Excuses Excuses
Throughout Kindred, there has been one dynamic that has especially bothered me: the one between Dana and Rufus. Specifically, the way she systematically excuses his behavior, even when it gets to the point where he is constantly raping and beating Alice (who, Dana seems to often forget, is her ancestor too).
As Rufus does these horrible things, Dana recognizes that they are horrible things to do, but doesn't associate that with Rufus as a person. She seems to think of Rufus as the little boy that he was when she first met him, and is incapable of seeing his actions as a direct consequence of his character. As he becomes more and more similar to his father, she does not accept that this is the person that he is and that there is no changing him.
That is, until the very end. The only point where Dana realizes that Rufus is evil is when he puts her safety in question, and that is when she takes direct action by killing him. Why didn't she do this before? What is it that made her decide that the consequences of killing him were lesser than the consequences of leaving him alive? If she had killed him before, Alice would still be alive. And I get that killing him would have split up families on the plantation, but if she was willing to kill him at a certain point then why not do it when he was committing atrocities to everyone else?
Obviously it's a really complicated question (not even getting into the whole thing about not killing Rufus before Hagar is born because otherwise she won't be born), but it seems like she is reserving Rufus from true punishment for his actions because she still sees him as the kid he once was, and seeing it unfold is sickening. A lot of times, it almost seems like she has more empathy for Rufus than she does for Alice and the other enslaved people on the plantation. Anyways, I kind of went all over the place but all in all it was pretty messed up to see her excuse so many of Rufus' actions, constantly saving him and feeling empathy for him.
Yeah, I think there's a lot of complicated factors that affect the relationship between Rufus and Dana, and her bond with Rufus since he was a child seems to play a large role. Despite the terrible acts Rufus continuously commits, Dana still sees him as a younger brother figure, and comparatively lets him off easy to her thoughts about other white people on the plantation such as Tom Weylin. However, I think there's more to the Dana's complicity in Rufus's actions. One of the main themes of Kindred is how quickly someone adheres to a system of submission and slavery, which Dana acknowledges multiple times. As the novel progresses, though she internally condemns Rufus harshly for his actions, it becomes harder to speak out against him, due to the oppressive nature of the system she now lives in and has gotten used to.
ReplyDeleteI agree this is very complicated but if I were to add another angle to complicate this a bit more I would like to point out that she has known Rufus simultaneously only a year and his whole life. She has seen him grow out of innocence overnight and I think she may still see him as the child she met at the beginning of the book. Combining that with her own motives and relation, I think what changed ultimately is he crossed a line that she vowed earlier in the book and it made her realize how far she had let him push.
ReplyDeleteWe talked a lot in class about the complicated dynamics between Alice and Dana, but I'm always struck by all of the uncanny parallels between their experiences as the novel moves toward the ending: all the way to that final scene, when we see Dana essentially deploying the same logic she'd used to (passively) persuade Alice to go to Rufus without a struggle to talk *herself* into "not resisting" and letting it happen and making "excuses" for Rufus (like when she realizes he's used soap to clean himself up . . . for her?!). Her psychology and sense of self has been so scrambled by this experience that we see her counseling *herself* according to the same logic of slavery as she had counseled Alice earlier. And this is mere *seconds* before she makes the ultimate decision to end this dynamic right here. Again, she has an "escape" that Alice does not, and the novel doesn't allow us to feel at all good about how this story works out--Dana can "escape" back to 1976, but she leaves behind very vulnerable people whose families are about to be broken up forever.
ReplyDeleteYeah. And it doesn't help that Rufus constantly manipulates Dana into doing what he wants, sometimes via child-like behavior. And when she doesn't do what he wants, Rufus often ends up punishing her in some way. Dana is bonded to Rufus with pretty lies and fear.
ReplyDeleteNice post Lorenzo! I completely agree with you on this. It was sickening to watch Dana excuse a lot of the things that Rufus did. I think this definitely has to do with Dana's memories of Rufus when he was a kid. Those memories of him being a kid were much more recent for Dana then the years that Rufus has lived since then. Also, a major thing that influences Dana's perception of Rufus is the fact that she played a role in his upbringing, Rufus being a horrible person is hard for Dana to really accept as she feels responsible for who he is growing up to be.
ReplyDeleteThis is definitely a really complex topic. At one point, Dana even says that she admires Alice's sheer hatred of Rufus, and wishes she could feel that same hatred - knows that she *should* feel that same hatred. Other people noted how that unique time passage - that it's only been a year for Dana since she knew Rufus as a young child - has likely skewed Dana's perception. I also think the constant awareness of nature vs nurture in Dana is also a likely culprit - she, likely more than anyone else, can see how much of Rufus is shaped by his environment. She's literally gotten to see him grow up in like 20x speed, and can tell how he changes as he grows in the culture of the time period, so she not only conflates Rufus to his younger child self, she's also able to kind of tell herself in her head that it's not all Rufus' fault that he's like this.
ReplyDeleteDana definitely makes up excuses for Rufus' behavior when she really shouldn't. Plus, near the end of the book, she shows that the reason she kept forgiving him wasn't because of what things he was doing, it was because of who he was doing them to (not her). This is extremely hypocritical of her but at the same time she is in a really bad situation and I don't know what I would've done if I were her, so I don't know how much I can truly fault her. Anyways, nice post!
ReplyDeleteDana definitely tried to explain for Rufus' actions quite a lot. I think a big reason why she seemed closer to Rufus than to Alice (even though they're both her ancestors) is because Rufus is the entire reason she is there. Rufus is the one who makes her time travel, Rufus is who she met first and literally has to save from dying, Rufus was the only person who knew her secret for quite some time. It sees quite hypocritical that she would support Rufus the most even though she abhors everything happening on the plantation. Indeed, they have quite a complicated relationship. Nice post!
ReplyDeletei think your point about dana seeing rufus as a child who she meets is really accurate- she watches him grow up and i think that might be why she is so keen to forgive him for everything he does. it's really awful that she jjust completely forgets about alice throughout this book- when in reality she has equal ties to both sides of her family. maybe shes trying to fix the errors in her family line, make rufus a better guy because she's just upset over him being an awful person and also her great great a lot of greats grandpa?
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