Octavia Butler’s Kindred: Unfinished Business with History, Race, Sexuality, and Power in American Slavery

Abstract

Noh, Jongjin. “Octavia Butler’s Kindred: Unfinished Business with History, Race, Sexuality, and Power in American Slavery.” Studies on English Language and Literature. 32.3(2006): 85-102. Published in 1979, Kindred is a work that examines not only slavery but also the issue of race that was ebullient and culminated in the 1970s. This novel also explores the issue of history and how writers historicize their work through literary imagination. Drawing on nineteenth century slave narratives, Butler’s Kindred is a good example of a work that demonstrates how the contemporary readers of America might be able to deal with slavery and its ongoing effects on the people of African American heritage. This paper is an attempt to explore how Butler presents the question of race in the 1970s and how she addresses slavery. Butler reconceptualizes the issue of race by challenging black cultural nationalists at the time and envisions an America that encompasses both black and white Americans. She also challenges the idea of racial purity in America. I interrogate how she fictionalizes and reveals a potentially integrated America by tracing back and experiencing the past slavery. (Kangwon National University)