Slavery In Octavia Butler's Kindred

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Have you ever wondered about the nature versus nurture argument? In Kindred there are many examples of both and whether or not we are coherently evil or good. Throughout Kindred Dana, a black female from 1976 gets summoned to the antebellum south to protect her ancestor. Rufus grows up to be a white slaveholder. Dana witnesses first hand the horrors of slavery and what happens to these slaves, and while there she tries to impart on Rufus that slavery is not a good thing and that it eventually gets abolished. Dana has to fight for her life many times and has to save Rufus’s life a multitude of times more. Slavery is very present in the novel and is harmful to Dana’s mental health. Kindred portrays the evil nature of people significantly more …show more content…
Dana takes that opportunity to help out the slaves that are on the Weylin plantation and brings her culture from the 1970’s with her. “They gave me a chance to preserve a little 1976 amid the slaves and slaveholders”(Butler 92). Dana was bettering slaves lives by bringing her modern knowledge to help them because the 70’s were right after the civil rights acts so black people had way better lives then ever before. Dana even preserves some of her culture in the slaveholders, which shows how she is a bigger person by helping even those who don't deserve it. Because Dana helps everyone she can, she builds a community of people who believe and support each other even though there is still slavery. After Alice, who is Rufus’s “partner” kills herself, Rufus decides to give her the gift he had always promised while Dana looks over it. “[He] let me watch as he had certificates of freedom drawn up for his children”(Butler 252). Rufus gets over his feelings on slavery and freeing Alice’s children even though freeing slaves during that time was frowned upon by many. Rufus throughout the novel is violent towards slaves and now he has become a better
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