Critical Reading Response Kindred
4. The way I see it, being complicit is the same as knowing about it and doing nothing to stop it. White women were just as involved as Black slaves that knew of the sexual exploitation, set aside the fact that they were slaves and could not do much in abolishing this issue but they were still complicit. I agree because Dana was discreet with helping Rufus get Alice so in the end she was involved. Since the beginning Dana knew of what Rufus has become with trying to rape Alice. In the text Octavia E. Butler narrates Dana, “But I should have been used to the impossible by now-just as I should have been used to white men preying on black women. I had Weylin as my example, after all” (119). Dana was already complicit …show more content…
The Underground Railroad was a vast network of people helping fugitive slaves escape to Free states. Crossley is correct in that Butler constructed an Underground Railroad between past and present. He is right because Dana’s ability to jump to and from the past to the present is similar to that of the Underground Railroad. In this Butler links the present with the past of slavery, awakening our minds and realizing how slavery really was and the animosities that came along with it. While Dana went back and forth in time from 1976 to 1819, she was not always your typical slave. For example she was the only one out of the slaves on Weylin’s plantation who knew how to read and write. In spite of her abilities, she was still treated like a slave with whippings and all. In the text Octavia E. Butler notes that “I thought I would die on the ground there with a mouth full of dirt and blood and a white man cursing and lecturing as he beat me...Suddenly, I realized what was happening and I scream-I think I screamed…And I passed out (107). Dana the person Butler is describing, she was beaten like a slave and felt every pain there was when a slave got whipped but yet she managed to escape because of her ability to jump back and forth. And this ability was her Underground Railroad for herself from past to present. Similar to how slaves escaped from the horrors of their masters via the Underground Railroad by running to safe houses that were lined up for them, Dana in a parallel sense escaped slash transported away from the horrors she was facing. Furthermore, Dana not only with her ability to jump back and forth, when she did so she was safe and was able to at least prepare herself either with supplies or knowledge to help her when she would go back. “I rolled up a couple of pairs of jeans and stuffed them into the bag…the bottle of aspirins-if Rufus called me while my back was sore, I would need them-my knife (Butler 114). While slaves ran away from house to house trying to
4. The way I see it, being complicit is the same as knowing about it and doing nothing to stop it. White women were just as involved as Black slaves that knew of the sexual exploitation, set aside the fact that they were slaves and could not do much in abolishing this issue but they were still complicit. I agree because Dana was discreet with helping Rufus get Alice so in the end she was involved. Since the beginning Dana knew of what Rufus has become with trying to rape Alice. In the text Octavia E. Butler narrates Dana, “But I should have been used to the impossible by now-just as I should have been used to white men preying on black women. I had Weylin as my example, after all” (119). Dana was already complicit …show more content…
The Underground Railroad was a vast network of people helping fugitive slaves escape to Free states. Crossley is correct in that Butler constructed an Underground Railroad between past and present. He is right because Dana’s ability to jump to and from the past to the present is similar to that of the Underground Railroad. In this Butler links the present with the past of slavery, awakening our minds and realizing how slavery really was and the animosities that came along with it. While Dana went back and forth in time from 1976 to 1819, she was not always your typical slave. For example she was the only one out of the slaves on Weylin’s plantation who knew how to read and write. In spite of her abilities, she was still treated like a slave with whippings and all. In the text Octavia E. Butler notes that “I thought I would die on the ground there with a mouth full of dirt and blood and a white man cursing and lecturing as he beat me...Suddenly, I realized what was happening and I scream-I think I screamed…And I passed out (107). Dana the person Butler is describing, she was beaten like a slave and felt every pain there was when a slave got whipped but yet she managed to escape because of her ability to jump back and forth. And this ability was her Underground Railroad for herself from past to present. Similar to how slaves escaped from the horrors of their masters via the Underground Railroad by running to safe houses that were lined up for them, Dana in a parallel sense escaped slash transported away from the horrors she was facing. Furthermore, Dana not only with her ability to jump back and forth, when she did so she was safe and was able to at least prepare herself either with supplies or knowledge to help her when she would go back. “I rolled up a couple of pairs of jeans and stuffed them into the bag…the bottle of aspirins-if Rufus called me while my back was sore, I would need them-my knife (Butler 114). While slaves ran away from house to house trying to