In the novel Kindred, Octavia Butler recounts Dana Franklin's experience as she travels back and forth in time and space from her home in 1976 to the south ante bellum in 1815 in Maryland, where he finds himself on a plantation where his ancestors are slaves. It is through the lens of time travel that allows Dana and the reader to witness firsthand the tragic and horrific time of slavery. It is this first-hand experience that drives the neo-slave story of Dana and her ancestors to act and react so that they can survive a complex system of slavery on the plantation. The more personal consequences of these events manifest themselves in Dana and her experiences with physical violence and emotional manipulation, which have a drastic effect on her that will change her forever. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Dana's first experience is sudden and harrowing, as she is torn from her own home and time and deposited on the bank of a muddy river she has never seen before. After saving the boy who she later discovered was her ancestor and being threatened with a gun pointed in her face, she is once again removed from the situation and returns home and her husband, confused and scared. “I don't have a name for what happened to me, but it was real” (Butler 17). When Dana is transported for the second time, she begins to understand why this is happening and what it has to do with Rufus. “Dana's obligation to Rufus's life, which is also an obligation to her own life, structures the interplay of history and morality that motivates Butler's plot. If Rufus dies, Dana will never be born. Or rather, she can't afford to find out what would happen to her if she didn't save him. By placing Dana in this dilemma, Butler is able to illustrate the deep and thorny entanglements at the heart of Southern plantation slavery, thereby dispelling any cultural myths of alien encounters. Furthermore, by structuring the text around Dana's various obligations (her own, Rufus', other slaves), Butler not only complicates the range of Dana's responses in each situation, but also forces the reader to play by the same rules" (Parham 1318). Dana will not only have to make decisions she never thought she would have to make, but also take actions she never thought she would have to take, and suffer the consequences not only for herself, but also for others. All in the paradoxical effort to preserve the existence of his future family, even if that might mean at the potential cost of his own: “If I were to live, if others were to live, he must live. I dared not test the paradox” (Butler 29). One of the most obvious methods that Butler uses to illustrate this conscious approach of Dana's is through slavery and violence, more specifically, violence towards female slaves. During her visit to Rufus' nursery, Dana witnesses firsthand the daily violence and treatment the slaves had to endure. endure when he witnesses the beating of a black man without a clear reason on the part of the patrols. Dana's response to watching something like this so up close and personal is eye-opening to say the least. “I had seen people beaten on television and in films. But I hadn't stood by and smelled their sweat or heard them beg and pray, ashamed before their families and themselves” (Butler 36). Since Dana is from the future and is experiencing this for the first time, the reader's experience parallels her own. Please note: this is just an example. Get a personalized document now come on.