Genealogy as Time Travel
The title of Kindred illuminates an important aspect of the novel - familial relations. For Dana going back in time, she’s not only sent back to a general time period or place. It’s a very specific plantation, and not only that, it’s her family. Her existence depends on them and their having children. But not only that - the fact that they’re her family makes what she sees all the more powerful.
It removes a sense of vagueness when you know something happened in your family. Like you can say, lots of people were political prisoners in the late 40s in Yugoslavia, they were ripped from their homes and endured a lot of physical and psychological torture. But knowing that during that same time my grandma was picked up from her extracurricular activity (Russian culture club) at 18 without a reason or warming and sent directly to prison, that feels very different. When you remember who they were as your grandparents, get told regularly how you look like them, have the same anxious mannerisms, the same inability to sit still, it feels very different.
Perhaps you can say families are just one giant being that exists outside of time constraints, and you are simply the manifestation of your family within a specific time. It’s only the time you were born in that made you live a safe, happy life, and your ancestors have to endure the unimaginable. But there’s generational trauma. The same experiences that Alice lives through affect Dana over a century later. The trauma of slavery is always still a little part of Dana, she’s still a part of the whole family in the grander scheme of time. Perhaps time travel is some analogy for genealogy, for discovering parts of the broader, more collective "you".
It removes a sense of vagueness when you know something happened in your family. Like you can say, lots of people were political prisoners in the late 40s in Yugoslavia, they were ripped from their homes and endured a lot of physical and psychological torture. But knowing that during that same time my grandma was picked up from her extracurricular activity (Russian culture club) at 18 without a reason or warming and sent directly to prison, that feels very different. When you remember who they were as your grandparents, get told regularly how you look like them, have the same anxious mannerisms, the same inability to sit still, it feels very different.
Perhaps you can say families are just one giant being that exists outside of time constraints, and you are simply the manifestation of your family within a specific time. It’s only the time you were born in that made you live a safe, happy life, and your ancestors have to endure the unimaginable. But there’s generational trauma. The same experiences that Alice lives through affect Dana over a century later. The trauma of slavery is always still a little part of Dana, she’s still a part of the whole family in the grander scheme of time. Perhaps time travel is some analogy for genealogy, for discovering parts of the broader, more collective "you".
I agree, it really does remove a sense of vagueness. Sometimes it's easy to forget the trauma your parents and grandparents suffered through to get to where you are now. It's easy for me to complain about being stuck at home right now but then I have to remember how lucky I am, like I'm thankful that I've never been a prisoner of war like my dad was. I like the idea of time travel being some analogy for genealogy.
ReplyDeleteYeah, we talked in our Zoom discussion about the extra layers added to the novel by making about Dana’s personal family history, rather than just a history of slavery as a whole. I normally like grandfather paradoxes – but Butler employs it in a very different – and very icky – way. The fact that Dana knows her entire existence rests on Rufus and Alice means she has to let herself be a bystander to Rufus’ abusing and raping Alice. In this case, rather than simply knowing how slavery affected Dana’s personal family history, Dana is discovering how slavery affected it, and each discovery is turning out to be more disturbing than the last.
ReplyDeleteI also think that making the story about Dana’s ancestors adds a sense of futility to the story – no matter how much injustice and violence Dana sees, we know and she knows that she can’t change things. It’s already happened and it’s the basis of her own birth. In that sense, Dana really is looking at the atrocities of the past and helpless to change them – just in a very close-and-personal way.
You bring up an interesting idea, the generational connection just being different incarnations of the same being. I can see the support given by Butler throughout the text; example: every time Dana is compared to Alice, someone who she would only share like 1/16th of her DNA with or something, but is still inherently tied to, because without Alice, Dana couldn't exist. This brings up all sorts of different dilemmas (as time travel always does). Without the time travel, Dana would definitely never known about any of this backstory/history that is directly tied to her, making her role in the whole process kind of murky, trying not to meddle, but also feeling the need to meddle. To be honest it's just all a mess.
ReplyDeleteI agree that experiences seem that much more visceral when they occur to your family members. I think that time travel as a metaphor for genealogy perfectly depicts this novel, as Dana really does have to step back in time. It makes me grateful that I am living in this time, and not in the past, where 3 out of 4 of my grandparents did not even have shoes growing up.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that Dana has to deal with Rufus raping Alice to ensure her own existence makes her experience that much more uncomfortable and profoundly disturbing. There is a sense of learned helplessness - that Dana cannot change this awful history, but is forced to witness it. I was also confused why Dana did not ever tell these people that they were her ancestors, since it could possibly have helped her in some ways.
I definitely agree that it's very important that the events happened to Dana's ancestors, and that all historical events feel more real when you know they happened to somebody in your family. It's part of you - it's a part of your story, how you came to exist. Butler has Dana not only confront the reality of Alice's life as a slave, but also with the fact that she's related to somebody like Rufus, and that Dana's existence is only possible because of the terrible sexual abuse Alice experienced at his hands. In fact, Dana's specifically given a connection to Rufus - not Alice - and his life is literally put into her hands.
ReplyDeleteI tried to emphasize this point in our discussions, but in this context it seems crucial to me that Butler pointedly makes Dana's "kin" in this past reflect "both sides" of the plantation community: Alice and Rufus are *both* her ancestors, and she has to look *both* sides of that equation squarely in the eye. As Americans, both Rufus and Alice are symbolically our "kin," and indeed our national culture and economy have been profoundly shaped by black and white people's experiences in slavery. So when she travels back in time, she needs to come to terms with the fact that her family is rooted in both sides equally--and how complicated that initial assumption, that Rufus and Alice must have been "married," eventually becomes. When Dana has to talk Alice into going "willingly" to Rufus, she basically has to endorse and affirm rape as inherent to her own family story. As Americans, figuratively speaking, we all have to do the same--whatever our individual family histories.
ReplyDeleteWhoa, that's a super interesting idea about how we are only the most recent continuation of our broader families. The concept of family as a cohesive group unrestricted by time pushes against the mainstream understanding of geneological linearity. Maybe we're not related in "lines" but complex webs of relationship bound up with history. This version of kinship acknowledges intergenerational trauma and the ambiguity of our place in time. Why was I born in this century, and not into the violent past that my anscestors escaped from?
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