Symbolism In Kindred

You don’t appreciate it until you lose it…right? This quote targets the “seemingly” miniscule and insignificant aspect of our lives, such as the simple luxuries like cars and air conditioning. But what if it was an arm? In Kindred, Dana unfortunately had to learn the importance of an arm the hard way: without it. Octavia E. Butler uses Dana’s left arm as a symbol of the link between the two separate lives that she has, the ignorant life of the present and the deadly realistic life of the past.
“I lost an arm on my last trip home. My left arm” (Butler 9). These are the first two sentences of this book. As this book progresses, the story of Dana unravels to the reader. Not until the very end does the reader understand the significance of the
Dana realized that “Rufus’s time demanded things of [her] that had never been demanded before…that was the stark, powerful reality that the gentle conveniences and luxuries of this house, of now” (Butler 191). After years in the past, Kevin could not remember much of his old life. Dana “found him in the living room trying knobs on the television set. It was new to [them], that television, like the house. The on/off switch was under the screen out of sight, and Kevin clearly didn’t remember” (Butler 191). He was like a baby again, with a clean slate ready to relearn everything, except this slate contained so much more knowledge about the past, even some that he never would have wanted to know. He “saw a woman die in child birth once” (Butler 191). He knew that his life would never be able to be the same again. He knew that it would take a long time to readjust. He couldn’t even remember what it felt like when a jet passes by. This caused a lot of tension between Kevin and Dana. She always felt so “hopeless,” not knowing what to say or what to do for Kevin. Kevin lived for five years alone in the past, helping slaves escape to freedom, while Dana was stuck at Rufus’s house. Dana experienced both physical and emotional pain that she could never have imagined existed. How could one just transition back and forth from a life of tranquility to a life of