Changing a Mindset: Take No Disrespect

            Octavia E. Butler’s story, Kindred, tells the story of Dana, a modern black woman who unintentionally time travels back into the slave-era in America to save a white person named Rufus, who also happens to be her ancestor. She periodically time travels back to her actual home in California, but whenever she was thrown back to the days of slavery she had figured out that Rufus was always in need of help. Each time she went back, her stay would get longer and longer, in which she learned to adapt and play the role of that which was expected of her then, a slave. A momentous turn in the book, as well as the part that got me all riled up, was when Dana decided that she had enough of dealing with the crap that came with being a slave.

She was in a private conversation with basically her slave master, Rufus’s father, Tom Weylin, and Dana was thanking Weylin for doing “at least one decent thing for Kevin and me, no matter what he was” (200). However, all it took for Dana to snap, and essentially break through the restraining mold that was holding her down as a slave, was the brief response from Weylin regarding the ‘thank you’ of “I didn’t do it for you” (200). She immediately responds to Weylin surprising him with a rebuttal, attempting to use the modern day equal logic of being grateful, one human being to another, but we all know that Tom Weylin did not see all human beings as equal. Weylin goes on to threaten Dana, saying “You want a good whipping!” (200), but instead of Dana rearing back and letting another rebuttal loose, she stays silent. She “realized then, though, that if he ever hit me again, I would break his scrawny neck. I would not endure it again” (200). And that was her breakthrough.

She had reached the point in her life where she had been through so much with the time travel and becoming a slave, that she finally said ‘no’. When I say ‘no’ I mean that she was not having any more of being slave, whether it be getting whipped or treated as lesser than a human being. Of course, one can’t just do something like this on a dime, it takes time. Think of it more as taking the process step by step, a progression of some sorts, rather than an all-out change. For Dana, she had some sort of sense of when to be compliant and when to be disruptive to her owners, as she was with Weylin mentioned earlier in this paper. Yes, she was in a position where she had almost zero authority when dealing with the white people. Nevertheless, she was still regarded as a threat to Weylin, as a fellow slave Nigel said, “He’s [Weylin] as close to being scared of you [Dana] as he’s ever been of anything” (206). This is the kind of thing that happens when one emboldens oneself, though, there is a fine line that must be followed with this kind of thing because too much emboldening can lead to trouble, or in Dana’s case, most likely torture or even death.

This sort of change of mindset is universal in the sense that anyone can do it. Yes, sometimes it takes some serious experiences and hardships that can be necessary for some to choose to make a philosophical change like that, but what I’m saying is that these kinds of changes can have profound impacts on one’s life. All it takes is one little step, one little variation to one’s mindset that can ignite the fire of change, which will lead to a forest fire that is one’s renovated self.

           

            

Struggles of Being Chinese-American

          The short story, No Name Woman, by Maxine Hong Kingston, struck a certain emotional chord within me. Through this story Kingston demonstrates the struggles of being a Chinese-American. Myself being half Japanese and half American, I have felt the pressures and difficulties of trying to uphold and live by the traditional East Asian values and way of life, while at the same time trying to fit into American society. I think that the story told by the narrator’s mother was utilized as a method to maintain the upholding of Chinese tradition. More importantly, the story essentially freaked the hell out of the narrator for what could possibly happen to her if she acts as a rebel to her family traditions as her forgotten aunt had, thus embracing American way of life more than her traditional way of life.

            In the story the narrator describes how attraction was always something that put her in a rut. She “hexed” herself, in the sense that she followed the Chinese tradition of romance and “she tried to turn myself [herself] American-feminine” (10), but had to put the back burner on her attractions. I can relate to this kind of feeling of entrapment because while I did live in a split cultured family with roughly half Japanese ideals and half American ideals, the conservatism and respect that is so closely associated with Japanese culture took a majority grip on my identity. This resulted in me being a rather shy kid, but it’s not like I was oblivious to how I could be more of an extrovert, and thus, choose to put myself out there in terms of attraction and romance. It was just the fact that how I was raised determined how I interacted in those situations, many similar to that which the narrator describes in this story.

            Acting in a rebellious manner is usually always a no-no in Asian cultures like the Chinese and Japanese. The mother’s story was clearly a warning for what happens when one rebels, especially when the rebel is a young woman, who lacks the same rights and privileges as woman do here in the U.S. While the narrator did mention how it was hard for her to break away from her family traditions, or ‘rebel’, in terms of having to comb her hair into an extremely tight bob, or the omnipresence of dishonoring her family, the fact that she is writing about something that was to be never spoken about is a testament that narrator is breaking away and ‘rebelling’. Thus, this story is one that describes the fine line that the narrator must follow, living in the external society that is America, while living in the unforgiving internal society that is her Chinese family.

           

            

Character Strengths and Weaknesses

             Kindred by Octavia E. Butler revolves around a woman named Dana and her experiences time travelling from 1976 to the antebellum South slavery period. Dana discovers as time moves on that she is continuously brought back to the same person, Rufus whenever he is in times of danger. Dana figures out that Rufus is a relative of hers and makes it her personal mission to keep him and the ones around him safe from harm. Unable to predict when she travels, Dana recognizes and exercises control when travelling back to her original and current time.  She always returns when she is faced with danger or a life or death situation. The violence that Dana faces increases over time, hardening her into a part of this historic time period.

            When beginning to read this novel, I was slightly doubtful whether I would like it or not. Time travel is sometimes a little iffy for me but I believe that Butler approached the science fiction of time travel in an appealing manner. She made the “rules” of her version of time travel very clear and made it easy for me to understand. Having completed the novel, I am slightly upset that I own a rental book because I want to keep it! The last half of the novel was hard to put down and I had no idea how this was going to lead up to the end (the prologue). While exploring the idea of the butterfly effect, I began to wonder while reading: is Dana going to cease to exist? If Alice does not give birth to Dana’s grandmother, will Dana disappear?

            As a reader, we see Dana struggle with reminding herself of the concept of reality. When she is whipped for the first time, the pain is registered and she finds herself realizing how dire this entire situation is. Not only does she have to keep Rufus and Alice alive, but she must also keep herself alive. There are many times where I want to root for Dana and other times I want to shake her and ask, “What do you think you’re doing?” When Dana attempts to run away to find Kevin, she states: “I felt almost sick to my stomach with fear, but I kept walking” (Butler 171). In this moment, I knew in my gut that she was not going to make it. Sure, Dana was very smart about running away; disguising herself as a man and waiting for everyone to see her go to sleep, but I was worried about her safety. I knew Rufus is not as consistent as his father when it came to threats and punishment but I was sure she wasn’t going to get away from the Weylin’s that easy.

            After her failed attempt of running away, Kevin does eventually make it back to the Weylin plantation. Dana makes an assumption that she and Kevin can quietly slip away from the home and get away from the Weylin’s but Rufus has something else in mind: “And without warning, with no perceptible change in mood, Rufus turned slightly and trained a rifle on us… I kept thinking I knew him, and he kept proving to me that I didn’t” (Butler 186). Rufus is completely against the idea of Dana leaving him that he threatens their lives if they don’t stay with him. Dana constantly has this idea in the back of her head that she can change Rufus and I seriously doubted that she could and this moment solidified that belief for me.

            This novel overall was exceptionally written and kept me on my toes, wondering what was going to happen next. Even though I wanted Dana to succeed, I was constantly questioning whether she was capable or not. What made Dana an appealing character was that she never truly gave up on Rufus. As much as she wanted to hate him, she found herself caring for Rufus and wanting to shape him into a good man. As a protagonist, Butler shapes Dana and creates her character development pleasantly, recognizing her faults and recognizing her strengths. My question to you all is this: Did you have any trouble trusting Dana? Were there any significant points where you began to root for her or want to shake her? 

Contradictions and the frailty of human life within the Shawl

This paper will look some of the contradictions found within The Shawl by Cynthia Ozick as well as some of reasons why these contradictions are used and what ideas or emotions they convey to the reader. Its through the use of the contradiction that Ozick is able to illustrate the frailty and instability of human life. 

The most evident contradiction with The Shawl is the interplay and symbolism between the shawl and Magda. Magda is described as being very near death due to the ever present threat of starvation. “Rosa knew Magda was going to die very soon; she should have been dead already” (Ozick 5). This threat of starvation is in part due to Rosa’s inability to produce milk very early in the story. “Magda relinquished Rosa’s teats… both were cracked, not a sniff of milk” (Ozick 4). Yet despite the threat of starvation, Magda survives for a time due to the shawl. The shawl is described as having magical properties to sustain an infant for three days and three nights. “It was a magic shawl, it could nourish an infant for three days and three nights” (Ozick 5). As such the shawl, either directly or indirectly, supports the life of Magda, which is further supported by when the shawl is taken away, Magda is doomed to die. Thus the Shawl is symbol for life. However this is also directly contradicted when we look at how Magda is characterized. “Magda was a mute… Magda was defective… Magda was dumb” (Ozick 7). So while the shawl keeps Magda alive, it too causes her to be something less than human. So while the shawl supports her life, it also keeps her from being a normal human being. This contrast is further supported when Stella steals the Shawl from Magda. Madga then immediately comes alive as she “flopped onward with her little pencil legs scribbling this way and that, in search of the shawl…It was the first noise Magda had ever sent out from her throat since the drying of Rosa’s nipples” (Ozick 7-8). Thus once she loses the shawl she becomes a normal baby, but is doomed to die. 

However, looking at the story again, Magda could of lost the shawl at any point and thus died at any point. We can see this from the shawl itself. The shawl is just a piece of cloth used to swaddle a baby, where cloth isn’t the most solid piece of material. Cloth is bound to rib or fray with use and its just a matter of time as to when the shawl would be destroyed or lost. Thus really Magda had no chance to live, the shawl at best was just buying time until her eventual demise. And this is why I think Ozick choose the shawl to be the symbol of Magda’s life. The cloth, just like human life is frail and fickle and its impossible to know when one may die.