Time Travel through Centuries

     Kindred is the story of a young woman named Dana that is able to time-travel through centuries to help a young man named Rufus, who she soon discovers is a distanced grandfather (either great- great or great).  Whenever Dana begins to time-travel, she becomes very nauseous and experiences dizziness.  When she arrives in the 1800s, Rufus seems to be in some kind of trouble.  The first time Dana arrived, Rufus was drowning.  The second time he had caught his drapes on fire in his room and broken his leg in the third instance.  The concept of time-travel absolutely drives me insane because it can be very mind blowing at times!  It can go two ways: Dana can help form the family they are during a difficult time or she can try and help and do something incredibly wrong and doom her family’s history, leading to her disappearance. 

     If the time-travel was not enough, I could not help but notice that in the first chapter, Kevin brings up the possibility of hallucinations.  I cannot help but wonder if that is where the story is leading to, Dana developing some kind of mental illness that causes hallucinations.  The rest of the stories we have read this semester have all led us to use the dreaded word, “crazy”.  I hope that the story is actually about time-traveling and not another story where we all question everything we just read!

     The first sentence of the first chapter says, “The trouble began long before June 9, 1976, when I became aware of it, but June 9 is the day I remember” (Butler, p. 12).  At least up to the third chapter, there is no description of any time-travel that occurred before meeting Rufus.  This was something I did not catch the first time reading it, but now it is a questionable statement.  What kind of trouble was Dana talking about? If she had experienced time-travel before meeting Rufus, then she would not have been so surprised when it happened.  Another interesting part of Dana’s time-travel experiences is that she is never aware of how long she is out.  What feels like hours to her might be only a few minutes for Kevin as he waits for her return.  Obviously time-travel is a questionable concept, but the effect it comes with is also very interesting.  The fact that Kevin was able to travel back in time by just holding on to her makes time traveling sound so easy! But he did not feel any nausea or dizziness, so maybe that is a side effect to whatever has happened to Dana that has given her the ability to travel through time.

     Aside from the question of if Dana is “crazy” and the idea of time-travel as a whole, the story has powerful imagery that makes it that more interesting.  I made the mistake of reading the story before I went to bed and I actually felt uneasy throughout the night and woke up at one time wondering if I was in the right time period.  Now that can just be me losing my mind over a lack of sleep, but it goes to show how easy Butler makes it to imagine what is going on with Dana and the people she encounters in her travels.  The scene where Dana is getting beat by the patroller who was at Alice’s house was extremely difficult to get through because of the imagery used.  Dana describes the attack from the patroller: “Having him catch and hold me was bad enough.  Now he meant to turn me in as a runaway… I dug the nails of my free hand into his arm and tore the flesh from elbow to wrist” (Butler, p. 41).  The scenes described in the story show what it was like even for “free slaves” during that brutal time in US history.  You cannot help but wonder why Dana travels back to a time that is so detrimental to her well-being and quite honestly, her chance of survival.   

     To say that Dana’s travel to the 1800’s is unfortunate would be an understatement.  There could not have been a worse time to travel to, but it could be that she has to travel back to this time to ensure that her family line continues.  I hope at the end of this book, we have more answers about Dana’s mental stability and why this is all happening to her.