Dana and Rufus

So far, Kindred has been an enjoyable read and one of the easier books this semester in terms of narrative and writing style. The plot is driven by the time travel of Dana and it’s interesting how this plot dynamic effects Rufus’ character development and his relationship with Dana. One important point that was mentioned during class discussion is the fact that the time Dana spends with Rufus is really quite insignificant in the grand scheme of things. She hops in and out of Rufus’ life, staying in the time period for a short duration, then leaving, returning years later. While she does seem like some sort of fairy godmother or protective angel watching over him and popping in to save his life, her attempts to shape Rufus into a person who respects slaves is extremely difficult given the time period he was born and raised in. While Dana is away, it is clear that Tom Weylin has a great influence on Rufus’ development. As he is his father, it would be expected that Rufus looks up to him. In “The Fight”, Rufus expresses that he believes his father to be a fair man and, surprisingly, Dana actually agrees to a certain degree as she says that Tom Weylin was ”Just an ordinary man who sometimes did the monstrous things his society said were legal and proper”. Given that even Dana considers Tom Weylin to be somewhat fair, it can be assumed that Rufus may face even worse influences outside of the Weylin estate. When considering this fact, it is not hard to believe that Rufus might slip towards the white-supremacist mentality while Dana is gone.

Now, the question is, was Dana naive in trusting her relationship with Rufus? I think she was. One thing to note here is Dana’s perspective when traveling in time. While she may only spend a number of days in the present before returning to Rufus, a much larger amount of time has passed in Rufus’ world. I feel as if Dana does not properly recognize this discrepancy in passing of time and thus, in her mind, she thinks of the time she has had with Rufus with greater significance than Rufus may have.

While it is clear that both Rufus and Dana care for each other to some degree, their views of their relationship clearly are not mutual. Dana appears to have developed maternal feelings for Rufus while to Rufus, Dana is still a black skinned girl and as a white man, he thinks he has to the right to say that she literally cannot leave him at gunpoint. In the end, I do not blame Rufus for how he has acted. It’s impossible to imagine how growing up in white-supremacist environment would shape you and I believe that he is simply a product of his environment.