There is little literature of female activists in the history of slavery. However, the book Kindred by uses a female character to explain the struggle, fight and triumph to illustrate the struggle the black slaves went through to achieve civil rights. Dana is a poor resistant black woman who strives to escape the rage of white man’s’ colonialism. The road to her salvation is painfully illustrated by; many fight and escape, endurance, compromising, and finally triumph. She goes through a lot of pain, suffering, and oppression yet end up a survivor. The author paints a clear picture of her weaknesses and failures yet sustains her throughout the book till she emerges a victor by killing her oppressor. The book kindred by Octavia portrays Dana as the master of her destiny despite the numerous shortcoming, she survives the struggle.
Dana went through a total transformation by undergoing changes which she describes as irreversible but still survived the struggle. The writer puts a lot of stress on the transformations in her life; it’s the most significant deal in Dana’s life. She loses her arm, one year of her life, comfort and security which she had never enjoyed until they were lost (Butler). The loss and transformation in Dana is symbolic to express the changes and loses the black Americans incurred through slavery (Donadey 65). Through the loss and transformations Dana became a product of the cruelty the new environment subjected on her (Butler). As a servant she was treated as a private property by her master. However, she does not entirely let the environment control her. She desires to escape from the whippings, but endures pain and takes refuge in it (Butler).
Dana is entangled in emotional pain, self-shame, and rejection from the fellow women but it does not dwindle her quest to survive in her struggle. There are occasions she gets continuously haunted by how she had given up to the oppressive culture (Donadey 67). She does not like that she fears to be whipped and stead think she should confront the oppressor and seek her justice. She faces internal conflict with herself, at times she works submissively to avoid the pain and suffering of resistance while at the same time she wishes to resist. This conflict explains that she had become a product of her environment (Donadey 71). Even though she thought she would never compromise, at times it helps her heal in the back (Butler). This is usual daily life setbacks which depict one as a sellout. Through the struggle, there are times you lose your power and think it’s easier to quit.
Dana killed Rufus for attempting to rape her and causing her ancestor to commit suicide. Although Dana seemed to have given up in the fight against the oppression, she would not allow such heinous action. She valued her dignity and loved her people despite the struggles which had overburdened her (Butler). The author vividly explains that she stabbed him twice to express the dissatisfaction with the white oppressors (Donadey 71). Through the slavery, she had accumulated a lot of hatred and vengeance. This explains that the environment had made her resistant and capable of killing. The killings marked the end of slavery after which she joins her husband to celebrate the death of Rufus (Donadey 74). This is an indication that she held her anger until the last minute which guaranteed her freedom.
Dana avers that her marriage is healthy and they have not experienced any problem resulting from their travel to the South as a couple. Moreover, while they are still in the same position and conversing about the same, Dina tells Kevin about her experience, but sadly she becomes aware that there is a barrier between them. Kevin has no understanding of anything Dina puts forth regarding her life (Butler). Even though she is aware of her faulty husband, Dina still chose to be married and spend the rest of her life with him. Thus, the identity of Dina as a writer is just essential to people or rather the audience as the identity of a wife. She realizes that there are a lot of things she cannot tell her husband regarding her life, yet she there is nothing she is unable to write about (Butler).
The ensuing of Dana to live an ordinary life in the current, the lack of ability to drive, for instance, emerges to be a vibrant change in her life. Such alteration similarly makes a vivid picture of the kind of cruelty I have witnessed when the black people are facing through different forms of hardships experiencing in the antebellum South. Seeing slaves abused, for instance, makes Dana and the audience knows that the physical abuse slaves experienced were much more traumatic in a real sense compared to what is presented in writing and media such as televisions as well as movies. Therefore, the use of Dana as a first-person narrator cheers up the novel’s core subject matter.
Works Cited
Butler, Octavia. Kindred. Beacon Press, 2004. Internet source.
Donadey, Anne. "African American and Francophone Postcolonial Memory: Octavia Butler's Kindred and Assia Djebar's La femme sans sépulture." Research in African Literatures 39.3 (2008): 65-81.
