Butler has written a book that goes deeper than surface level, exploring how people come to accept slavery as the norm and to justify poor treatment of slaves. There are many complex and interesting characters - both slaves and slave owners. What if a modern black woman suddenly found herself transported 150+ years into the past, right into the centre of the antebellum South? The book doesn't shy away from portraying the realities of that (nothing is sugar-coated, be prepared for some upsetting scenes).īut it's also more than a gruesome look at historical racism and violence. It's a really important "what if" book about race. I suppose some modern readers will want to compare this story to Outlander and there are some similarities - a woman trying to survive in the past, lots of blood-soaked history and horror, the harsh realities of being who you are in that time - but not only did this book come first, but it is far more distressing, more tied in with historical truth, and way more about surviving than it is about lusty scenes with a kilted hot dude. Kindred is a fascinating, horrific journey through a dark time in American history, combining eye-opening historical research with time travel.
This book may be my first by her, but it won't be my last. Us, the children… I never realized how easily people could be trained to accept slavery.”īutler is an author that constantly pops up on "Best sci-fi" and "Must-Read African American authors" lists and I can finally see why. Her papers are held in the research collection of the Huntington Library. Butler died of a stroke at the age of 58. She also taught writer's workshops, and eventually relocated to Washington state. Her books and short stories drew the favorable attention of the public and awards judges. She soon sold her first stories and by the late 1970s had become sufficiently successful as an author that she was able to pursue writing full-time.
She attended community college during the Black Power movement, and while participating in a local writer's workshop was encouraged to attend the Clarion Workshop, which focused on science fiction. She began writing science fiction as a teenager. Extremely shy as a child, Octavia found an outlet at the library reading fantasy, and in writing. In 1995, she became the first science fiction writer to receive the MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Grant.Īfter her father died, Butler was raised by her widowed mother. GradeSaver, 12 June 2016 Web.Octavia Estelle Butler was an American science fiction writer, one of the best-known among the few African-American women in the field.
#Simile inkindred by octavia e butler how to
Next Section Imagery Previous Section Metaphors and Similes Buy Study Guide How To Cite in MLA Format Osborne-Bartucca, Kristen. It is also ironic that Dana has to save her oppressor's life. The novel is filled with the general irony that derives from Dana being related to Rufus and Alice and them not exactly knowing that. Dana's Familial Relations (Dramatic Irony) It is ironic that Butler sets her book in 1976 at the bicentennial Americans celebrated how far the country had come, but when one takes a keen look at race relations, it is a sobering reality that things have not come that far at all.
America's Bicentennial (Situational Irony) This demonstrates just how much one's environment can distort one's perception: with everything else that happens on a slave plantation, the hard work suddenly doesn't seem that bed. It is ironic that Dana eventually comes to (almost) enjoy the grueling work of slavery, which is forced labor. Most blacks thought I was either stupid or too intent on pleasing the whites" (162) (Situational Irony) "I had almost come to welcome the hard work. This is no surprise: literacy is a form of power, and the social structure is designed to keep power in the hands of whites. It is ironic that in a world of slavery and prejudice, literacy–typically a tool for self-advancement–merits punishment when in the hands of blacks. But here, the only people who could read her writing would be those who might punish her for being able to write" (105) (Situational Irony) Buy Study Guide "In a more rational society, an ability to write would be of great help to.
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