The protagonist and narrator of the novel, Dana is a black woman from 1979 California who gets pulled back in time to Antebellum Maryland to save the life of her white ancestor, Rufus Weylin. Dana is a strong, resourceful, intelligent woman, as well as a writer like her white husband Kevin.
How would you characterize Rufus?
But despite his occasional flashes of warmth and his tenuous understanding of morality, Rufus is, in the end, a brutal man. He thinks nothing of beating and continually raping women, selling men, and breaking up families. He is selfish and brutal, and his selfishness and brutality only worsen as he gets older.
What happens to Rufus in Kindred?
Summary: Epilogue The Weylin house is gone. They find a newspaper article describing the sale of the Weylin estate, including the slaves, after Rufus’s death in a fire. Dana figures Nigel set the fire to cover up her murder of Rufus.
What is Rufus like in the beginning of kindred?
Frustrated Boy The first time Dana meets Rufus, he’s nothing more than a little boy who’s frustrated with his mean father and spoiling mother. He has lots of ways of acting out and many of them are dangerous, like setting stuff on fire.Who is Rufus weylin?
Rufus Weylin The inconsistent, power-drunk slave owner and the father of one of Dana’s ancestors. Rufus rapes and enslaves Alice and attempts to rape and enslave Dana. He longs to be loved but expects to always get his way, using coercion and violence if he is denied.
What does Alice represent in Kindred?
Alice represents the true African American slave, while Alice comments that Dana, “[will] care.
Who did Nigel marry in Kindred?
Yet Nigel is tied down on the Weylin plantation when he marries Carrie and has a son, Jude.
Why does Alice hate Rufus?
Alice doesn’t want to accept her life as Rufus’s sex slave. She understands what Rufus has done to her, and she longs to hate him. Against her will, however, she finds herself growing used to him, and even becoming his partner. She hates herself for her failure to live in a perpetual state of rage.Is Kevin jealous of Rufus?
He is jealous of Rufus, he tries to force Dana to become his secretary, and he lashes out at her when he has a hard time fitting in back at home. Kevin also has a blind spot where the slaves on the Weylin plantation are concerned.
What does Rufus symbolize?a male given name: from a Latin word meaning “red-headed.”
Article first time published onWhy does Dana keep forgiving Rufus?
Dana tells Rufus that she already knew he didn’t mail the letters. He says he didn’t mail them because he doesn’t want Kevin to come and take her North. Dana reflects that Rufus loves her because she cares about him. She wonders why she does not hate him, as Alice does, and why she keeps forgiving him.
Who is Alice's mother in Kindred?
Alice’s mother is a free black woman, legally making Alice free as well. Alice’s mother teaches Alice to be strong, but is unable to protect her daughter from the harsh reality of life for all black people in the slave-holding American South.
Why does Alice hang herself in Kindred?
Alice kills herself because she has lost all of her possible identities. Running ceases to exist as an option, because Alice cannot lay claim to any of the identities she would need to embrace in order to flee.
What does Dana's cousin assume when she sees her?
The cousin sees her and assumes Kevin has been beating her. She’s sad that Dana denies it because she assumes Dana is defending Kevin. Dana is home for eight days before her dizziness returns. She travels back to a forest and finds Rufus getting manhandled by a black man.
Where does rufus live in Kindred?
A white, red-headed slave owner in Antebellum Maryland, and Dana’s ancestor. Rufus is a product of his time and culture, becoming harsher, more selfish, and crueler as the years go by and he is more immersed in the patriarchal slave-holding culture of the South.
Who is Carrie in Kindred?
A slave on the Weylin estate, Carrie is Sarah’s daughter and the only child Sarah has left (as the others have been sold). Carrie is deaf and mute, but finds other ways to assert her power and agency in her own life. Carrie eventually marries Nigel and has three sons, including Jude.
WHat does Rufus mean when he says behold the woman?
WHat does Rufus mean when he says, “Behold the woman... you really are only one woman. Did you know that?” If Dana and Alice were combined it would be the perfect woman. What is Rufus’s CHristmas present to Alice? He lets Dana teach Joe to read and write.
WHat is Dana's educational background?
Dana GioiaNationalityAmericanAlma materStanford University (B.A.) Harvard University (M.A.) Stanford Business School (M.B.A.)Notable awardsPresidential Citizens Medal (2008) Laetare Medal (2010)RelativesTed Gioia (brother)
WHat does Kevin do for a living in Kindred?
Kevin, like Dana, is a writer, and the two bond over their feelings of isolation and detachment from the other people in their machinery office.
Did Rufus marry Alice in Kindred?
Summary: The Fight, Part 1 He wanted her to type his stories, which she disliked doing, so they quarreled over the issue. After they decided to marry, they both faced objections from their families.
How are Alice and Dana related in Kindred?
Alice is Dana’s ancestor, and the two women look alike. Both earn Liza’s enmity. Both are loved by Rufus. … More than a mirror for Dana, she is like a funhouse mirror, a reflection of the depressed, embittered woman Dana would be had she been warped by a lifetime of struggling in antebellum Maryland.
Why does Dana cut her wrists?
Since the big Dana reveal in the Season 3 première—that a deadly attack on the C.I.A. and her father’s presumed involvement led her to slit her wrists—and the Dana-heavy first two episodes of the season, there’s been renewed hostility toward the character.
Why is Dana so upset when she returns from the river?
Dana is so upset by this injustice that she slits her wrists in the bathtub and returns back to the present, where Kevin nurses her back to health and questions whether she has slept with Rufus. how does Dana go from the present to the past?
Why does Kevin go back in time with Dana?
Dana travels back to 1976 after a man attacks her in the woods. Once back, she and Kevin figure out that she goes back in time whenever Rufus needs his life saved and she comes back to 1976 whenever she thinks her life’s in danger. Dana continues travelling back in time.
How does Alice change in Kindred?
Alice is disgusted by Rufus Weylin’s attempts to have sex with her, but finally gives in after Dana talks her into it. As the book says, “She went to him. She adjusted, became a quieter more subdued person.
Why does Margaret weylin slap Dana?
Analysis: The Fall, Parts 5–8 Margaret Weylin resents Dana for several reasons, most of them motivated by jealousy. She hates Dana’s affectionate, respectful relationship with Rufus. She hates Dana’s hold over Kevin. She hates Dana’s ability to read and write, and her educated way of speaking.
What does the whip represent in Kindred?
In Kindred, whips symbolize the white man’s power and capacity for violence. The men who wield whips in the novel are men to be feared. They are small-minded, angry people who use violence to get what they want, dole out punishment, spur slaves on, or relieve their own irritation.
What does Rufus mean in Italian?
Meaning. “red-haired” Other names. Related names. Rufus.
How did Dana lose her arm?
Significantly, Dana seems to lose her arm because Rufus keeps hold of her wrist when she transports back to the present. Rufus’ touch symbolically represents the power that Rufus had as Dana’s master and the lingering effect that living under the white master’s thumb had on enslaved people and their children.
What happened in the end of kindred?
The end of this book basically tells us that neither Kevin nor Dana (nor the book, really) feels remorse over the fact that Dana has murdered Rufus. There have been many times when Octavia Butler or Dana have tried to build our sympathy for Rufus.
Why do you think Butler waits until the fall to reveal that Kevin is white?
Why does Butler wait to reveal that Kevin is white until “The Fall” chapter in Kindred? Butler may have waited to announce Kevin’s skin color in order to surprise readers.
