themes of conflict, love, and incest. It was interesting to me that Octavia Butler created “a sympathetic story of incest” and I believe that it works really well. As the reader, I immediately noticed the connection between the daughter and her uncle. There was strange closeness in their relationship, and I knew their must’ve been a deeper connection between them. With the recent death of her estranged mother, she is left discovering the truth of why she was abandoned. The truth is unraveled during an awkward discussion as she goes through her dead mothers belongings with her uncle nearby. Towards the beginning of the story, the daughter begins to discuss the problems she had with her dead mother. To me, the character appears to have had no real relationship with her mother. This is why she may appear as cold or distant. However, her uncle wants to her to realize that she loved her, cared for her, and wanted her . He even tries to get the daughter to sympathize with her mother by mentioning the amount of miscarriages she had. Of course, this doesn’t make anything better because she still wasn’t around for her daughter as much as she should have been. In this moment, I felt as if the uncle wanted to say something but he wasn’t sure how to do so. Later in the story, I learned exactly why he was acting awkward, distant and cold as he…show more content… It completely damaged all of their relationships, and I believe that the uncle feels bad for causing his sister and his daughter pain. I truly sympathized with the uncle because he was a good guy who had a good relationship with the daughter. He also stood up for his sister, even if she didn’t love him and was ashamed of their act of
