Symbolism In Octavia Butler's Kindred

Writers utilize their literary abilities in order to create a piece of work that transmits a meaningful message to their audience and create an impact on them. This is the case of Octavia Butler’s Kindred, a historical science-fiction novel evolving around a twenty six year old woman named Dana living in 1976. What makes the story unique is the fact that the plot alternates between the past and the present as Dana travels through time from the commodity of her house in 1976 Los Angeles to Maryland during the antebellum period. The catalysts for these trips to the past are the near death experiences of the son of rich southern planter, a boy named Rufus, who is one of Dana’s ancestors. Every single time Rufus is put in a situation where he
This makes it so that Dana is constantly traveling to the pre-civil war south as Rufus puts his own life in danger in many different occasions. As the novel progresses, Dana experiences all of the implications of being an African American woman living in a southern state in a time period where abusing a human being was socially and legally acceptable. While surviving through a the hostile environment, Dana has the opportunity to learn about how different characters are able to mobilize in the different roles they are given, either as slaves, free blacks or whites. As complex as the story itself is, Butler provides it with heavy symbolism and character development. She does this with the purpose of showing how an individual’s emotions are affected by highly challenging situations. In Kindred, Octavia Butler employs the motif of separation, the actions the character of Dana has to perform in order to survive, and the literary device of symbolism in order to illustrate the emotional instability that can be caused by violent and life changing
As stated in the novel’s prologue, the events that occurred to Dana took away any traces of tranquility present in her life. When describing the events that led up to her current state in the prologue, Dana states “ I lost about a year of my life and much of the comfort and security I had not valued until it was gone” (Butler 9). In this instance, Dana is stating that she lost all of her confidence and serenity thanks to a dramatic experience. Butler utilizes these words in the prologue in order to show the way in which the events that take place in the novel affect Dana’s emotional state. Butler also adds a peculiarity to this prologue by literally fragmenting the plot and narrating culminating events in the very beginning of the novel. The purpose of this discontinuity in the narration is to emphasize not only on the effect the events that take place in the book affected Dana , literally separating the continuity of her life, but also to make and emphasis on Dana’s literal body dismemberment as one of her arms is separated from her. In addition to fragmenting the plot in the epilogue, Butler also exhibits the motif of fragmentation through the experiences of characters. In this particular approach to the concept of fragmentation, Butler doesn’t limit herself to Dana’s