So in Kindred, we see a traditional historical fiction being subverted by the use of time travel, and my question is why? What is the value in this science-fiction-action of a normal historical fiction?
Well, first we must ask ourselves why the use of historical fiction (outside of fiction is how Butler normally writes) to make a point about American slavery. It is possible to make her point in an academic way--that point being the comparison of the slave era to the modern era and how we can't forget or remove the past from the present, along with more--with a formal essay. However, she chooses to write a fiction. Why?
I think this is a relatively straightforward question, but it has multiple levels. The first of these parts is just the making of historical fiction allows the reader to relate in a more emotional basis, and therefore feel the sympathy and anger at slaves and masters respectively. Strangely the historical fiction creates less distance between the present and historical because we are forced to react to it on a deeply personal level, which academic writing or just a history wouldn't force because it doesn't necessarily try to be emotional. If one is reading about facsimiles of people in a fiction, we try to read about them as if they are people that we might meet. Whereas textbook history doesn't create people as 3-dimensional people and we can distance ourselves from them.
Take for example Dana's looking at history in the epilogue. When she is trying to track down all these people she met, and she is using the historical record of the slavery era, but the record is entirely economic. It's names of people that were bought and sold. And despite the fact that we are aware of the horror in the abstract, looking at those documents don't actually induce emotional responses. However, the fictional narrative induces emotions, because it reminds us of how the people were actual people, not just names on a document. And when we are emotionally invested, we can be persuaded in a more human way, than with non-emotional academic writing.
So that is why historical fiction works better than just straight history or academic argumentation. However, Butler doesn't just write a historical fiction, it's science fiction. There's time travel involved, which I think makes the point I mentioned earlier better than any other method. If Kindred is trying show how we cannot remove ourselves from the past, then what better way than to literally bring the past and the present together via Dana and her time travel. Dana's modern perspective allows her to criticize the culture of the antebellum south, but also to see similarities. This is shown when she sees how Rufus and Kevin's similarities. Similarly, when Kevin goes back and feels weirdly ok with some of the things, trying to find a positive, thinking about exploring the west, etc., it is a moment where we see how Kevin's modern perspective makes him dislike the era. However, because the slave era, and present day (for the book) have similarities, and the culture's are very clearly built on each other, Kevin feels strangely at place in the time-period. There are countless scenes like this (which I will discuss more of in the essay I'm writing on this subject), but perhaps the most summative example of the time travel's abilities, is the depiction of Dana feeling off about the strange "I'm home" thought she had about the Weylin plantation. Because she is upset by herself since she has a modern perspective and despises this time period, but the fact that she was able to be initiated into the culture and daily life of the plantation so quickly, and then almost felt like it was home, points to the non-alien culture of the time. It is similar enough to the present that a couple of months was all it took.
(In case you are wondering, my essay will discuss the central idea of kinship--not addressed in this post--within the book, and how it ties into the way the book approaches historiography to make its point.)
I think your point about the emotional attachment we have to the characters is particularly important. Making it a fiction allows Butler to flesh out her characters more, and make them more realistic (a strange idea since they are less "real" historically than someone who actually lived). Showing us characters from the past and present interacting allows her to give us a connection with the past. We can see and justify some of the actions of historical figures in the context that they happen, even if we know that they are not acceptable. On the other hand, it opens the door (as you suggested) to look at our own culture and analyze the unacceptable things that we continue to do that we don't even think about. Through the interactions her fictional characters Butler's book opens up a lot of moral dilemmas, asking us to reconsider who we are as individuals and as a society.
ReplyDeleteIt seems like the question "why write a historical fiction novel rather than just a historical essay" kind of brings up the central question of this class -- is there any inherent difference between history and fiction, if both are just narratives of similar "data points?" It's interesting to consider your point about how the fictional novel gives us more of an emotional connection to history. I feel like definitely, fiction makes us more consciously aware of the emotional connection to history -- but I think that normal historical narratives often have an emotional impact too, we just aren't as aware of it.
ReplyDeleteI think an element to this is also the fact that way more people have access to and are willing to read fiction. You don’t find a lot of high school students reading social justice and history theory about how the 70s is actually a mirror of the antebellum period – be it because of interest, academic language, or just simply lack of access (at Uni we forgot that most people don’t have access to U of I databases of scholarly articles). Presenting this information as a novel with an interesting plot and a cool premise opens up this thought experiment to a larger number and variety of people than simply a comparative essay would.
ReplyDeleteCool post. I agree with you that the reason this book is so powerful is because it's fictional but uses the fiction to make strong commentary on reality and history by accessing our emotions. I think part of what makes Kindred so effective is that it teaches about history and the presence of history in our daily lives but does that not just by telling us, but by showing us through this experiment how we might interact with the past, and how the past interacts with us. Because Butler's writing is so tight and chock full of detail, her argument, that the past is inescapable and understanding it comes at a great price, would be very hard to refute within the allegory of her fiction. Although it's not "objective" history (blah blah yeah objectivity is cool) I think it's truer than a textbook because we can see it in our lives.
ReplyDeleteI think another reason why Butler might have created a fictional story is because there are so many books about slavery, but I can only think of two (I'm sure there are more) written from the perspectives of slaves--Frederick Douglass' "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass" and Booker T Washington's "Up From Slavery." Furthermore, I can't really think of any from women. So I think Butler is using historical to fill in the gaps in a history where slaves weren't permitted to read or write. And you're right that the details and the narrative makes us more emotionally attached, which is more powerful than 'historical' books about slavery.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, the most valuable part of using the time-travel narrative is that Dana makes for a far more relocatable protagonist to the modern reader. Our understandings of slavery and race align far more closely to hers than any protagonist from that era could ever provide, so she asks many of the same questions that would ask. This provides a far more intense and, I feel, emotional (as you said) relationship with the text than is otherwise possible.
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