Kindred Essay Essay, Research Paper

Throughout the novel Kindred, Butler compared and contrasted modern African Americans with African Americans that were slaves in the novel. Some of the many ways she compares them are through instruction, work ethic, and their personal feelings about and/or how they handle their ain bondage.

Education is really of import to the inkinesss that were enslaved in the novel. The slaves valued instruction even more than the modern African Americans like Dana who had ever thought they had really high criterions on instruction. The slaves valued instruction so much because to them it was non merely a tool to better themselves, but besides a really powerful tool that could potentially take them to freedom. With the ability to read and compose the slaves could compose themselves base on ballss and get away the universe which had bound them for their full lives. Although Dana & # 8217 ; s coevals thought instruction to be really of import, they ne’er had to depend on it for their ain endurance.

The work moral principle of the slaves was much greater than that of Dana and the African Americans of the modern times. Although Dana had viewed herself as holding a good work ethic, when she was put in the Fieldss for merely a short clip she could non defy the physical adversities which the slaves endured twenty-four hours after twenty-four hours. The slaves were non merely more physically capable to finish the work but they were besides more focussed on finishing their end. You

must retrieve that in Dana’s clip money was ever a strong motive for any worker but in the slave’s clip a whip could drive person merely every bit good. Ultimately the slaves were motivated to finish their work because they knew that their well being depended on it.

The slaves in the novel seemed to accommodate much better to their ain bondage than the modern inkinesss such as Dana did. Bondage was the lone life many of the inkinesss had of all time known so it was much easier for them to accept their hereafter than it was for Dana to accept her sudden loss of rights. For Dana to come from a universe where the possibilities of African American & # 8217 ; s hereafters were so wide to all of a sudden lose all of her rights and be viewed as belongings was about adequate to do Dana a mental dislocation. Although the slaves did non desire theirs lives the manner they were, they had somewhat adult accustomed to the thought of bondage and accepted it as their hereafter. It is much easier non to learn a bird to wing than it is to learn one one time and state it can ne’er wing once more.

In the novel the African Americans of modern twenty-four hours were compared to the slaves of the clip in instruction, work ethic, and their ain positions on bondage. Both groups had strengths in those Fieldss and some found failings. Both coevalss had two really of import things in common ; the unbreakable human spirit, and the unaccountable thrust that pushed them to last and acquire up merely one more clip than they had fallen down.