At the beginning of Kindred, we are thrust into a confusing situation with Dana explaining that she lost her arm on her last trip. Obviously, this does not make sense at first, but by the end of the book we see the events leading up to the loss of her arm. But the question remains of why she lost her arm, both from a narrative perspective and from a story perspective.
In class, we talked about how Butler herself said that she had Dana lose her arm because she couldn't come back whole from an experience in that time period. It needed to have some sort of permanent mark on her character, and she decided to represent this by her losing a limb. However, I believe that there is another interpretation. Her losing the part of her arm that was grabbed by Rufus represents her cutting off part of her past/bloodline. Throughout the entire story, she has had a kinder view of Rufus because he is her ancestor and because she has seen him grow up. But when she decides to kill him, she is putting her own feelings to the side and looking at the situation more objectively than she has before. In a way, she is also cutting away part of herself. The fact that it is such a permanent injury shows that this isn't something that she can replace or "recover" from and that her decision is now set in stone.
Another aspect of Dana losing her arm that I find interesting is the fact that her last trip where she kills Rufus is the only time something like this happens. She has never "overlapped" with anything in reality in her previous trips. Of course, one could make the argument that there was always the chance of this happening and that she just got lucky the previous times. But this seems like a weak argument, and I feel like there was some sort of meaning behind it. In particular, I think that this is a somewhat subtle way of telling the reader that Dana's actions have altered the past to some extent. The world she comes back to isn't the exact same as the one she left, it's been "shifted over" - hence the overlap.
One final remark is that Dana has never actually been touched by Rufus while she travels back to her time before, so maybe touching Rufus causes her to leave parts of herself behind. This interpretation makes Rufus seem like the manifestation of the time period and that he/the time period corrupts whatever it touches. This seems like a plausible theory as well, but I personally prefer the previous one.
Let me know which theory you prefer in the comments below!!
I think the idea of Dana changing the past caused the present to "shift" is interesting. It sets up a butterfly effect-type of logic for her time travel, which is pretty cool. But I'm wondering now if Dana killing Rufus would be the real cause for the "shift," since this moment isn't the first time we see Dana interfere in the past. For example, every time she has been called back, she alters history by saving Rufus from dying, so why didn't her present shift then? Maybe there's another reason for this moment in particular shifting the present. Great post!
ReplyDeleteThis interpretation is very well thought-out and not one I heard discussed much in class (at least not in my section). You're completely right that ancestry and her bloodline could be read into the losing of the arm- after all, he title of the book is Kindred, so naturally that theme should be the most or very nearly the most prevalent. To add, a popular interpretation I heard read the losing of the arm as a permanent reminder of her time in the 1800s. There's no convincing herself it was all a dream or wild hallucination if there's such a tangible and life-altering reminder always with her. Lots of ways you could interpret that crucial detail. Great post.
ReplyDeleteI think that it's definitely true that something fundamental changed when it was Rufus and when she had just killed him and when her mindset had just changed, that a part of her was cut off. While she had been grabbed onto tightly previously, when the slave catcher had found her in the forest and she came back to her own time without him, with Rufus the hold on her arm is clearly symbolic and behaves outside of the previously established rules.
ReplyDeleteI like your interpretations. I'd also add that it's interesting that her arm is caught in the wall, which could represent the chronological barrier between the past and the present. Dana will never be completely 1976, and she will never be completely 1830 either. A literal portion of her is stuck in between, and the trauma of her time in the South will never leave her. She's not going to be the same Dana, trusting and naive, always lending a helping hand when anyone is in danger, always willing to give people a second chance.
ReplyDeleteI love the idea of Dana's arm symbolizing her cutting off that specific aspect of her past. Our table discussed this a lot as we thought this entire thing of losing her arm felt a little random. Personally, I still have some questions. Why was her arm stuck in the wall when she came back? Also, it seems like when she tried to yank her arm from the wall, she was ripping it in two. Is the other half just lost to this aspect of time travel? Or was it left behind with Rufus? Either way, it definitely shows the extent to which Butler wanted us to see that Dana was marked by the past.
ReplyDeleteThere are so many interpretations of Dana losing her arm, and these are some great (and very plausible) ones. Rufus has of course been Dana's connection to the past, and when she affected something then, her own present changed. However, it is not certain that she actually changed anything -- personally, I think it's possible that in the original timeline (whatever the heck that is), the house actually did burn down as the newspaper said and Rufus died then anyway. Although the Dana-changing-something theory makes some sense, I kind of prefer the idea that Dana lost some part of herself by killing someone (and specifically her ancestor), not to mention all the time she spent as a slave, so she also literally lost a part of herself. Or when she came back for the final time, it's like she left a part of herself in the past. I don't know, there's just so many layers. Great post!
ReplyDeleteI think it's certainly plausible that Dana losing her arm signifies her cutting off her bloodline. It was mentioned that her mother and father died when she was a baby, and her aunt and uncle cut her off for marrying Kevin, a white man. So, your theory would make sense and explain why Butler included snippets of Dana and Kevin's past at the beginning of some chapters. These snippets reveal that Rufus is the last person Dana is related to that she is still connected with. Great theory, I'm totally on board with it!
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