Continuous Time Travel: For Comparisons and a Pillar of Salt

I am very much enjoying Kindred so far, especially because of Butler’s deep character development, where she depicts complex controversies between and within characters. Also, I really like Dana (the protagonist) especially because of her strength and willingness to help others throughout the oppressive situations when she time travels back to the early 19^th century antebellum south. So far, Dana has travelled back in time five times and has returned to the present (1976) four times. Unlike Marty in Back to the Future (a reference to which was made during class recently) who travels back in time once, Dana is constantly switching between centuries. It is curious as to why and how Dana is able to do this, but even more intriguing is to wonder why Butler decided to do this to Dana.

The first reason that comes to mind for why Butler has Dana travel back and forth through time is to give a blatant and understandable comparison of the early 19^th century with the 20^th century. Though, as readers, we are told about the violence that occurs towards slaves in the antebellum south at this time, Dana makes the violence comprehensible by saying “that most of the people around Rufus know more about real violence than the screenwriters of today will know” (48). By making a comparison of the 19^th century violence to the fairly gory movies that are produced, Butler is able to help readers understand the level of violence better than a history textbook description of violence could. Also, by placing the background to Dana and Kevin’s relationship right after a glimpse of the oppressive, white supremacist violence used against Dana and other slaves, Butler seems to point to the continuation of racist views that stem from the 19^th century. (There appears to be a connection between white male dominance in the Weylin home as well as with Kevin, where Kevin practically forces—with a threat of separation—Dana to type for him even though Dana “hated typing” (109). Even though with the context, it may seem that Kevin thinks he can tell Dana what to do because of race, I think it’s more a matter of gender than race.)

After reading Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five, another main motivation for Dana’s multiple time travels may be to emphasize that history is not just a part of the past, rather it has shaped the present culture and society, so, like Lot and Billy’s actions, people of the current day should look back at the past. Although Kevin initially tells Dana to forget about her first time travel to the past, she (and later Kevin as well) increasingly realize that it is hard to forget about that “shadowy and threatening” “dream” (18). Each time Dana returns, the 19^th century occupies more of her thoughts, even though she and Kevin remind themselves that they are just “playing the part” to avoid being influenced by the antebellum south culture (79). It can be seen that Dana is still an actress in the 1800s antebellum south because she packs “props” in her bag to use in the past, but these items can also be seen as luggage that she is taking to her new “home” (as she refers to Weylin’s on 190). Yet, we see that Dana is influenced by the past and even admits that “it takes time…for things to fall back into place” after returning from the past (194). But, will things seem the same as they did before to Dana now that she has taken a deeper look into America’s history?