![]() It’s been six years since Rufus and Alice have been seeing and now have a son Joe, but he has yet to give birth to Hagar Dana can’t wait for this to happen so can finally be free from Rufus. Hours later, Dana is wary and goes back to find (and treat) Rufus, who is sick and unconscious.Dana is scared, so she jumps back to the present day, taking Kelvin with her. When the couple tries to escape, Rufus intersects them with a gun and threatens to kill them both. Later, Tom sends Dana’s letters, and Kelvin shows up at the Weylin house. One day, Dana escapes in search of Kelvin but is caught by Rufus and Tom, his father.Alice plays along to avoid physical torture. Dana writes several letters trying to find Kelvin, but Rufus wouldn’t let her leave and instead persuades her to convince Alice to be his concubine.Alice and Isaac escape but are caught days later, as Rufus bought Alice from her captors, leaving Isaac to be sold to far away Mississippi. Dana begs to save Rufus and carries him home afterward.Eight days have passed, and suddenly she feels sick again and returns to the 1800s (five years later in this timeline) – where she finds Rufus nearly being killed with a beating from Isaac, Alice’s husband, for rapping Alice. At her apartment, Dana nurses her wounds alone and misses Kelvin.Kelvin help educates Rufus, and Dana secretly does the same for Nigel but is caught by Tom – who whips her till she nearly faints and returns to her timeline (without Kelvin). Dana helps get Rufus home and is made to look after him by Tom, Rufus’ father, while Kelvin pretends as Dana’s master.Kelvin nurses her wounds, but after a while, she feels weak and then travels (this time with Kelvin) to a field to find two boys, Rufus with a broken leg – apparently fallen from a tree, and Nigel, a slave boy who serves as a helper to Rufus.She decides to locate Alice but is caught by a guard whom she knocks out to prevent being rapped, and as she’s terrified for what would happen next, she wakes up to the present day in her bedroom.Dana recalls that her great-grandmother’s name is Hagar, the daughter of Alice Greenwood and Rufus Weylin – the boy who’s somehow summoning her to his timeline. Rufus tells Dana they’re in the year 1815 Maryland often uses terms like ‘nigger’ or ‘Black woman’ on her.She douses the fire and vehemently questions the boy, wanting to know how this is happening to her. A few hours later, Dana feels unwell again and finds herself in a bedroom with a burning curtain and Rufus seated and staring.Dana explained where she went, but her husband had a hard time believing her. Kelvin is perplexed seeing her also with mud on her feet. She saves him and finds he’s called Rufus Weylin, but when the boy’s father arrives, pointing a riffle at Dana, she is afraid and returns to her 1976 timeline at her apartment. ![]() ![]() While they unpack, she blacks out, finding herself by the river in the early 1800s, where she sees a boy drowning. She fights through the pain to recall how she got here, and it all started a year ago, in June 1976, when she and Kelvin had just moved to their new apartment.At the hospital, Dana wakes to find that her left arm has been amputated, and her husband Kelvin is being questioned by the police – who are ready to put him in jail.She also secretly teaches Nigel, a Black slave, in the hopes that someday he will buy his freedom with it. Dana’s education is very vital in ensuring that she has it easy in Rufus’ timeline, often serving as his teacher. Lastly, a violent struggle with Rufus on her last trip causes Dana to permanently lose her left arm.Įducation is a frontal theme in ‘ Kindred‘ and even serves as the first step for slaves to gain their freedom. As readers would notice, Alice’s legal husband Isaac has his ear mutilated before being taken away from her.Īlso, there’s a general atmosphere of chaos and tumult often involving slaves and their owners in all the neighborhoods of 1800s Maryland. The slavers are ever so brutal and mean to their slaves and would often whip, abuse, forcefully instruct, and even maim their slaves. ‘ Kindred’ reeks of uncertainties and a violent turn of events from page to page. Rufus is able to send some kind of SOS to the future to Dana, creating a portal for her to come and save him and preserve her own future existence. Strong bonds of kinship are responsible for the important events that take place, and it starts with Dana and Rufus, both of whom share the same blood. Butler – and this also shows in the naming of the book. Let’s take a sneak peek into some of the best ones in the book.įamily and kinship is easily the most prominent theme in ‘ Kindred’ by Octavia E. The book serves as a good therapy for uniting all races – particularly black and white. Generally, ‘ Kindred’ is centered on family and interracial relationships with a backdrop of intermittent time travel here and there. ![]()
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