One of the main criticisms I've heard of Kindred is Butler's use of obvious plot developments to convey her ideas. Personally I think the most ingenious part of her writing is the way she manages to set up compelling scenes. Perhaps it's not hard to tell what she's trying to accomplish with things like time traveling, or explicitly going back to the slavery era, but I find that they still convey very powerful and moving messages. One of the most compelling aspects of the novel to me is the way that Butler manages to bring so much of the focus of the novel onto a reflection of the way that slavery and race issues still reflects itself in our current times.
The most striking example of such to me is the way in which Butler creates a critique on the status of modern day race issues through the constant flickering of Dana's perception of Kevin versus Rufus. Now I don't mean to suggest that at any point does Dana equate Kevin with Rufus, but her state of being often reminded of the physical similarities between the two is no accident on Butler's part. We're given the impression that no matter how far Kevin can try to distance himself from people like Rufus there are literal physical limitations to this in the form of Kevin's skin color. In addition to this we still get a few strangely blundering scenes on Kevin's part that suggest he's not quite as open-minded as he'd like to think. Both he and Rufus find it an appealing idea to have Dana do their letter writing for them, a scene that conjured conflicting images of a supposed ownership from Kevin. In addition to this there's always his somewhat less than adequate attempts to reconcile his admiring statements of how much less brutal slavery seemed.
Despite this I think that on the whole Butler delivers quite a positive message about where we are right now (perhaps even unrealistically so). While somewhat subtle comparisons between Rufus and Kevin reveal a situation more complex than history books may reveal, the overall comparison between the slave era white man and the contemporary white man and there respective relationships to Dana is stark. Where Rufus takes Alice in whatever way he wants at his will, Kevin wins over Dana's love. Where Rufus is slowly crafted by the slavery system into a man capable of horrible things, Kevin resists for over six years remaining true to his ideals. In simple the progress made can be summed up in Rufus' claim that Dana and Kevin can have each other in their time, whereas it's impossible in his. To say that Butler presents a gruesomely accurate and moving portrayal of all the horrors that happened in the slavery era and how they continue to be a big part of our contemporary setting, she simultaneously manages to remind us of the staggering advances that have happened.
I agree. While no single relationship can be expected to stand in for or represent the large category of "interracial relationships," I am too struck by how generally positive her portrayal of Dana and Kevin's relationship is. She addresses the persistence of racial prejudice (on both sides of the family) through their relatives' reactions to their marriage, and to creepy Buz's comments at work, and there is the "flickering" effect you describe. But we can easily imagine a novel, with this same basic framework, that went much deeper into positing strong parallels between the 19th century and the 20th. The novel does offer a generally positive view of progress in American race relations, even daring to depict Rufus as "jealous" of the more egalitarian arrangement Dana and Kevin have.
ReplyDeleteThere's still that thing with him wanting her to type his manuscripts, though. But in my view that reflects more about gender than race.