Octavia Butler's novel Dawn shows the collapse of a definite, individualized "human nature" through the coercive, hegemonic actions of an alien "other" known as the Oankali. Human identity in its present form does not survive the entire book, but...

One difference between the slave and neo-slave narrative is the relationship of the audience to the text’s protagonist. In Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs cannot address her audience from equal grounds; because of her...

Scholar Carl Malmgren describes the common science fiction trope of alien encounters as “inevitably broach[ing] the question of the Self and the Other…The reader recuperates this type of fiction by comparing human and alien entities, trying to...

The trope of the grotesque in science fiction can serve various purposes: to repulse or shock the audience, to introduce the intent to frighten the audience, or to defamiliarize or alienate the audience, thus enforcing the element of the unknown....

Octavia E. Butler gives readers an insight on the cruel reality of slavery in the antebellum period through her novel, Kindred. Throughout her narrative, Butler shines a light on the brutal conditions those enslaved must endure by heavily shaming...

Every father should remember that one day his son will follow his example instead of his advice. In Kindred, Octavia Butler depicts similarities and differences to the characterization between Rufus, and his father Tom Weylin, because they were...

Mikhail Bakhtin, in his essay "Forms of Time and Chronotope in the Novel," argues that the "chronotope" of a literary work – the configuration of time and space in the fictional world that the text projects – is inextricably connected with its...

Novels that are centered on traumatic events in history have used different tools to access the past. The Piano Lesson by August Wilson is a film (based on a play) that is set during the Great Depression while Octavia Butler’s Kindred is a novel...

Home is oftentimes perceived as one of the places where a person feels safest and as one of the places where one likes being most. This seems to be very straightforward, but in her novel Kindred, Octavia E. Butler complicates this concept of home...

In the novel Kindred, by Octavia Butler, Dana, a modern day black woman, time travels between her present day and the time of slavery in the South. Between her various travels, Dana and her husband Kevin experience a series of both cruel and eye...

The sociopolitical and cultural landscape of the present is undeniably shaped by that of the past. Past sociopolitical and cultural tensions serve as foundation for the contemporary psychology we experience. However, alongside this connection is a...

Octavia E. Butler’s novel Kindred details the harrowing journey of 26-year-old Dana Franklin. A modern black woman from 1970s Los Angeles, Dana is continuously jerked back through time to the land of her ancestors: early 1800s Maryland. Her task?...

As one may look into a mirror, the reflections that they see may vary. For Dana Franklin in Octavia Butler’s Kindred (1979), she sees her long lost ancestor Alice Greenwood. The story tells the tale of Dana, a young black woman in the 70’s, and...

Relationships between brothers and sisters can be complicated; relationships between parents and children can be even more so. Family often varies in definition from one person to the next. For the majority of the population, the idea of a “...

In today’s world, Western society has grown incredibly desensitized to violence. Children play video games such as Grand Theft Auto in which they murder civilians and sexually assault women without a second thought in order to win the game. Turn...

In the novel Kindred, Octavia Butler tells the story of Dana and Kevin, an interracial married couple living in 1976 who repeatedly travel back to the time and place of Dana’s ancestors. Butler’s plot brings up agency, which can be defined as one’...

The mythical norm impacts female characters Dana from Kindred and Hermione from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Since these characters are female they are both impacted differently by the mythical norms within their societies. While their...

If a boy gives a girl a rose, what does this mean? A rose is a widely used symbol of affection or romance, and one as a present would usually signify certain feelings of love. Symbols like roses are used in literature since people first started...

In an interview conducted by Marilyn Mehaffy and AnaLouise Keating, Octavia Butler was prompted to discuss the importance of bodily inscription in writing, to which she replies that the body is “all we really know that we have…all we really know...

Even before there were written words, people communicated through gestures and images in order to explain important things in their lives, attesting to the social importance of clear communication. Language helps us track human progress through...

Language is one of the most important things that human beings use to communicate. Even before there were written words, people communicated through gestures and images in order to explain important things in their lives. Language helps us track...

Water is the most abundant source of life on this planet. Not only did the first living beings emerge from its depths, but it also possesses the ability to keep every living thing alive. Powerful as it is, water takes on whole new meanings in...

In the late 20th century, a push and pull existed within the black community, the likes of which had rarely been seen before. People were celebrating the successes of the civil rights movement and the end of Jim Crow, but oppression and racism...

Dystopian novels often focus on expanding certain fears of society to the extreme. Many times, at the top of these fears, is religion and the exploitation of it. It is often the case that dystopian writers will represent religion as a being that...