Kindred

Kindred
Octavia E. Butler

Kindred Summary

Dana Franklin is brought to the hospital missing an arm. The police question her and her husband Kevin but she can’t tell them the truth because no one would believe her.

Dana and Kevin Franklin are a married couple moving into a new house in Los Angeles in 1976. While unpacking their books Dana feels dizzy and falls to the ground, when she looks up she is in an entirely different place. She is outside by a river, and a small boy is drowning while a woman screams. Dana rushes into the river, grabs the boy, and performs mouth to mouth until he starts breathing again. While she tries to save him the woman attacks her until Dana pushes her away. Suddenly there is a rifle pointed in her face and Dana feels dizzy again before waking up back in her house with Kevin.

Kevin tells her she was only gone a few seconds, although for Dana it was at least a few minutes. They both know something happened because she disappeared and now is covered in mud, but Kevin has a hard time believing it can be real. Shortly after returning home, Dana feels dizzy again and is once more sent somewhere else. This time she finds the same red-headed boy, who before was only about 2, this time is several years older. He just set fire to some curtains so Dana puts out the fire for him. She talks to him and learns he is Rufus Weylin, who is actually one of her ancestors. As they talk she learns the year is 1815 and she is on a slave plantation.

Rufus tells her he should go to his friend Alice’s house, since her and her mother are free blacks and can help take care of her. He is worried how his father, Tom Weylin, will treat Dana. Dana sneaks out of the house but right when she reaches Alice’s family hut, a group of young white men, Patrollers, break in and drag out a black man who they whip. After they leave Dana goes to ask to stay with Alice and her mother, but one of the men comes back and attacks Dana. He is trying to rape her when she faints and goes back to her own time again. Kevin makes her a bag with a knife, maps, clothes and other things he thinks she may need if this happens again.

We learn more about Dana and Kevin’s relationship through flashbacks at the start of each section. They met while both doing menial work at a warehouse when they both wanted to be authors. Kevin recently had his first book sold and finally has some money and asks Dana out. They face hardships from both of their families since Kevin is white and Dana is black. They got married not long after they started dating by driving to Vegas and then moving in together. They have both started to have more success getting published also.

The next time Dana feels dizzy Kevin grabs onto her and is transported with her. They both arrive in the early 1800’s where Rufus just fell from a tree and broke his leg. Kevin and Dana have theorized that Rufus calls Dana back whenever his life is in danger, and she is only able to return to the present when she feels she is about to die. They send a young slave boy, Nigel, back to the Weylin house to get help. Dana and Kevin tell Rufus the truth about where and when they come from. Tom arrives with Nigel’s father Luke and they take Rufus back to the house in a cart. Kevin pretends to be Dana’s master in order to placate Tom Weylin, and gets a job teaching Rufus while his leg heals. Dana is hoping to be able to convince Rufus to not be racist or at least be a gentle slaveowner and like her, in case she ever has to return on her own.

While at the plantation Dana meets Sarah, who is the cook and one of the lead slaves, as well as her mute daughter Carrie. Margaret Weylin, Rufus’ mother, does not like Dana and is always forcing her to do stuff and is mean to her. Nobody on the plantation seems to like Miss Margaret much, including her family. Dana begins reading books to Rufus at his request, but this upsets his mother and father who don’t like seeing an educated slave. Dana begins teaching Nigel and a few other slave children how to read, in the hopes of helping them escape some day. Eventually Tom catches her with a book helping Nigel, and brings her outside to whip her. She calls for Kevin but he can’t make it in time and she passes out and travels back to the future.

Dana is badly hurt and alone and tries to care for herself. She is back in 1976 for 8 days before feeling dizzy and getting sent back to the past. She is worried about Kevin and hopes he is still nearby. Dana finds Rufus in a fight with a black man, who is clearly winning. After Rufus is knocked out she learns this is Isaac, Alice’s husband who is a slave. Rufus had tried to rape Alice so Isaac attacked him. She convinces the couple not to kill Rufus and run away. When Rufus wakes up she makes him realize how badly he messed up and makes him tell people it was whites who beat him up. It has been 5 years since she was last here.

When she goes to get help for Rufus she finds that Nigel and Carrie are married, but that Tom sold Luke because he was too independent. Dana uses some modern drugs she brought back to help Rufus heal, and he eventually goes into town with Nigel to send some letters Dana wrote to Kevin. Margaret has left to go live with her sister and Tom is getting old and frail, so he hired an overseer, Jake Edwards. When Rufus returns to the plantation he has a feeble and badly injured Alice with him. Apparently her and Isaac were caught and Rufus bought her. Dana spends a long time healing Alice, who is slowly regaining her memory of her life and the time leading up to her attack. When she finally remembers Isaac and what Rufus did she is furious and takes out her anger on Dana.

Dana spends multiple months at the plantation, slowly fitting in with the other slaves and helping out. Rufus asks her to make Alice come sleep with him, which Dana refuses until Rufus says the other option is Jake Edwards whipping Alice until she agrees. Dana repeats this and Alice reluctantly goes to Rufus. Dana actually needs this to happen since Alice and Rufus are the parents of one of her ancestors, so for her to exist they need to have children. One day Alice comes to Dana and shows her that Rufus never sent her letters to Kevin and has kept them instead. This prompts Dana to try to run away north to find Kevin herself.

Tom and Rufus catch Dana and beat her, although Rufus tries not to hurt her too badly. She is brought back to the plantation, but right after that Kevin shows up. Tom Weylin had written to him after learning Rufus had not sent the letters. Kevin and Dana are about to leave but Rufus threatens them with his gun and tries to make them stay. Dana thinks Rufus is going to shoot her and she and Kevin escape back to 1976.

Back in modern times Kevin feels incredibly out of place after living in the past for 5 years, causing stress on their relationship. Not long after returning Dana again goes back to the past, without Kevin this time. This time Rufus is passed out drunk about to drown in a puddle. Dana pushes him up against a tree but is still mad at him. Dana goes and gets Nigel to help bring Rufus back. Dana spends a while helping cure Rufus of some disease, either the ague, malaria, or something else, but eventually he is able to move around again, although he is still weak. Dana and Alice grow close over her time here. Alice and Rufus have one living child, Joe, a small boy who looks more white than black. Dana begins to teach Joe to read and wants Rufus to free him, but Rufus is hesitant.

One day Tom Weylin has a heart attack and Dana is unable to save his life. Rufus takes out his anger and sadness by sending her to the fields to work. The new overseer, Evan Fowler, is cruel and hurts Dana until Rufus comes to retrieve her. For some reason Dana can’t make herself hate Rufus despite everything he has done. Rufus brings his mother home to the plantation, now addicted to laudanum, and makes Dana care for her. Dana spends the months sleeping on Margaret's floor and helping the other slaves, becoming close friends with Alice. Rufus begins becoming more and more of a normal plantation owner, and sells off slaves despite Dana begging him not to.

Alice gives birth to her next child, Hagar, which is great news for Dana since Hagar is her direct ancestor. She hopes she will be able to return to her own time soon and never return. Dana has spent a long time here now and is familiar with most of the other slaves. Alice tells her she plans to run away with her children since Rufus won’t put it in writing that he will free them, despite Alice and Dana begging him. Another slave, Sam (who has flirted with Dana before), asks her to teach his younger siblings how to read and Dana agrees. Rufus is angry Sam talked to Dana and sells him shortly after this. When Dana confronts him he hits her, so Dana runs to the cookhouse and slits her wrists, hoping to either die or go home.

She wakes up next to Kevin, who got a doctor friend to bandage her wrists. They get to spend a couple weeks together, in which Kevin thinks that this was the end and they will stay in this time, before Dana again is sucked back to the past. She finds Alice dead in the barn; she hung herself after Rufus sold her children. Dana confronts Rufus and he reveals he didn’t actually sell them, he just pretended to scare her because she ran away. Rufus was contemplating suicide but Dana talks him out of it. Dana makes Rufus free his and Alice’s children and keeps trying to talk him into freeing all the slaves in his will. Rufus refuses because he is afraid Dana would kill him if he did. After a while Rufus begins looking at Dana differently, and eventually follows her to the attack and tries to rape her. Dana stabs Rufus multiple times, and he dies gripping her arm. Dana is yanked back to the present but finds her arm stuck in a wall, leading to the hospital scene from the beginning of the book.

Kevin and Dana travel to Maryland to find the plantation and figure out if anything was real or what happened after. They find a newspaper article saying that the plantation burnt down and it lists the sale of most of the slaves, but not Joe, Hagar, Nigel, or Carrie. Kevin and Dana begin to find peace and plan to move on with their lives. THE END.