Examples Of Power In The Book Kindred

Rufus has also felt that he was entitled to Dana’s service. When Rufus’ father had a heart attack, he demanded that Dana stop him from dying, even when she had no clue of how to do so. When Dana was not able to save him, Rufus sent her

Rufus’ character develops a lot near the end of the book as we realize his feelings toward Dana all to clearly. In the middle of the night he approaches Alice and Dana and says, “You really are only one woman. Did you know that?” Rufus had Alice for his physical needs and Dana for his emotional. We start to see that Dana wasn’t just his friend; he needed to have her, no matter what. His jealously became clear when he sold the slave Sam for just speaking to Dana. He said, “He wanted you…he wanted you.” He then says to Dana, “Your so much like her, I can hardly stand it.” Rufus’ relationship with Dana had gone from friendship and understanding to Rufus wanting more and he aimed to have it. When we see that Rufus was allowing his son to call him daddy finally it was reminder of his humanity. We see that in some ways he was still good, and not racked with intense emotions. However, his humane side diminishes slowly with his irrational wants, desires and need for affection.

The actions of a powerful individual can be psychological interpreted with a single statement: “absolute power corrupts absolutely”. The general idea of power is to show leadership amongst a community, but there are distinctly two types of power a leader has. A socialized influence which benefits the community or a personalized power that results in the personal gain of the leader. The corruption of power occurs when a leader, whether it is subconscious or not, allows personalized power to dominate their socialized influence. Robert Penn Warren uses All the King’s Men to illustrate that power is corrupting and results in the destruction of political machines through the ideological views of Willie Stark, the unethical decisions he is compelled

Octavia E. Butler uses her novel Kindred, to communicate how influential one’s environment can be in shaping their thoughts and actions. One’s environment is composed of their conditions and surroundings, and the most significant of these is language. The society in which Dana lives differs greatly from Rufus’s society; therefore, the way these characters use and view language differ. Language dictates the way one thinks, and whether or not they think critically. How one thinks is directly related to how one perceives the world and one’s perception is their reality. Even Dana and Kevin, who live in the same time period, perceive the world differently. They may live in the same time period, but their realities differ because of who they are, a black woman and a white man. Butler makes Dana and Rufus’s impact on one another central to story. Rufus sometimes deviates from the societal norms of his time because his environment has been influenced by Dana, who is also affected by her new surroundings. She begins to lose the ability to stand up for herself. Ultimately, however, Rufus does not change his prejudice, bigotry way of thinking, and Dana does not allow herself to succumb to complacency. Butler consciously made these decisions; she wants readers to recognize that while these characters influence one another, they do not do so enough to overpower the more significant aspects of their respective environments, such as language. One’s environment determines how much

This also illustrates how Dana believes she can have a lasting effect on Rufus, to steer him away from the ways of his father. However, she only has a limited period of time to shed her 20th century mentality on him. And, Rufus’ change is not gradual relative to Dana, because every time she returns, she finds Rufus years older, and acting that much more like his father.

People got power because they got money. People that don’t got no money have less power.in John Steinbeck Of Mice and Men we also see people with different level of power. In the novel Curley and the Boss and Lennie all have different source of power. In mice and man the the character is the boss he deals with a lot of money. The money help the boss get workers to work for him without the money the worker will leave him.

Octavia Butler’s Kindred focuses on the perspective of a black female within two drastically different societies ranging from the ideals of colonialism to a society of change and acceptance. Butler utilizes Dana’s position in society to portray the cruelty of slavery and the power that society can have on the ideals and morals of individuals, such as the developing character of Rufus. Throughout the book, the issue of slavery is addressed through a multitude of different themes that span across Dana’s different experiences and struggles. Butler aims to reveal the aspects of slavery from the perspective of Dana in order to emphasize the widespread effects of prejudice upon human rights. In addition, the contrast of societies also

In Octavia Butler’s novel, Kindred, she challenges humanity, moralities, and racism. By sending Dana through time, it highlighted the similarities and differences between characters and symbolic meanings. The theme of this novel is answering the question to “what if” a black woman, raised with rights, had to endure slavery? What tactics would she use in order to survive? Many people cannot imagine the agonies slavery has caused, not only to blacks, but everyone including loss of freedom, family, loved ones and self. The interracial couples in the novel, Dana and Kevin; Alice and Rufus, symbolize a larger issue of segregation that divides of our nation. The antagonist, Rufus, changed throughout his life as Dana tried to teach him

Power had a huge part on how people were treated back in the times of slavery. In the novel Kindred by Octavia E. Butler, an African-American woman named Dana traveled between the 1800s and the present to help her great-grandfather throughout his life while also trying to shape him into a better person in the racist society that he was in. One of the things she noticed was how power could dictate how people lived their lives, especially since slavery was prevalent in the area her great grandfather, Rufus Weylin, lived in. Dana, Rufus, and Alice were all characters whose power affected how their lives turned out and the choices that they made.

After many trips back to the 1800’s, Rufus eventually takes his father’s place when he deceases. Dana believed this would make her time in the Weylin household less taxing, but she quickly realized that Rufus made her want freedom more than Tom Weylin did. Soon after Tom Weylin passed, Rufus sent Evan Fowler, the slave overseer, to send Dana to work in the fields. He believed Dana let his father die and

Today's children learn and are influenced by their surrounding and environment. Children do not know any better; for them, it’s monkey see, monkey do. Today’s youth are taught to respect everyone of every race. However, back in the time of slaves, children were taught to despise blacks, and that's what most of them did. In the book Kindred, Dana Franklin journeys back and forth to the Antebellum South multiple times to see her past family who are slaves and the owner Rufus Weylin. On multiple occasions, Dana voyages back to the past to help Rufus when he is in danger, so her life does not become corrupt. Each time she goes back, different levels of danger await her. As Dana travels home and back to the past, she witnesses Rufus grow from

The first we see of the struggles of power between people is when the novel opens and we first see the aunts of the red centre with their electric cattle prods and their stern moral teaching and their stern looks. The aunts are given small amounts of power by the male dominated regime, like the ability to carry the cattle prods but no other

Richard II is an authoritative and greedy king of England, and he is living in a period of transition that medieval knights who are swearing total loyalty to a king has been disappearing and an aristocracy starts to gain a power for their own good. However, Richard II keeps believing the power of kingship, and he also is too confident himself. He overestimates his authority and power; furthermore, he ignores the periodical change. Therefore, he speaks confidently how firm his position as king is to the people in Wales, but his attitude changes when he suffers a defeat by Henry Bolingbroke that he

This was the third time Dana had been called to help Rufus, yet Rufus held full trust in Dana. The quote depicts to readers that at this point in the novel, Rufus found stability in Dana and trusted her to not only be there for him, but to help him through difficult times. Because of the way which Rufus is pleading for Dana to stay with him, grabbing her arm in hopes of keeping her near him, readers can see how much Rufus is counting on Dana, without any hint of distrust. Because of the way Rufus so openly depends on Dana, Dana in turn, truly likes Rufus, and is willing and eager to help him. This creates a stable and faithful relationship on both ends. However, Rufus and Dana’s relationship started changing the fourth time, Dana was called back in time. The author expresses this by having Dana think, “If Rufus could turn so quickly on a life-long friend, how long will it take him to turn on me?” (123). This quote takes place right as Rufus tried raping his long time friend,

As Boss Tweed used to say, “The way to have power is to take it.” Therefore, it is not surprising that the characters of Kindred by Octavia Butler fight throughout the book to gain power from each other. They all use methods ranging from violence to influence to gain even a slight amount of power from each other. Even Alice and Dana who are enslaved women during the 1800’s are able to use their words to influence their owners and the powerful white men in society. Like other black women during this time period, they use their bodies and other unconventional methods to slowly gain power over their owners until they are able to influence them to do what they want. Henceforth, Butler wants to demonstrate to the reader that, even during the antebellum south, enslaved women were able to use their influence, resilience and courage to eventually gain power over their owners.