Octavia Butler's slave narrative Kindred is unique in that it primarily occurs in the present with its black female protagonist Dana being transported several times to the slave-holding south of the early 1800s. Dana lives with her white husband Kevin in Los Angeles in 1976, the year of the American Bicentennial celebrating freedom. This is significant because Dana's horrific experiences as a slave to her white, great-grandfather many generations removed, Rufus, leave her with scars that are physical and psychological. As such, her journey is symbolic of the fact that the scars of slavery are still palpable in the present for African Americans and whites.
When Dana is transported to the past, she saves the life of a small boy named Rufus, a boy who will grow into her white slave-owning ancestor. Dana is inexplicably transported to the past on several occasions and again saves Rufus. In this way, Dana realizes she needs her oppressor because he is necessary for her future birth and survival, "Was that why I was here? Not only to insure the survival of one accident-prone small boy, but to insure my family's survival, my own birth" (Butler 29). Dana can only return to the present when she is faced with a life-threatening situation.
In the past, Dana must adopt the life of a slave which shows her how much white slave masters controlled the lives of slaves. Backbreaking labor, whippings and other physical abuse, rape, and the forced breakup of slave families are all elements of the slave existence that make Dana feel she is not as strong as her ancestors. The abuse is also psychological. We see the slave Sarah has had all but one of her children sold by Weylin. Unlike Dana and her illiterate ancestor Alice, who try in vain to escape, Sarah thinks little of freedom because of being victimized and psychologically scarred by the loss of her children, "she had lost all she could stand to lose" (Butler ...