Was Dana responsible for Alice's death?
One of the more dramatic and perhaps even shocking moments of Kindred was the scene where Dana is called back to the past only to find out that Alice had committed suicide. She later learns that Rufus lied to Alice about selling her children, causing Alice to spiral into depression and commit suicide rather than go on living in a world where her only light had been extinguished by the man who forced her. In a way, Dana’s actions caused or helped to cause the events that led up to Alice’s suicide.
Rufus is afraid of being abandoned, which drives him to use extreme tactics to try and get Alice to stay. On page 255, Rufus claims in a conversation with Dana that he is afraid she will leave him and never come back. He states, “But in my nightmares, you leave without helping me. You walk away and leave me in trouble, hurting, maybe dying…they started way back at the fire -- as soon as I realized you could help me or not, just as you chose…when Alice had been here a while, they went away. Now they’ve come back.” Rufus, realizing that his life and death relied on Dana’s whims, formed a sort of dependence on Dana, which also caused him to become fearful in his early childhood of Dana’s neglect and desertion. Being the small, spoiled child that he was, his every need met by his submissive mother, Rufus had never before encountered this sort of situation. Rufus’s dependence on Dana from an early age and his uncertainty of whether she would ever reappear or even decide to help him created instability within him.
Of course, it wasn’t entirely Dana’s presence that caused Rufus to become unstable. Part of it was most definitely his childhood and the environment he grew up in. Whipped by his father and followed around by his complicit and compliant mother who liked to take her frustrations out on the slaves, Rufus’s supposed role models in life weren’t exactly the greatest. From early childhood, Rufus learned violence. Dana’s presence may have exacerbated certain parts of his personality, however, which resulted in the tragic death of Alice.
In the last part of the quote, Rufus states that the nightmares disappeared for a while when he was with Alice. Rufus seems to think of Alice and Dana as almost interchangeable. He calls them “two parts of the same woman” earlier in the novel; Rufus desires Alice physically but wants Dana’s emotional comfort and presence. Perhaps being with Alice soothed him once he knew that he had her and that she couldn’t leave him. For Rufus, Alice’s presence, forced or not, was enough to reassure the uncertainty inside of him that he’d no longer have to be alone.
Unwittingly, Dana created anxiety and fear within Rufus. Though she tried to teach him her morals from the 19th century, ultimately, Rufus relied on the violent and manipulative tactics he learned from his mother and father when backed into a corner. His schemes eventually resulted in the death of Alice. In this way, Dana unintentionally indirectly caused Alice’s suicide. This is not to say that the same events wouldn’t have happened without Dana’s interference -- no one can know that for sure. But it seems safe to say that Dana’s good intentions, diluted and tainted by slavery, were somewhat responsible for Alice’s horrible ending.
I do agree with a lot of your points that Dana's input of 20th century, more progressive ideals combined with the fact that Rufus isn't actually in the 20th century and he still behaves like your typical white male slaveowner besides the fact that he actually loves a black woman although he bought her freedom is what complicates the whole situation so much more. I guess the conclusion is that good intentions and humanity really have no place in 19th century America, especially in an environment that is so entrenched in slavery. Nice post!
ReplyDeleteGood post! Dana slightly pushes Rufus in directions thought to be unimaginable during his time, such as loving and marrying a Black woman. Rufus, when met with these unfathomable thoughts, yearns to live a 19th century lifestyle while also having the 20th century influence, a combination not easily made. Dana's introduction of the 20th century encourages Rufus to pursue and claim Alice to greater lengths, yet she also expresses to Alice that her body belongs to her. This interjection of the 20th century creates a shift in these characters' ideologies and results in Alice no longer being able to handle the situation, ending her pain by committing suicide.
ReplyDeleteNice post! Rereading Kindred it surprising to see all of the times Rufus states/demands that she belongs in the past. We can see this fear of being alone present in Rufus's character for the majority of the story. Coupled with his toxic feelings and actions against Alice, his downfall seemed to have been inevitable. Nevertheless, I wonder if we as readers would have less sympathy if Kindred was written from the point of view of Alice instead of Dana.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the ideas presented in your blogpost. Although Dana tries to teach Rufus concepts of race from her time, she isn't in Rufus's life enough to be an influence to the degree his mother and father was. I think that Rufus views Dana as a sort of genie or fairy godmother -- she only appears when he is in trouble. Ultimately, the demise of Alice was mainly Rufus's part, but Dana also had a hand in it because she convinced Alice that being on the plantation was her only way of survival.
ReplyDeleteI had never thought to consider referring to Dana as the "fairy godmother," and I actually find the concept quite intriguing. We see Dana not only save Rufus on a slate of occasions, but also introduce radical ideas that are enough to shift his paradigm. However, as you said Titus, she doesn't have the ultimate power to change Rufus's upbringing and his personality at its core. We never truly get that desperation from Rufus to give up all of his power to get something from Dana. Rufus is still very much in control of the plantation and Dana's situation, despite any "mercy" he may show her. That power dynamic in comparison to the "fairy godmother" trope is really interesting.
DeleteGreat post! It's really fascinating to think about how Dana could have caused many of the things that happened at the Weylin plantation. It is also really difficult to come to any conclusion though, because situations like these simply don't exist in the real world. Otherwise, I think your argument makes a lot of sense and is well explained to the reader.
ReplyDeleteDana definitely directly or indirectly causes a lot of negativity in the book. One other prominent example is when she kills Rufus, most of the slaves are sold and separated from their family.
ReplyDeleteAlthough she indirectly caused Alice to die, does she have any fault in it? I would argue no. Rufus' dependency on Dana is his own issue and fault – Dana can't do anything to detach him from her. Rufus needs to exert control on Alice because of his dependency on Dana, and this is why he decides to take her children from her. Dana has no fault whatsoever in this, especially since she doesn't even want to time travel in the first place.
The level of influence Dana realistically had on Rufus's and Alice's lives is ambiguous. After all, she's a modern-day woman who's literally brought back to her ancestral roots for relatively brief time periods. Butler presents us with multiple situations throughout the book where Dana faces tough decisions about how she deals with her past. At one point Rufus asks Dana to be a messenger to enable his rape of Alice. In an ideal situation, Dana could utilize this opportunity to transform all their lives and potentially prevent Alice's future death. However, as Dana explains, Alice has only a few remotely viable options. Dana may come across as a little disingenuous in that section, but there's not a whole lot that she can do.
ReplyDeleteNice post Jeana! I think the theory you present in your blog post is very plausible. Dana's influence on Rufus is definitely one that is complicated. Despite her good intentions, the mechanisms of her time travelling prevent her from making the right impression on him. It seems her role in his development shaped his character in a way that made him more inclined to manipulate Alice in this horrible way, however I do not think that Dana herself is to be blamed. She tried to do her best to make Rufus better and did not give up until the end, when she had no other choice.
ReplyDeleteRufus's character development and struggle is super entertaining to dissect as students but disturbing to encounter as readers and voluntary bystanders experiencing life alongside Dana. We do see some "okay" moments from Rufus - some we might even deem "acceptable." However, it's so hard to remove those negative attributes from his personality because despite Dana's repeated reentries into Rufus's life, his world is still pretty unchanging. The culture that he has been brought up in on the plantation in which he has power is his core which leads him to some very deep internal conflict. Even though Dana does introduce new ideas to Rufus, she's not their his entire life. Imagine someone popping in once in a while for a few months that has widely different views than everyone else and trying to making you change, only to disappear and leave you back with the environment and world you had before, ultimately never really knowing whether they would return.
ReplyDeleteI think that Alice was always going to die, no matter what Dana did because of what Kevin said about not being able to change the past in any meaningful way. Even when she stabbed Rufus to death at the end of the book, the newspapers still read that he died in a house fire. So maybe Dana could have tried standing up to Rufus, but then what would've happened once she left? While there are a lot of things that Dana could have maybe done differently, I think that some things were always meant to happen, and sadly Alice dying was one of them.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Dana had some sort of influence on the way that things played out. However, I do also think that with or without Dana, Alice would've died (most likely trying to escape). It is clear these are her intentions before Dana even convinces her otherwise and escaping is a dangerous thing. But as you said, Dana played into Rufus' fears and instability, which made his treatment towards Alice that much more desperate. Not only that, but ultimately she is the one that helps Rufus to convince Alice to stay despite her reservations.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to be honest I don't know if I really agree. I think that Dana certainly has an influence on Rufus and possibly creates a shift in his mentality, but I don't see Dana as causing or being responsible for Alice's death. To me Rufus has been brought up in a way (by the people in his own time) that makes it okay to trick and hurt enslaved people and to manipulate them in incredibly horrible ways. He also seems to have some ingrained mental issue with trust and entitlement, and while Dana may be tied into that, I do not think she caused it. Rufus' existing and innate disturbing mental factors coupled with the harsh influence of slavery ridden southern society seem to me to be the cause of Alice's death. Although I'm definitely not saying this is the only right answer. It's an interesting thing to think about.
ReplyDeleteYou did a really good job analyzing the different influences, including both the antebellum-era environment and the Dana's modern sensibilities and "supernatural" power over Rufus, that ultimately lead up to the events of Alice's death. I think your comment about how Rufus is taught to get what he wants is spot on: he's never really told by society or the people around him that he can't have something, so when he can't get the outcome he wants by simply asking, he uses violence and manipulation. We see this happen time and time again in the novel, such as when he forces Dana to tell Alice to go to him and when he pulls a rifle on Dana and Kevin after they won't return to the plantation with him, and Alice's suicide is the first time that he actually bears the consequences of his tactics.
ReplyDeleteDana definitely influences Rufus throughout the book, as is evident when he compares with relationship with Alice to Kevin and Dana's relationship. However, I don't think it is fair to say that Dana was responsible for Alice's death. From the very beginning of the book, we know that Alice is Dana's ancestor. It is safe to assume that with or without the influence of Dana, Rufus would not have been in a consensual relationship with Alice given the time period and the influence of his father (a slave owner). Dana did not convince Rufus to hurt Alice, as we know that is inevitable from the beginning. In the alternate timeline without Dana, I believe Alice still would have died early through similar means, whether it be suicide or an escape attempt.
ReplyDeleteRufus Is definitely a manipulator, although it is unclear where that personality trait comes from as neither his mother or father behaved that way. I think his interactions with Dana taught him that he could get away with manipulating people to get what he wanted, instead of being strait forward, so that he could still pretend that he was a good guy or that people loved him. After all, Alice's suicide came shortly after Alice and Rufus has a "good" period, where Alice seemed more content than she ever had before. I agree that he became fearful of death, and therefore fearful of the power Dana held over him, but I don't think he ever truly believed that Dana would let him die or kill him herself, no matter what he did. He just didn't like the fact that someone else had power over him, so he kept trying to manipulate Dana and others around him until he felt he had the power once more.
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