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Octavia Butler’s Kindred examines the institution of slavery and reveals how it became easily accepted by all living during those times. ... Butler uses Kevin to demonstrate that whites are also mentally tied to the phenomenon, something that is often overlooked in discussion of slavery. ... The idea that slavery is more of a mental phenomenon for blacks is widely known, but the idea that whites too where forced into this type of thinking is not commonly discussed. ... By having Kevin, a liberal white man from the 1970’s, quickly change and accept ideals of white supremacy, Butler shows that also the white people were placed into a institution and way of living by the society and system that was set up around them.
Within the first few scenes involving Kevin during slave times we see his easy acceptance of the actions of the slaves and whites. ... By showing the children impersonating the whites and their selling of them like cattle, Butler draws attention to Kevin’s mimicking of the whites approval of the dehumanization of blacks. ... One would expect Kevin to be outraged at the behavior and enslavement of the people and more vigilant in speaking with the whites about change but instead he is compliant and seems only worried with his own continued existence while living in the past. ... In the same scene Dana tells Kevin that she already has begun to go against the rules of the whites by teaching Nigel to read. ... It is as if Kevin is no longer his old self showing that whites too fall prey to the thought processes that kept slavery alive for so long in the United States even when not initially conditioned to do so. ... Butler shows with this scene that not only were blacks mentally enslaved but whites mentally conditioned to accept the mistreatment and dehumanization of a race of people. ... He is insensitive to the reality that he had to change his ways of living to survive the times and Dana also would have to do so. ... She like other whites in this time blames the black woman for enticing the white man to sleep with them. ... The mindsets of whites at this time has been fully embraced by Kevin as he justifies the mistreatment of his own wife by assuming that she somehow would allow her self to be sexually assaulted by the master of the plantation, as if she had a choice. ... By thinking that the slave does something to deserve the treatment, slavery is easily justifiable for whites to continue with it.
Approximate Word count = 2034
Approximate Pages = 8.1
(250 words per page double spaced)
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