time travel quotes in kindred

by Octavia E. Butler

Kindred quotes and analysis.

"We're going to have to fit in as best we can with the people here for as long as we have to stay. That means we're going to have to play the roles you gave us." Dana, 65

At the beginning of this journey Dana and Kevin know very little about what is happening and why, but they know that they need to fit in as best they can. They concoct roles for themselves that, to an extent, mirror their current-day situation. Dana "belongs" to Kevin as his slave in the 19th century, just as she "belongs" to him as his wife in the 20th. Patriarchy is present in both centuries, though it manifests itself differently. These roles are also the first of many that characters will don and define throughout the novel. Disguise is a part of slavery, as people cannot develop a true self without keeping things hidden.

But I would help him as best i could. And I would try to keep friendship with him, maybe plant a few ideas in his mind that would help both me and the people who would be his slaves in the years to come. I might even be making things easier for Alice. Dana, 68

Dana is rather naive here, thinking that her experience of living in the putatively more tolerant and progressive 20th century will help her instill positive values in Rufus and to an extent counteract the deleterious effects of slavery. She privileges her own time period and her own strength, forgetting that this reality of 1815-1824 is not to be taken lightly, and that slavery's role in society is pervasive, all-encompassing, and insidious. Rufus will not grow up to be the exception to the rule; he will be just as capricious, cruel, ill educated, and controlling as his father.

The place, the time would either kill him outright or mark him somehow. Dana, 77

Dana is justifiably worried that Kevin will be affected by the 19th century. She turns out to be correct, for when Kevin is left in the 1800s for five years, he is marked both physically and psychologically. There is a scar on his forehead and his demeanor is changed. It is clear he was involved in violence, but many details are left unclear to the reader. He also began to resemble, in Dana's mind, Rufus and Tom in his expressions and voice. As a white man, Kevin is not victimized by the era as Dana is, but it would be wrong to say he is unmarked.

But Margaret Weylin still rushed everywhere. She had little or nothing to do. Dana, 93

Margaret Weylin is a perfect example of how white women suffered under slavery as well, despite their position of power over their slaves. Margaret thinks she is a lady and wants to act as one, but she is uncouth and ill educated. She knows her husband sleeps with his slaves and her son gets frustrated with her; she also knows her slaves do not respect her and she has no real role in the household. This prompts her to wield her power capriciously, for it is all she has. She can content herself that she is better off than those slaves who work for her.

And I began to realize why Kevin and I had fitted in so easily into this time. We weren't really in. We were observers watching a show. We were watching history happen around us. And we were actors. Dana, 98

Dana and Kevin think they are actors, watching a historical show and remaining voyeurs, spectators. However, this is not tenable. They cannot just watch. They must be agents and participants; they must stop pretending that their 20th century existence can help them navigate this alien world, and instead immerse themselves. For Dana, this means embracing her community of slaves, reading signs and cues, staying true to herself but helping others, and learning to redefine family and home. She has to let the past in, even if it is painful.

"Then let's go to Las Vegas and pretend we haven't got any relatives." Kevin, 112

Dana and Kevin live in 1976, arguably a progressive time period. The Civil Rights Movement and Black Power have transformed the lives of African Americans, and miscegenation laws that would have prevented Dana and Kevin's union are gone. Dana controls her own sexuality, works where she pleases, and speaks her mind. However, Butler reminds her readers that the 1970s are not exactly that far removed from earlier eras. Both Dana and Kevin's families object to their marriage, so Dana and Kevin have to navigate their disapproval and define "kin" in an entirely new way. Butler asks her readers to compare and contrast race and gender relations in the eras of slavery and the present.

"She'll probably be all right. Her body will anyway." Dana, 149

Dana is Alice's nurse, tending to her physical wounds and helping her come to terms with her new life as slave and Rufus's mistress. Her comment here to Sarah crystallizes the fact that a slave's body is a template on which slavery is written. Slaves’ bodies are not their own; they are a site for violence and control. Bodies can heal, though, and look as if they are whole. The mind, as Alice reveals throughout the novel, is a very different thing. Alice's mind is forever altered. Her emotions are tempestuous, her fury palpable and her sorrow deep. It is also still mostly her own, though, and while she can submit her body to Rufus, she will not submit her mind. It is bruised and battered, but she keeps it for herself.

Was I getting so used to being submissive? Dana, 220

As Dana settles in to her life on the Weylin plantation, she has to negotiate what being a slave really means. She quickly learns that the ways she used to act in the 20th century do not work here. She begins to see how men and women can become inured to their situation, become complacent and quiet, and become content just to make it through a day. Resistance is different than she once thought; her changing opinion on Sarah exemplifies this. Submission cannot be easily condemned or understood, given its complexities.

Strangely, they seemed to like him, hold him in contempt, and fear him all at the same time. This confused me because I felt just the same mixture of emotions for him myself. I had thought my feelings were complicated because he and I had such a strange relationship. Dana, 229

Dana thinks she is special, and that her relationship with Rufus is unique. Once she realizes this is not the case, she is shocked. She has to learn to understand that slavery does not value the individual; slavery does not tend to produce singularity. The community is more important than the individual because it nurture, sustains, and survives. Dana is not the heroine she thinks she is and does not understand the slaves as much as she might think she does. This is all part of what she learns from her journeys.

"You probably needed to come for the same reason I did...To try to understand. To touch solid evidence that those people existed. To reassure yourself that you're sane." Kevin, 264

At the end of the novel there are questions and there are answers, but Kevin's words are a poignant and fitting end. The past and the present must be considered together. History cannot be conceived as separate from lived experience. People are not just names in record books; they can be touched and understood. There is a new understanding of ‘kindred’ as well, for Kevin and Dana know that home is not just a place, and family is more than the people to whom you are related by blood.

Kindred Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Kindred is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Why is Isaac fighting with Rufus?

Isaac is fighting with Rufus because Rufus was trying to seduce Alice.

How does she influence him and his attitude toward slavery?

Dana really has no influence on Rufus' attitude towards slavery. Though she meets him when he is a mere child, he still grows up to be a man who abuses and oppresses his slave, and rapes the women.

How long has it been in 1976?

The time span between the past and the present is approximately 150 years.

Study Guide for Kindred

Kindred is a novel by Octavia Butler. The Kindred study guide contains a biography of Octavia E. Butler, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About Kindred
• Kindred Summary
• Character List

Essays for Kindred

Kindred is a book by Octavia Butler. Kindred literature essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Kindred.

• Chronotopic Shaping and Reshaping in H.G. Wells' The Time Machine and Octavia E. Butler's Kindred
• The Concept of "Home"
• Cultural Trauma Narratives' Use of Supernatural Elements
• The Many Forms of Home
• Individuals that Transcend Time: Non-linear and Fantastical Narratives of Kindred and The Rag Doll Plagues

Lesson Plan for Kindred

• About the Author
• Study Objectives
• Common Core Standards
• Introduction to Kindred
• Relationship to Other Books
• Bringing in Technology
• Notes to the Teacher
• Related Links
• Kindred Bibliography

Wikipedia Entries for Kindred

• Introduction
• Main themes

How Does Time Travel Work on 'Kindred'?

Everything you need to know about Dana’s journeys to the past and back again.

Editor's note: The below contains spoilers for Kindred.

In the world of science fiction, there are many ways to travel through time. Some, like the kids and adults in Dark , use tunnels connecting different time periods, while others, such as the Doctor , use a time machine to jump from past to present to future. And then there’s FX’s new series, Kindred .

Adapted by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins from the 1979 novel of the same name by Octavia Butler , Kindred takes a whole new approach to time traveling. Its protagonist, Dana ( Mallori Johnson ), moves through time, not with the help of any secret passageways or fantastical devices. Instead, she is pulled to the past and back to the present through emotions. Namely, she travels through time with the help of fear — though calling it “help” might not be the most accurate description, all things considered. But how exactly does it all work? Here’s everything you need to know about how time travel works in Kindred , from the basic mechanics to the smallest details, and a couple of questions the show still needs to address.

RELATED: 'Kindred': Mallori Johnson & Micah Stock on Dana and Kevin's Relationship and That Season Finale

What Is 'Kindred' About?

Kindred tells the story of Dana James, an aspiring screenwriter living in 2016 L.A. whose life is turned upside down when she’s suddenly dislocated through time. For reasons initially unknown, Dana is transported from her home to a child’s bedroom in 19th-century Maryland. There, she finds a baby boy about to suffocate in his sleep and saves his life. However, when she tells the boy’s mother and another woman about what she did, they run toward her, and she’s immediately brought back to her own time.

As the days pass, however, Dana is thrown from one time period to the other over and over again, arriving in the 1800s always in the nick of time to save that same young boy from some terrible danger. Little by little, she learns more about her surroundings and starts to put the pieces of the puzzle together: the boy is Rufus Weylin ( David Alexander Kaplan ), the son of a plantation owner and likely one of Dana’s ancestors. After doing some digging, Dana comes to the conclusion that Rufus is destined to father the children of an enslaved girl on his family’s property, whom she believes to be young Carrie ( Lindsey Blackwell ). Convinced that she has a mission to fulfill in the past by keeping the two children together, Dana accepts her fate, even though coming back to the Weylins' farm poses a risk to her own life as a Black woman.

How Does Dana Travel Through Time in 'Kindred'?

There isn’t much Dana can do besides resign herself to being dragged back to the past as she has no control over her time-traveling abilities. Due to her familial bond with Rufus, she is ripped from her reality whenever the boy believes his life to be at risk. And though Dana has barely a few hours to rest between one trip and the other, time in the 19th century seems to pass faster, and, as Rufus grows up, he gets himself into more and more perilous situations every day. The first season of Kindred covers about two days of Dana’s life and 12 years of Rufus’. In this time span, Dana saves Rufus from suffocating in bed, drowning in a river, a fire he started himself, a tree fall, food poisoning, and a beating from his dad.

Dana also has no control over how she returns to her own time period — at least, not at first. While Dana’s pulled to the 1800s whenever Rufus is afraid of dying, she is brought back to the 21st century whenever she feels her own life might be in danger. The first time she comes back happens because one of the women she meets outside Rufus’ bedroom comes running towards her, and she isn’t sure what’s going on. The last time, she disappears from the farm in the middle of being whipped by Tom Weylin ( Ryan Kwanten ), Rufus’ vicious father. Between these two awful experiences, she learns that she can force herself to feel afraid when Olivia ( Sheria Irving ) poisons her - or pretends to poison her — in order to help her get back. However, so far, Dana hasn’t used this knowledge to return home on her own terms.

Can Dana Take Others With Her When She Time Travels?

In the first episode of Kindred , Dana goes out for dinner with her aunt and uncle and ends up forming a connection with their waiter for the night, a former musician named Kevin ( Micah Stock ). The two later match on Tinder and go out on what is possibly the worst first date ever — not because of anything any of them do, mind you, but because Kevin is the first person to witness Dana disappear to the past and then come back screaming in fear. This long night gets even longer when Dana accidentally takes Kevin to the past with her. The two make the journey back together, but, when it happens for a second time, Kevin ends up getting stranded in the 1800s. Season 1 of Kindred ends with Dana returning to the present, and Kevin trying to learn how to live like a white man in 19th-century Maryland without letting himself be corrupted by the racist, slave-owning zeitgeist.

But Dana does bring someone back to the 2010s with her when she makes her final journey back: Olivia. Dana first met Olivia on that fateful night when she saved Rufus in his crib, but she didn’t realize who the woman really was at the time. It turns out that the free Black woman that serves as a medic to the slaves at the Weylin plantation is actually Dana’s mother, who was said to have passed away in a car accident when her daughter was only two. When Dana is getting beaten by Tom Weylin, Olivia throws herself over her daughter, and the two are pulled through time together. Though Dana wakes up alone in her home, a couple of scenes later, her aunt Denise ( Elsa Davis ) receives a call from her husband telling her that the police have found Olivia after 24 years presumed dead.

Olivia isn’t the only person to disappear from the past with Dana. In Episode 1, after saving Rufus from a fire, Dana is attacked by a patroller who believes her to be a runaway. Fearing for her life, Dana makes the trip back home seemingly alone. However, when she returns to the past, Olivia informs her that the patroller disappeared alongside her. Could it be that, just like Olivia, he was brought to the 2010s, but woke up somewhere else? Well, that certainly is a possibility, but there is a catch. When Dana and Kevin first travel to the past together, they are given clothes by the Weylins that they can’t take to the future with them. When the two of them pop up back at Dana’s home, they are wearing nothing but their 21st-century underwear. However, Kevin manages to bring along with him the wedding ring that Olivia had given him as proof of her existence. It seems that, while objects from the present can be taken to the past and back again - Kevin even manages to snap some pictures of the farmhouse with his phone -, things from the 1800s cannot make the trip to the 2010s. Is it possible that this rule also applies to people? And, if so, what happened to the patroller? Is he lost somewhere in the space-time continuum? This is definitely a question that needs to be addressed in a second season.

What Happened to Olivia?

Another question that a so far unconfirmed Season 2 of Kindred would have to answer is what exactly happened with Olivia. Season 1 tells us that she was taken back in time while driving with her husband, Dana’s father. Their car fell into the ocean, and Olivia’s body disappeared. The police assumed that she had tried to swim away and got lost in the water. But, as she explains, she actually left the car before it even hit the water and woke up somewhere near the Weylin plantation.

So far, all that we know is that Olivia has the same time-traveling “ability” as her daughter, but what motivated her trip to the past hasn’t yet been brought up. Was it her own fear of dying? Or is she bound to someone else, since Rufus hadn’t yet been born when she made the trip? And why didn’t she return to her own time period before Dana came around? Considering that she was a Black woman in early 1800s Maryland, it is very unlikely that she never felt afraid for her life. Are the rules different for her somehow? Here’s hoping the show will have the time it needs to give us the answer to these questions.

All episodes of Kindred are available to stream on Hulu.

Themes and Analysis

By octavia e. butler.

There are several important themes imbedded in ‘Kindred’ by Octavia E. Butler, and these themes prove vital and are real life applicable for all readers as they cover aspects such as family and kinship, violent trauma, education and freedom.

About the Book

Article written by Victor Onuorah

Degree in Journalism from University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

Generally, ‘ Kindred ’ is centered on family and interracial relationships with a backdrop of intermittent time travel here and there. The book serves as a good therapy for uniting all races – particularly black and white. Let’s take a sneak peek into some of the best ones in the book.

Kindred Themes

Family and kinship.

Family and kinship is easily the most prominent theme in ‘ Kindred ’ by Octavia E. Butler – and this also shows in the naming of the book. Strong bonds of kinship are responsible for the important events that take place, and it starts with Dana and Rufus, both of whom share the same blood. Rufus is able to send some kind of SOS to the future to Dana, creating a portal for her to come and save him and preserve her own future existence.

Violent Trauma

‘ Kindred ’ reeks of uncertainties and a violent turn of events from page to page. The slavers are ever so brutal and mean to their slaves and would often whip, abuse, forcefully instruct, and even maim their slaves. As readers would notice, Alice’s legal husband Isaac has his ear mutilated before being taken away from her.

Also, there’s a general atmosphere of chaos and tumult often involving slaves and their owners in all the neighborhoods of 1800s Maryland. Lastly, a violent struggle with Rufus on her last trip causes Dana to permanently lose her left arm.

Education and Freedom

Education is a frontal theme in ‘ Kindred ‘ and even serves as the first step for slaves to gain their freedom. Dana’s education is very vital in ensuring that she has it easy in Rufus’ timeline, often serving as his teacher. She also secretly teaches Nigel, a Black slave, in the hopes that someday he will buy his freedom with it.

Key Moments in Kindred

• At the hospital, Dana wakes to find that her left arm has been amputated, and her husband Kelvin is being questioned by the police – who are ready to put him in jail.
• She fights through the pain to recall how she got here, and it all started a year ago, in June 1976, when she and Kelvin had just moved to their new apartment. While they unpack, she blacks out, finding herself by the river in the early 1800s, where she sees a boy drowning.
• She saves him and finds he’s called Rufus Weylin, but when the boy’s father arrives, pointing a riffle at Dana, she is afraid and returns to her 1976 timeline at her apartment. Kelvin is perplexed seeing her also with mud on her feet. Dana explained where she went, but her husband had a hard time believing her.
• A few hours later, Dana feels unwell again and finds herself in a bedroom with a burning curtain and Rufus seated and staring. She douses the fire and vehemently questions the boy, wanting to know how this is happening to her.
• Rufus tells Dana they’re in the year 1815 Maryland often uses terms like ‘nigger’ or ‘Black woman’ on her. Dana recalls that her great-grandmother’s name is Hagar, the daughter of Alice Greenwood and Rufus Weylin – the boy who’s somehow summoning her to his timeline.
• She decides to locate Alice but is caught by a guard whom she knocks out to prevent being rapped, and as she’s terrified for what would happen next, she wakes up to the present day in her bedroom.
• Kelvin nurses her wounds, but after a while, she feels weak and then travels (this time with Kelvin) to a field to find two boys, Rufus with a broken leg – apparently fallen from a tree, and Nigel, a slave boy who serves as a helper to Rufus.
• Dana helps get Rufus home and is made to look after him by Tom, Rufus’ father, while Kelvin pretends as Dana’s master. Kelvin help educates Rufus, and Dana secretly does the same for Nigel but is caught by Tom – who whips her till she nearly faints and returns to her timeline (without Kelvin).
• At her apartment, Dana nurses her wounds alone and misses Kelvin. Eight days have passed, and suddenly she feels sick again and returns to the 1800s (five years later in this timeline) – where she finds Rufus nearly being killed with a beating from Isaac, Alice’s husband, for rapping Alice.
• Dana begs to save Rufus and carries him home afterward. Alice and Isaac escape but are caught days later, as Rufus bought Alice from her captors, leaving Isaac to be sold to far away Mississippi.
• Dana writes several letters trying to find Kelvin, but Rufus wouldn’t let her leave and instead persuades her to convince Alice to be his concubine. Alice plays along to avoid physical torture.
• One day, Dana escapes in search of Kelvin but is caught by Rufus and Tom, his father. She is beaten heavily and taken back. Later, Tom sends Dana’s letters, and Kelvin shows up at the Weylin house. When the couple tries to escape, Rufus intersects them with a gun and threatens to kill them both. Dana is scared, so she jumps back to the present day, taking Kelvin with her.
• Hours later, Dana is wary and goes back to find (and treat) Rufus, who is sick and unconscious. It’s been six years since Rufus and Alice have been seeing and now have a son Joe, but he has yet to give birth to Hagar; Dana can’t wait for this to happen so can finally be free from Rufus.
• Tom dies from a heart attack as Rufus recovers, but the blame goes to Dana as Rufus punishes her – making her do hard labor in the field for not being able to save his father. He later has mercy on her, making her the head of administration for the Weylin estate, and also assigns her to care for his mother, Margaret, who’s now hooked on laudanum.
• By now, Rufus has increased romantic interest in Dana and even views her as a second wife. Alice gives birth to Hagar and attempts to run away but is later caught. Rufus sells a slave to talk to Dana, but Dana is angered by this that she slits her wrist to escape to her timeline.
• In her own timeline, Dana stays with Kelvin for two weeks as they talk about Rufus. Dana resolves she might have to kill Rufus if he tries to take advantage of her.
• Suddenly, Dana gets dizzy and jumps into the past, this time finding a despondent Rufus. It turns out he is that way because Alice had killed herself after Rufus told her he had sold Joe and Hagar. Dana comforts him, asking him to accept and take responsibility for his children.
• Feeling whimsical one day, Rufus tries to make love to Dana against her consent, but Dana buries a knife in his chest. As Rufus lies dying, Dana is afraid and starts to feel dizzy, and as she jumps to the present day, she loses her left arm after it gets stuck between the walls of Rufus’ timeline.
• Dana wakes in the hospital, and following her discharge, she and Kelvin trace the Weylin family and what remained of it. They read in the papers that Rufus died in a fire accident (but Dana knows Nigel must have covered up her crime). They also find that Carrie married Nigel, and both couples adopted Joe and Hagar and relocated to Baltimore, where they were raised properly.

Style and Tone

In ‘ Kindred ’, Butler utilizes her lead character, Dana, to tell the story in the first-person perspective – thus enabling readers to have a mono-view of the whole story. Dana subjectively tells the story for everyone and decides for the reader who to perceive or feel about all the other characters. The tone is somber and melancholic, and the diction is simple and minimalistic.

Figurative Languages

Butler utilizes several figurative languages in ‘ Kindred ’, with metaphors being especially seen throughout the book. Aside from metaphorical expressions being the most obvious, there’s also a mixture of other interesting figurative languages such as irony, simile, allusions et cetera.

Analysis of Symbols in Kindred

In ‘ Kindred ’, maps represent the motif of liberty and freedom. It’s almost a given that any slave who is in possession of one has the tool to free themselves – because they will have in their hands the routes to escape from.

The whip and cane are used on the Black slaves as well as on horses and other animals, and this goes on and on throughout the book ‘ Kindred ’. As a tool used by only the white men, it symbolizes their control, power, and authority over everything – including other races.

Kelvin is the husband of the protagonist Dana, but his character also could stand as a symbol of how the ideal human and white man should be. After he follows Dana to the past, he spends a whole five years of stay educating and freeing as many slaves as he can. Kelvin represents unity, selflessness, and love.

What single theme proliferates Butler’s ‘ Kindred ’?

Violence is gleaned throughout‘ Kindred ,’ and readers get to notice lots of canning and whipping and forcing and coercion. Kingship and family are other frontal themes in the book.

What figurative expression is mostly found in ‘ Kindred ’?

Metaphorical expressions appear to be Butler’s go-to figurative language, and she uses them so well they bring the book to life.

How does Dana lose her left arm in ‘ Kindred ’?

On her last time trip, and while she tries to return home to her timeline, Dana has her left arm clasped against the walls where the dying Rufus lay.

About Victor Onuorah

Victor is as much a prolific writer as he is an avid reader. With a degree in Journalism, he goes around scouring literary storehouses and archives; picking up, dusting the dirt off, and leaving clean even the most crooked pieces of literature all with the skill of analysis.

Join Our Free Community

Engage in Literary Forums

Create and Join Groups

Create your own profile

See fewer ads

Save and bookmark articles

Discover literature and connect with others just like yourself!

Start the Conversation. Join the Chat.

There was a problem reporting this post.

Block Member?

Please confirm you want to block this member.

You will no longer be able to:

• See blocked member's posts
• Mention this member in posts
• Invite this member to groups

Please allow a few minutes for this process to complete.

What Octavia Butler’s ‘Kindred’ Can Teach Us About Human Behavior

B y the time Octavia Estelle Butler published Kindred in 1979, she had begun to solidify her place in the science-fiction genre—no small feat for a Black woman in a world dominated by white men and their stories of colonizing planets and alien invasions. She had achieved moderate success with her first three books, Patternmaster, Mind of My Mind, and Survivor— a series set in a far future world of telepathic humans and highlighting the power dynamics between masters and the enslaved. Kindred, her fourth novel, was a departure, a story in which a contemporary Black woman in an interracial marriage is summoned back in time to Maryland in 1815.

Back in 2001, I was an aspiring writer attending the Clarion West Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Workshop in Seattle. Butler had attended a Clarion workshop 30 years prior as a student, but now she was back to teach eager pupils like me. I, like many others , became a fan long before the T-shirts and the Butler-tried-to-tell-us social media posts. Having grown up with a healthy diet of science-fiction movies and TV shows as a child of the ‘80s, reading about Black girls and women in the future was validating. While Butler’s novels are certainly cautionary tales, she was not a fortune teller. She was a lover of science, an inquisitive writer, and a keen observer of society. Butler simply paid close attention to human behavior.

The idea that human beings are hierarchical permeates Butler’s work, and it’s what she tried to explain to me during an in-depth conversation at a party in Seattle. I was a young, idealistic Pan-Africanist and feminist who believed that Black liberation could be achieved by dismantling patriarchy and white supremacy. Butler believed that humans crave dominance. Eradicate one group and another will take its place. This is also true for Black people and other marginalized groups, she told me. It was a hard lesson to digest, and it was an idea that she instilled in her teaching: We are a flawed species and in order to convey that in our stories, we had to study our surroundings and say something big about the world with close details. “Make people touch and taste and know,” she wrote in one of her journals. “Make people feel, feel, feel!”

Throughout the ‘70s, on the heels of the Civil Rights Movement, Butler wrote short stories where she imagined dystopian futures filled with power-hungry shapeshifters, vulnerable empaths, and parasitic aliens. Then, she turned her attention to the visceral past and placed a Black woman at the center of her own story. Kindred is where Butler’s lessons on writing with closely felt details and nuanced physicality are on full display. Time-travel stories had been a staple of science-fiction for decades, but we didn’t—and still don’t—often associate the genre with Black women’s bodies and slave narratives.

Slavery was the terrain of historical fiction, and the late ‘70s were a pinnacle for those stories. Alex Haley’s Roots: The Saga of an American Family was published in August 1976 and the miniseries premiered in January 1977. Americans confronted the horrors of slavery on their televisions in the form of young LeVar Burton’s defiant Kunta Kente. This was historical fiction at its best.

Kindred was something different. In it, Butler merged history with the present, and a contemporary Black woman’s body became a time machine—a device to fold time back on itself. Butler presented slavery as a haunting science that created monstrosities, much like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein . Dana Franklin, Kindred ’s protagonist, must survive antebellum plantation life from the perspective of 1976’s racial politics. Here, the future is prologue. Dana stands at the junction between the monstrous past and the alien world of post-racial America—a perpetually elusive dream since the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. In Kindred , horror and science-fiction intersect. Yet, Butler described the work as a sort of “grim fantasy.” And now, 43 years after its publication, nearly 46 years after the premier of Roots , 16 years after Butler’s death, and in middle of yet another violent “racial reckoning” in America, that fantasy gets a TV series.

Read More: FX’s Kindred Is a Solid, Long Overdue Adaptation of Octavia E. Butler’s Masterpiece

I wonder what Butler would make of this, of her story about a Black woman traveling back in time to contend with not only the past and her ancestry but with her body reaching a new audience of millions of viewers in 2022. Today we know that intergenerational trauma, particularly for the descendants of slavery (both enslaved and enslavers), is a biological and psychological fact. We also know that a variety of ailments affect Black women at disproportionate rates . And somehow, Butler already knew all this when she wrote Kindred. She correctly observed that pain, torture, and dismemberment are horrors that leave scars on the psyche—scars that are inherited by future generations. She knew that only by intertwining the past with the present could we begin to connect the cellular dots. Butler’s much-praised foresight is not only evident in her Parable series, where a demagogue president, Christopher Donner, wants to “make America great again.” It plays a central role in Kindred, where she shows us that the traumas of the past can live in the body and impact the present and the future.

Even as stories of America’s horrific past are pulled from libraries and schools across the country, history continues to live on in our cells. Honest storytelling sheds light on generational trauma, and if we heed its warnings, it can be medicine and possibly an inoculation. As the descendants of enslavers and the enslaved, we are reminded that we can be both monster and alien in our cruelty towards each other and in our ability to adapt and change.

“God is change,” writes Lauren Oya Olamina, the teenage protagonist of Butler’s Parable series, as she forms Earthseed, a neo-religion and fringe community attempting to remake humanity amid societal collapse. In Kindred , the dystopia is slavery; change is the passage of time as a nation moves from war and emancipation to reconciliation; and god is Dana, a Black woman who stands at the precipice of it all—enslavement and freedom, biology and physics, science and memory.

More Must-Reads From TIME

• The 100 Most Influential People of 2024
• Coco Gauff Is Playing for Herself Now
• Scenes From Pro-Palestinian Encampments Across U.S. Universities
• 6 Compliments That Land Every Time
• If You're Dating Right Now , You're Brave: Column
• The AI That Could Heal a Divided Internet
• Fallout Is a Brilliant Model for the Future of Video Game Adaptations
• Want Weekly Recs on What to Watch, Read, and More? Sign Up for Worth Your Time

Contact us at [email protected]

Octavia E. Butler

Ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions, kevin franklin quotes in kindred.

I lost an arm on my last trip home. My left arm. And I lost about a year of my life and much of the comfort and security I had not valued until it was gone. When the police released Kevin, he came to the hospital and stayed with me so that I would know I hadn't lost him too.

"I'm beginning to feel as though I'm humoring myself." "What do you mean?" "I don't know. As real as the whole episode was, as real as I know it was, it's beginning to recede from me somehow. It's becoming like something I saw on television or read about—like something I got second hand."

He had written and published three novels, he told me, and outside members of his family, he'd never met anyone who'd read one of them. They'd brought so little money that he'd gone on taking mindless jobs like this one at the warehouse, and he'd gone on writing—unreasonably, against the advice of saner people. He was like me—a kindred spirit crazy enough to keep on trying.

A place like this would endanger him in a way I didn't want to talk to him about. If he was stranded here for years, some part of this place would rub off on him. No large part, I knew. But if he survived here, it would be because he managed to tolerate the life here.

"This could be a great time to live in," Kevin said once. "I keep thinking what an experience it would be to stay in it—go West and watch the building of the country, see how much of the Old West mythology is true." "West," I said bitterly. "That's where they're doing it to the Indians instead of the blacks!" He looked at me strangely. He had been doing that a lot lately.

“She doesn't care much for white people, but she prefers light-skinned blacks. Figure that out. Anyway, she ‘forgives’ me for you. But my uncle doesn't. He's sort of taken this personally.” “Personally, how?” “He ... well, he's my mother's oldest brother, and he was like a father to me even before my mother died because my father died when I was a baby. Now ... it's as though I've rejected him. Or at least that's the way he feels. It bothered me, really. He was more hurt than mad.”

Then, somehow, I got caught up in one of Kevin's World War II books—a book of excerpts from the recollections of concentration camp survivors. Stories of beatings, starvation, filth, disease, torture, every possible degradation. As though the Germans had been trying to do in only a few years what the Americans had worked at for nearly two hundred.

I said nothing. I was beginning to realize that he loved the woman—to her misfortune. There was no shame in raping a black woman, but there could be shame in loving one. "I didn't want to just drag her off into the bushes," said Rufus. "I never wanted it to be like that. But she kept saying no. I could have had her in the bushes years ago if that was all I wanted." "I know," I said. "If I lived in your time, I would have married her. Or tried to."

"Christ," he muttered. "If I'm not home yet, maybe I don't have a home."… I could recall walking along the narrow dirt road that ran past the Weylin house and seeing the house, shadowy in twilight, boxy and familiar… I could recall feeling relief at seeing the house, feeling that I had come home. And having to stop and correct myself, remind myself that I was in an alien, dangerous place. I could recall being surprised that I would come to think of such a place as home.

"I'm not property, Kevin. I'm not a horse or a sack of wheat. If I have to seem to be property, if I have to accept limits on my freedom for Rufus's sake, then he also has to accept limits - on his behavior toward me. He has to leave me enough control of my own life to make living look better to me than killing and dying." "If your black ancestors had felt that way, you wouldn't be here," said Kevin. "I told you when all this started that I didn't have their endurance. I still don't. Some of them will go on struggling to survive, no matter what. I'm not like that."

I ate a little, then went away to the library where I could be alone, where I would write. Sometimes I wrote things because I couldn't say them, couldn't sort out my feelings about them, couldn't keep them bottled up inside me. It was a kind of writing I always destroyed afterward. It was for no one else. Not even Kevin.

"I wonder whether the children were allowed to stay together—maybe stay with Sarah." "You've looked," he said. "And you've found no records. You'll probably never know." I touched the scar Tom Weylin's boot had left on my face, touched my empty left sleeve. "I know," I repeated. "Why did I even want to come here. You'd think I would have had enough of the past." "You probably needed to come for the same reason I did." He shrugged. "To try to understand. To touch solid evidence that those people existed.”

• Current Bestsellers
• All-Time Bestsellers
• Economic Justice
• Environmental Justice
• Education Reform
• Racial Justice
• Community Action
• Immigration Reform
• Anthropology
• Latin American
• Native American
• Myths Made In America
• Law and Society
• Sports and Society
• Charlottesville Syllabus
• Media and Technology
• Autobiography and Memoir
• Energy and Climate
• Conservation
• Food and Agriculture
• Concord Library Series
• Biography and Memoir
• Women's History
• Black Women Writers
• Bluestreak Series
• Women's Lives
• Early American History
• 19th Century American History
• 20th Century American History
• 21st Century American History
• African American History
• The King Legacy
• Adult Editions
• Young Readers Editions
• Central and South America
• Middle East
• Food and Society
• Queer Perspectives
• African American
• Asian American
• Middle Eastern
• South Asian
• Concord Writers
• Young Adult
• National Poetry Series
• Raised Voices Poetry Series
• Politics and Current Events
• LGBT Issues
• Books for K-12 Classroom Use
• Teaching and the Classroom
• Higher Education
• History of Education
• Race and Education
• School Reform and Policy
• Race Education Democracy Series
• Education and Youth
• Religion and Sexuality
• Queer Ideas
• Queer Action
• Transgender Voices
• Also of Interest
• Fiction and Poetry
• Celebrating Black Women Writers
• King Legacy Series
• Black History Month
• How We Live Our Beliefs
• African American Theology
• Catholicism
• Early Christianity
• Unitarian Universalism
• World Religions
• Gender and Sexuality
• Inspiration
• Public Health
• Women's Health
• Inspiring Reads
• Remaking Society
• Books to Get Lost In
• YA and Children's
• Poetry and Prose
• Spring 2024
• Summer 2024
• About Beacon
• Address and Directions
• Booksellers and Librarians
• Distribution
• Sales and Ordering
• Submission Guidelines
• Customer Service
• Author Appearances
• Jobs and Internships
• Media Requests
• Rights and Permissions
• Book Banning Resources
• Desk and Exam Copy Information
• Teacher Guides
• Guides for UUs and Book Groups
• Social Impact

Teachers' Guide: Kindred

• Pre-reading
• The Prologue & The River
• The Fall 1-4
• The Fall 5-8
• The Fight 1-10
• The Fight 11-16
• The Rope & The Epilogue
• Final Writing Assessment Options

Supplemental Texts, Resources & Assessments

Pre-reading:.

Octavia Butler's novel Kindred is a tremendously engaging text for students; the narrative structure and ethical dilemmas make a close reading of the novel, through multiple critical lenses, very accessible to students. In order to build on traditional Formalist and Reader Response textual analysis,¹ students can be encouraged to examine Kindred for its postmodern structural experimentation; to consider the novel's contribution to the slave narrative genre (even though the work is fiction)²; or to examine the text through the lens of Postcolonial Theory. ¹ There are several excellent text books for introducing literary theory into the high school classroom: see the supplemental texts list. ² Robert Crossley's critical essay, included in the study guide on page 265, is an excellent resource for students, which discusses the novel as part of the slave narrative genre.

Day 1: Suggested pre-reading homework journal:*

Part 1: Incorporating ideas from the section "Theme, Model, and Vision," explain the difference between theme and message. How is fiction realistic? What does it mean to use a reading "lens" or "filter" according to your homework reading? Part 2: Incorporating ideas from the section "A Dark Vision of Literature," explain what happened to our happy ending. How is the human condition represented in literature? Define Modernism and identify writers (whom you have read) that "fit" into this definition—be sure to explain your reasoning.

• What kinds of experiments have writers of fiction in the 20th century carried out? Why?
• What is the value of literary experiment?
• The answers to the above conceptual questions are not simple, but considering these larger concepts about the postmodern literary period will support class discussions throughout the reading and analysis of the novel; for example, how this late 20th century novel contributes to the slave narrative genre and engages its readers in a critical conversation about race, justice, humanity, and history.

*Sections of this essay would also be a very good pre-reading selection.

CCSS.ELA-W.9-10.2. Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas, concepts, and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.9-10.2 Determine a central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.9-10.3 Analyze how the author unfolds an analysis or series of ideas or events, including the order in which the points are made, how they are introduced and developed, and the connections that are drawn between them. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.9-10.8 Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, assessing whether the reasoning is valid and the evidence is relevant and sufficient; identify false statements and fallacious reasoning.

Day 2: Kindred , "The Prologue" & "The River"

• What is the purpose of Butler's literary experiment?
• Why is she writing a first-person slave narrative in the late 20th century? What "lens" is she using?
• What does she want her 21st century readers to think about and consider?  If she only wanted us to think about the atrocities of slavery, then there would be no need to have her protagonist travel back and forth through time.

Prologue: The purpose of a prologue is to provide necessary backstory for the novel which cannot be told in any other way. Often, it serves to provide a general background or to set the stage for the drama to come. En Medias Res: In medias res is Latin for "into the middle of things." It usually describes a narrative that begins, not at the beginning of a story, but somewhere in the middle—usually at some crucial point in the action. Given the above literary terms and their definitions answer the following questions: What is the purpose of this prologue, be specific? What effect does the use of en medias res have on the audience, as the story begins?

• how you think the character is feeling
• the qualities or personality traits the character is displaying that make her/him deal with the given situation in a particular way
• the circumstances that are affecting her or his actions
• what seems to be motivating this character
• how the character reacts to other characters and the key conflicts in the scene

"Before me was a wide tranquil river, and near the middle of that river was a child splashing, screaming…"(13). Try to capture what you think is going on in Dana's mind based on how Butler has characterized her thus far. Subtext what she could be thinking and feeling that Butler has not given us? If you're stuck go through the list above regarding what should come through in your subtexting.

"'What the devil's going on here?' A man's voice, angry and demanding"(14). Who is this man? What is he doing here? What do you think the man is feeling? Thinking? How will he deal with the given situation? How might he react to the other characters in the scene?

"He spun around to face me. 'What the hell…how did you get over there?' he whispered" (14). What could be going on in Kevin's mind and what might he be feeling? How would he deal with the given situation?  How would the circumstances affect his actions? What might motivate his actions/decisions? How would he react to Dana in the scene?

"'Oh, no…' I shook my head slowly. 'All that couldn't have happened in just seconds.' He said nothing" (16). Now, choose to write from either Dana or Kevin's perspective in this situation. This occurrence is unbelievable what is the character, you are writing as, feeling? Thinking? What does s/he believe happened? Does s/he believe the other person's story? Why or why not? Be sure your writing is grounded in what Butler has provided us with thus far in the narrative: context, plot, characterization. Circle One : Dana or Kevin

CCSS.ELA-W.9-10.10. Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of tasks, purposes, and audiences. MA.3.A. Demonstrate understanding of the concept of point of view by writing short narratives, poems, essays, speeches, or reflections from one's own or a particular character's point of view (e.g., the hero, anti–hero, a minor character). CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.1 Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.3 Analyze how complex characters (e.g., those with multiple or conflicting motivations) develop over the course of a text, interact with other characters, and advance the plot or develop the theme. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.5 Analyze how an author's choices concerning how to structure a text, order events within it (e.g., parallel plots), and manipulate time (e.g., pacing, flashbacks) create such effects as mystery, tension, or surprise.

Day 3: Kindred , "Fire" (computer lab time)

CCSS.ELA-W.9-10.7. Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects to answer a question (including a self-generated question) or solve a problem; narrow or broaden the inquiry when appropriate; synthesize multiple sources on the subject, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation. CCSS.ELA-W.9-10.9. Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.9-10.7 Analyze various accounts of a subject told in different mediums (e.g., a person's life story in both print and multimedia), determining which details are emphasized in each account. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.9-10.9 Analyze seminal U.S. documents of historical and literary significance (e.g., Washington's Farewell Address, the Gettysburg Address, Roosevelt's Four Freedoms speech, King's "Letter from Birmingham Jail"), including how they address related themes and concepts. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.6. Analyze a particular point of view or cultural experience reflected in a work of literature from outside the United States, drawing on a wide reading of World Literature.

Day 4: Kindred , "The Fall" 1-4

• The book calls Kevin and Dana "kindred" spirits (57); how is the way they see the world similar? How does this connect to the title of the work?
• How is the following quote ironic and why is it significant to the plot's development? "' People don't learn everything about the times that came before them,' I said. 'Why should they?' "(63).
• Foreshadowing is used extensively in these sections; how will "The Fall" end? What are the clues (you may paraphrase, but include page numbers)? Continue to analyze the narrative structure; what is the effect of the structure on the characters, and thus the readers.
• How does Sarah's situation represent one of the many paradoxes that exists in slavery?(76)
• How is the following quote ironic, as well as an example of the key difference between Kevin and Dana in 1819? " I hate to think of you playing the part of a slave at all "(79).

CCSS.ELA-W.9-10.10. Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of tasks, purposes, and audiences. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.2 Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.3 Analyze how complex characters (e.g., those with multiple or conflicting motivations) develop over the course of a text, interact with other characters, and advance the plot or develop the theme. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.4 Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the cumulative impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone (e.g., how the language evokes a sense of time and place; how it sets a formal or informal tone).

Day 5: Kindred , "The Fall" 5-8

• What is the theme of "The Fall" (look back at your pre-reading journal)? Theme is what controls all the expressive choices a writer makes in a story—what to put in, what to leave out, how to decide on the angle of vision, narrative structure, tone. The theme itself responds to the writer's vision of life; this vision is based on the writer's "filter" for reality (social group, class, race, sex society, etc.). The filter acts as a schema or "lens" through which the writer sees and writes about the world.(Clayton)
• What lens is Butler asking the reader to look through in the following passage? "'You might be able to go through this whole experience as an observer,' I said. 'I can understand that because most of the time, I'm still an observer. It's protection. It's nineteen seventy-six shielding and cushioning eighteen nineteen for me. But now and then, like with the kids' game, I can't maintain the distance. I'm drawn all the way into eighteen nineteen, and I don't know what to do. I ought to be doing something though. I know that'…'Just started to teach Nigel to read and write,' I said. 'Nothing more subversive than that'"(101).
• Which events make Dana's reality more "real" for the reader?

Find a quote …It can be a statement that you have already thought a bit about or something new, but you need to choose a quote that you feel in some way speaks to this section of the book and its purpose.  Perhaps it takes up an interesting issue or dilemma that has followed a character throughout the book thus far, be sure to use supporting evidence. Answer a question …There are pressing ethical questions that are raised in Kindred ; choose one that has not yet been answered.  Fully analyze and explore a question that has been on your mind about the book.  Be sure to support your analysis and exploration with evidence from the book. Take up an issue …This book is overflowing with issues that overwhelmingly affect the reader historically, culturally, and socially.  Discuss an issue that interests you as it relates to this section of the book, again support your analysis and exploration with evidence from the book.

CCSS.ELA-W.9-10.2. Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas, concepts, and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content. CCSS.ELA-W.9-10.4 .Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience. (Grade-specific expectations for writing types are defined in standards 1–3 above.) CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.1 Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.2 Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.5 Analyze how an author's choices concerning how to structure a text, order events within it (e.g., parallel plots), and manipulate time (e.g., pacing, flashbacks) create such effects as mystery, tension, or surprise. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.6. Analyze a particular point of view or cultural experience reflected in a work of literature from outside the United States, drawing on a wide reading of World Literature.

Day 6: Kindred , "The Fight" 1-10

• What are Kevin and Dana's families' reactions to their decision to get married?
• Why does Dana's Aunt accept her desire to marry Kevin?
• How has 1819 permanently left its mark on Dana?
• What realization does Dana have when she regains consciousness on her bathroom floor?
• Explain why Dana is so disoriented—"It was real"(115), "Nothing was real"(116)
• What is Dana's ethical dilemma as she is drawn back to Rufus this time?
• Who is Isaac and why is he fighting with Rufus?
• How much time has passed and where is Kevin?
• What will happen to Alice now that she and Isaac are runaways?
• What are the key differences between what Rufus wants in 1825 and what Dana and Kevin have in 1976?
• How does Rufus try to justify attempting to rape Alice?
• Rufus has leverage to control Dana now and he's not afraid to use it, what is it?
• Why is the marriage ceremony between Nigel and Carrie significant?
• Dana says that Tom Weylin "wasn’t a monster…[he was] just an ordinary man who sometimes did the monstrous things his society said were legal and proper"(134).
• Why does Dana make this distinction? What bigger statement about society is Butler making?
• What happened to Luke? What does this incident teach Dana?
• Why does Weylin essentially own Dana at this point? Explain.
• How can the conversation Dana and Rufus have about history be part of Butler's purpose? "No it isn’t," I said. "That book wasn’t even written until a century after slavery was abolished." "Then why the hell are they still complaining about it?"(140-141).
• Why is Rufus "blackmailing" Dana? Is this manipulation apparent in his personality earlier in the book?
• How do you feel about Dana's attitude toward Sarah's "acceptance" of begin a slave (145)?
• How is Rufus’ purchase of Alice another paradox of slavery?
• Dana has deluded herself into thinking she has some sort of control over Rufus, when does she realize that she has none? Explain.
• Who was the father of some of Sarah's children? How does this impact Dana's earlier judgments and attitude toward Sarah?
• What is Rufus "buying" from Nigel (155)?
• When Dana has to explain to Alice that she is now a slave there are several role reversals, what are they? Explain.

Day 7: Kindred , "The Fight" 11-16

• Read through the thought questions to get started.
• Think about similar experiences these women have had.
• Think about what freedom means to both of them, but keep in mind that their knowledge of freedom is very different.
• Think about the similarities and differences in their relationships with other characters in the novel.
• Why is Rufus' statement "But I'm not going to give up what I can have"(163), so important?  What does it show you about him in general?
• Rufus threatens Dana with an ultimatum regarding Alice, what is it?
• What is Dana's moral dilemma?
• Psychologically and philosophically why wouldn't Dana go to Rufus?
• Why won't Alice run again? What are her other options?
• What finally makes Dana decide to run?
• Dana has an important realization when she says, "I crept away from the Weylin house, moving through the darkness with even less confidence than I had felt when I fled to Alice's house months before. Years before. I hadn't known quite as well then what there was to fear…"(171).
• Who betrays Dana and why?
• After Dana is captured she is unable to go home, why?
• Again, Butler seems to reverse Dana and Alice's roles; she makes them seem so similar, how does she do this?
• Why does Dana compare her failed attempt to runaway to Harriet Tubman (177)? What does she realize?
• Even Liza seems to think Dana and Alice are interchangeable, hurt one to hurt the other, why is this important?
• Why does Tom Weylin write to Kevin?
• Explain the difference between what Dana "gives" Rufus and what Alice "gives" Rufus (180).
• How does Dana describe Rufus' view of her?
• Explain the following quote "Slavery was a long slow process of dulling"(183).
• How old is Kevin?
• How does Alice show her strength when Kevin comes? a. Why doesn't she acknowledge Dana’s "good-bye"?
• How does Rufus' reaction to Dana and Kevin leaving bring us back to another moment in the book? Why would Butler do this?
• At this point who is the bigger monster, Rufus or Tom Weylin?
• Dana and Alice have seemed to become the same woman to Rufus, how and why?

CCSS.ELA-W.9-10.1. Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts, using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence. CCSS.ELA-W.9-10.5. Develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach, focusing on addressing what is most significant for a specific purpose and audience. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.1 Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.2 Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.3 Analyze how complex characters (e.g., those with multiple or conflicting motivations) develop over the course of a text, interact with other characters, and advance the plot or develop the theme.

Day 8: Kindred , "The Storm"

Activity: Enlarging the Lens Step 1: For this assignment, each student selects 3 short passages from "The Storm" and lists them by page number in their journal. After each page number ask the students to summarize what happens in the section, include key events, actions and details. Step 2: Now, choose one of the three sections and complete the following enlarging the lens journal. Explain why this is an important part of the story. Respond personally to this passage. Select several words or phrases in the passage and explain which emotions the words evoke; then continue to explain your personal reactions and/or associations to the material? Reflect more broadly, on the cultural connotations the words/phrases may carry, as well as on what this passage tells us about people or the world in general? Make broad, general connections here (hint, hint, Butler's purpose?). Create a symbol or image in pencil, pen, marker, whatever, which shows the meaning you have assigned to the page. Then explain why you chose the symbol/image you did.

CCSS.ELA-W.9-10.2. Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas, concepts, and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.1 Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.2 Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.4 Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the cumulative impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone (e.g., how the language evokes a sense of time and place; how it sets a formal or informal tone). CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.6. Analyze a particular point of view or cultural experience reflected in a work of literature from outside the United States, drawing on a wide reading of World Literature.

Day 9: Kindred , "The Rope" and "The Epilogue"

• Who does Kevin get to bandage Dana's wounds a. Why won't suicide work to bring her home again?
• How long has it been in 1976? a. How long has it been in 1831?
• Kevin wants Dana to let Rufus die, why can't she?
• Why is the following quote important?: "You know someday, you're going to have to stop dragging that thing around with you and come back to life"(244).
• How is the following quote part of Butler's purpose?: "'I'm not a horse or a sack of wheat. If I have to seem to be property, if I have to accept limits on my freedom for Rufus's sake, then he also has to accept limits—on his behavior toward me. He has to leave me control of my own life to make living look better to me than killing and dying'… 'If your black ancestors had felt that way, you wouldn't be here'"(246).
• Why did Alice commit suicide? a. Why did Rufus "trick" Alice? Think Critically! b. What does Dana demand from him?
• Look up catharsis . When does the process of writing become cathartic for Dana? a. How could this moment also be part of Butler's purpose?
• What does Rufus want Dana to do now that Alice is gone?
• How does Alice's death make Dana's situation more dangerous? a. How does Rufus reveal the way he sees Alice and Dana?
• What is the one weapon Dana has that Alice didn't?
• What does the Epilogue leaving your thinking about?

CCSS.ELA-W.9-10.10. Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of tasks, purposes, and audiences. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.2 Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.3 Analyze how complex characters (e.g., those with multiple or conflicting motivations) develop over the course of a text, interact with other characters, and advance the plot or develop the theme. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.5 Analyze how an author's choices concerning how to structure a text, order events within it (e.g., parallel plots), and manipulate time (e.g., pacing, flashbacks) create such effects as mystery, tension, or surprise.

Day 10: Final writing assessment options for Kindred

Step 1: In the final journal have students reflect on Achebe's quote and the role of the writer in society. Step 2: Summative expository writing prompt: explain how the purpose of Butler's novel fits into Achebe description of the writer's role.

CCSS.ELA-W.9-10.2. Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas, concepts, and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content. CCSS.ELA-W.9-10.5. Develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach, focusing on addressing what is most significant for a specific purpose and audience. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.1 Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.2 Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.5 Analyze how an author's choices concerning how to structure a text, order events within it (e.g., parallel plots), and manipulate time (e.g., pacing, flashbacks) create such effects as mystery, tension, or surprise. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.6. Analyze a particular point of view or cultural experience reflected in a work of literature from outside the United States, drawing on a wide reading of World Literature.

Step 1: Have students journal about an ancestor or relative they would "go back" and meet if they could. Step 2: Homework: What facts can you discover about this ancestor or relative that you could build a story around? If the person is still alive can you get in contact with her or him to learn some details? If the person is deceased do you have other relatives you can talk to in order to get the information you need? Ask questions that are curious. Sometimes people don't believe that they have lived through or seen anything "important." This is part of your challenge. Step 3: The next task is to tell a family story from that person's first-person narrative voice. This assignment may seem difficult at first because of the person's historical or physical distance from the writer; however, fiction is often based on fact. This could be a story that was told to you long ago or one that is told to you solely for this project. The topic of this story ought to have something to do with your family history. Here, strive to capture the storyteller's voice . Often this is what is lost over time, and this is one of the most important aspects of the story. Think about why first person family narratives are both engaging and important? Butler is allowing her fictional character to tell a first-person slave narrative, which is a first-person family narrative.

• Create a voice that is seemingly from the time period (yes, you must go back in time) and the narrator's actions/statements/ thoughts must be reasonable and convincing (this voice should not sound like YOU) .
• Fully describe the story's setting/time period , and the story should be organized (conflict, complication, climax, resolution) and well-told (that means clearly understood by your audience).
• Fully develop the narrator and character(s) ; the actions/ thoughts/statements of the narrator and character(s) must be reasonably accounted for; create a good sense of who the narrator and character(s) are.
• The story should make sense and there should be little confusion as to why you are choosing this part of your family history to tell .

CCSS.ELA-W.9-10.3. Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences. MA.3.A. Demonstrate understanding of the concept of point of view by writing short narratives, poems, essays, speeches, or reflections from one's own or a particular character's point of view (e.g., the hero, anti-hero, a minor character).

Appleman, Deborah. Critical Encounters in High School English: Teaching Literary Theory to Adolescents . 2nd ed. New York: Teachers College, Columbia University, 2009. Print. Butler, Octavia E. Kindred . Boston: Beacon, 2004. Print. Gillespie, Tim. Doing Literary Criticism: Helping Students Engage with Challenging Texts . Portland, ME: Stenhouse, 2010. Print. Hooks, Bell. Black Looks: Race and Representation . Boston, MA: South End, 1992. Print. "Introduction: On Fiction." Introduction. The Heath Introduction to Fiction . Ed. John Jacob. Clayton. 5th ed. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath, 1996. 27-32. Print. Schade Eckert, Lisa. How Does It Mean? Engaging Reluctant Readers Through Literary Theory . Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2006. Print.

Day 3: The Fire - Discovering Artifacts Certificate of Freedom of Harriet Bolling, Petersburg, Virginia, 1851. "Free Blacks in the Antebellum Period." African American Odyssey. The Library of Congress, 21 Mar. 2008. Web. 21 July 2013. ‹ memory.loc.gov/ammem/aaohtml/aopart2.html ›.

Patrol Regulations for the Town of Tarborough "Patrol Regulations for the Town of Tarborough." Documenting the American South. University Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2004. Web. 21 July 2013. ‹ http://docsouth.unc.edu/nc/tarboro/tarboro.html ›.

Slave pass for Benjamin McDaniel to travel from Montpellier to New Market, Shenandoah County, Virginia, June 1, 1843. "Slave Pass for Benjamin McDaniel." NYPL Digital. New York Public Library, 25 Mar. 2011. Web. 21 July 2013. ‹ http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/dgkeysearchdetail.cfm?trg=1 ›.

Mount Harmon Plantation originated as a land grant of 350 acres to Godfrey Harmon by Caecilium Calvert the second Lord Baltimore, in 1651. It prospered as a tobacco plantation during the 17th and 18th centuries, growing and exporting tobacco to the British Isles. "National Scenic Byways Program: Mount Harmon Plantation at World's End." #64015: Mount Harmon Plantation at World's End. National Deparment of Transportation: Federal Highway Administration, n.d. Web. 21 July 2013. ‹ http://library.byways.org/assets/64015 ›.

"Bible Pages." Barnett Family Genealogy. WordPress.com, 2008. Web. 21 July 2013. ‹ http://vycurry.wordpress.com/bible-pages/ ›.

"The State of Maryland, from the Best Authorities by Samuel Lewis. W. Barker Sculp. Engraved for Carey's American Edition of Guthrie's Geography Improved." David Rumsey Map Collections: Cartography Associates. Cartography Associates, 2010. Web. 21 July 2013. ‹ http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~129~10016:The-State-of-Maryland,-from-the-bes ›.

Family History Project I will tell you something about stories… They aren't just for entertainment, Don't be fooled. —Leslie Marmon Silko My history is bound up in their history and the generations and the generations that follow should know where they came from to know better who they are. —Jewish Immigrant, Minnie Miller This project invites you to learn the stories of your own family—immediate and extended. This is one way that our history becomes real, full of shape and voice. The idea is to more fully realize how our history is about the people who lived it versus events that get written down in history books. There is a partnership that is often overlooked.

Place your family history on poster board or paper—we will hang these in the class for all of us to read. I encourage you to go back as far as you can on all sides of your family (it makes the project more interesting for you and our class). Create an historical timeline that "holds" the 1st person family narrative. It is important that the timeline designates the important people and events in your family history. Think about important locations and "artifacts" for your family. The bible in the book Kindred is a good example of an artifact that the character Dana remembers which contains the names of her ancestors: Alice Greenwood Weylin and Rufus Weylin. Take time to ask family members questions— Why is this important to our family? When was this? What else was going on in the world, society, our family when this happened? Who else knows about these events and might have more information? Include your 1st person family history narrative written in the storyteller's voice. The event it is about must be part of your timeline. Include 2-4 photographs of (or copies of—even in black and white) the people you choose to focus on, or people who are in some way connected to what you want to share (create captions for these photos to tie them into your project).

• Bestsellers
• American Society
• Environment and Conservation
• Feminism and Gender
• Literature and the Arts
• Progressive Education
• Race and Ethnicity in America
• Science and Medicine
• Quarantine Resources
• Books by Mary Oliver

Home — Essay Samples — Science — Time Travel — Time Travel as a Plot Device in Kindred, a Novel by Octavia Butler

Time Travel as a Plot Device in Kindred, a Novel by Octavia Butler

• Categories: Time Travel

About this sample

Words: 1010 |

Published: Oct 31, 2018

Words: 1010 | Pages: 2 | 6 min read

Cite this Essay

Let us write you an essay from scratch

• 450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
• Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Get high-quality help

Prof. Kifaru

Verified writer

• Expert in: Science

+ 120 experts online

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

Related Essays

1 pages / 620 words

1 pages / 640 words

1 pages / 444 words

2 pages / 882 words

Remember! This is just a sample.

You can get your custom paper by one of our expert writers.

121 writers online

Still can’t find what you need?

Browse our vast selection of original essay samples, each expertly formatted and styled

Related Essays on Time Travel

The concept of time travel has long captured the human imagination, allowing us to ponder the idea of witnessing pivotal historical events and meeting remarkable individuals who have shaped our world. In this essay, we will [...]

Have you ever imagined what it would be like to travel through time, experiencing moments from the past and future as if they were happening in the present? In Audrey Niffenegger's novel "The Time Traveler's Wife," this concept [...]

Time travel has been a popular theme in science fiction literature for decades, captivating readers with its complex and thought-provoking narratives. One such example is Ray Bradbury's short story "A Sound of Thunder," which [...]

Time travel, a concept that has long fascinated humanity, has found a unique place in the world of literature and storytelling. Originally categorized as science fiction, time travel story was perceived as an unrealistic and [...]

The issue of travelling in time is not new because it has been interesting to people for centuries and continues to be interesting to us today. However, in spite of people’s high concern and eagerness to uncover time’s [...]

Time travel, as a concept, captivates our imagination and challenges our understanding of the universe. While logical and physical paradoxes raise doubts about its feasibility, proponents argue that it holds the potential for [...]

Related Topics

By clicking “Send”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement . We will occasionally send you account related emails.

Where do you want us to send this sample?

By clicking “Continue”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy.

Be careful. This essay is not unique

This essay was donated by a student and is likely to have been used and submitted before

Download this Sample

Free samples may contain mistakes and not unique parts

Sorry, we could not paraphrase this essay. Our professional writers can rewrite it and get you a unique paper.

Please check your inbox.

We can write you a custom essay that will follow your exact instructions and meet the deadlines. Let's fix your grades together!

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

• Instructions Followed To The Letter
• Deadlines Met At Every Stage
• Unique And Plagiarism Free

Screen Rant

What is kindred all you need to know about fx's time-traveling show.

FX’s adaptation of Octavia E. Butler’s classic novel Kindred just had its first trailer released, leaving a bunch of massive questions unanswered.

The first trailer for FX's upcoming sci-fi thriller series Kindred is out now, and it has left a lot of questions unanswered. Based on Octavia E. Butler's critically acclaimed 1979 novel of the same name, Kindred is a time-traveling literary epic that explores themes of race, slavery, and American history, with the violent and dark story taking place over decades. Its first trailer doesn't give away much, with just hints about its time-traveling rules and complex story, leaving many viewers scratching their heads.

FX's Kindred will be an eight-episode series that adapts Butler's classic novel and is the first-ever on-screen adaptation of the story. The book is Butler's best-selling work and has an incredibly dedicated fanbase. Because of this, the trailer for FX's Kindred adaptation has garnered a lot of hype, and FX has some high expectations to meet. There's a lot of ground to cover, including what Kindred is about, how faithful it will be to the book, and when it will come out.

Related: What Went Wrong With Westworld: Why Season 5 Isn't Happening

What Is Kindred About?

Kindred tells the story of Dana Franklin, a 26-year-old black woman from the modern day (1976 in the novel) who is suddenly and inexplicably transported back in time. Dana finds herself at a pre-Civil War plantation in Maryland in the Antebellum south, surrounded by all the slavery, sexism, and violence that would be expected of the time period. After passing out, Dana is transported back to her 1976 home without a clue of what had happened.

Over the course of the novel, Dana passes out and is transported back to the plantation several times, attempting to figure out what is causing these episodes during each visit. Kindred spans decades, using its sci-fi concept to explore racism , feminism, social constructs, and tons of other important themes. It is a classic example of using complex science-fiction storytelling to address social horrors. Kindred spans decades, weaving together a complex plot with rich themes to create a novel that has been praised and remembered since its release in 1979.

How Does Kindred's Time Traveling Work?

Unlike other sci-fi movies and TV shows, Kindred 's time-traveling doesn't come via a machine or a magical object. In fact, throughout most of the story, Dana doesn't even know what is causing it. The main plot centers around Dana trying to stop her unexplainable jumps to the past, and while fully explaining it would spoil the show, there are some rules that are introduced early on in the novel to explain Kindred 's system of time travel.

Kindred 's time travel has one core rule : although time progresses as normal when Dana is in the past, only a few minutes have passed when she wakes up in the present. For example, Dana's second trip back in time sees her stay there for several hours, unable to leave. However, when she returns home, her husband assures her that it has only been a brief absence. At one point, Dana discovers that five years have passed in the Antebellum south, while she had only been in 1976 for eight days.

Related: Best Sci-Fi Movies Of 2022

There are some other rules revealed about Kindred 's time travel early on. Dana discovers that her time-traveling is somehow related to Rufus Weylin, the son of a slave owner that Dana rescues from death in her first trip to the past. Rufus can be seen in the trailer, being the young boy that Dana carries out of the burning building. Each time she travels to the past, Dana appears near the Weylins, making her think that Rufus is key to why it keeps happening. Dana also learns that others can time travel with her as long as they are making contact with her when she passes out. This leads to some major problems later in the novel.

What Is FX's Kindred Changing From The Book?

The extent that Kindred deviates from the book is unknown for now, with FX keeping much of the story under wraps, but it seems to be fairly faithful to the book story-wise, with several shots from the trailer being ripped straight from the novel. However, FX's Kindred seems to change one key thing from the novel: its tone. The trailer for Kindred gives off more of a psychological thriller vibe, almost sci-fi horror flavor instead of the mystery drama style that the novel sticks close to. While the book does have some horrific moments of violence, Kindred isn't really a scary story. Considering it's just a trailer, though, it could be misrepresenting the tone of the final show.

Will Kindred Season 1 Tell The Whole Story?

FX's Kindred is currently only eight episodes, which may not be enough to tell the whole story. Kindred is a fairly complex novel, with its story taking place over years and even decades. Each time Dana goes to the past, the plantation's characters have gotten older, meaning that the show would need different actors to play the same character as they age. It isn't yet confirmed if the eight episodes are just Kindred season 1, with a further season to be commissioned if it proves popular, or if the upcoming 2022 show is a limited sci-fi series .

Kindred could easily fill up several seasons of television on its own. FX can even continue the Kindred series past the book, telling original stories in the same universe — something that has a lot of potential. While the question of how much of the novel is being adapted is still open, Kindred 's strange release pattern may hint at an answer.

Related: How Back To The Future Would Change If Jennifer Went To 1955 With Marty

When Does FX's Kindred Come Out?

Although Kindred 's first trailer was released just recently, the show is dropping sooner than such traditionally early marketing might suggest. Like many of FX's other shows, Kindred will be released on Hulu, with the series premiering on December 13. The first episode won't be the only thing coming out that day, though. In a surprise twist, all eight episodes of FX's Kindred will be released on Hulu on December 13, allowing the exciting story to be binged by viewers. The 2022 TV calendar has already been packed with fantastic content, and eight episodes of FX's Kindred landing at once will be the perfect way to close out the year.

Next: Most Anticipated 2022 Sci-Fi Movies (Still To Come)

September 1, 2022

Octavia E. Butler’s Legacy of Time Travel

Why evolutionary biology and social justice belong together, the Silicon Valley fatalism that’s ruining our planet, and more

By Amy Brady

London Ladd

A Time Traveler’s Legacy

Kindred Octavia E. Butler Gift edition. Beacon Press, 2022 ($27.95)

Afrofuturism—a global, multimedia genre of art rooted in Black cultures—is often used as a liberating lens through which we can reexamine our world. From tales told around fires in the dark, to the creation myths carved in ancient stones, to the visions contained in new technologies, this storytelling art is one of our oldest tools for making sense of an increasingly complex society. Afrofuturist writers explore a language of dreams and dystopias that expresses our greatest hopes while boldly confronting our darkest fears. They journey beyond colonial borders and timescales to reimagine old gods and traditional narratives, excavating the past to observe the rhythms of our present.

On supporting science journalism

If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing . By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.

Among the most celebrated Black speculative-fiction writers is Afrofuturist pioneer Octavia E. Butler (June 22, 1947–February 24, 2006). Butler wrote meticulously plotted, science-based novels and short stories about shape-shifting immortals and psychic explorations. She excelled at exploring deeply uncomfortable things with unflinching clarity, particularly humanity's hierarchical nature. Her choice of characterization, language and setting challenged notions of community and sexuality when set against the backdrop of competition for resources and survival.

As the first science-fiction author to be honored with a MacArthur “Genius Grant” and the first Black woman to win the Nebula Award and the Hugo Award, Butler created work that helps to frame Black women's agency and aesthetics in a world that often denies the existence of both. When I was introduced to her work in college through her 1979 novel Kindred —arguably her most famous work, reissued this month as a special edition—it set my imagination on fire and changed my life path.

In Kindred , Butler skillfully retools the classic genre convention of time travel. The story follows 26-year-old Dana, a Black woman newly married to a white man named Kevin in 1970s California, who collapses time to face frightening ancestral legacies at the antebellum Maryland plantation where her family was enslaved. When Dana is dragged back in history as a lone traveler against her will, readers learn that she has a special connection to a redheaded child named Rufus.

Pulled from her comfortable California life, Dana must rely on more than contemporary knowledge and privilege. Through her journey, as well as Kevin's separate one, readers witness how history is not static but a dynamic force that lives on in us. Tightly written in a way that refuses to romanticize the brutalities of the “peculiar institution,” Kindred revises long-held meanings of family, sacrifice and communal storytelling. The novel also reminds us that no one can defy time and live unscathed.

Kindred' s innovative take on time travel has been reflected in countless works and characters since its publication. Those include the 1991 film Brother Future , starring Moses Gunn, Carl Lumbly and Vonetta McGee; the Black supermodel of Haile Gerima's classic 1993 film Sankofa ; the 2020 horror film Antebellum ; and Grammy-nominated singer Janelle Monáe's 2022 debut story collection The Memory Librarian and Other Stories of Dirty Computer. Kindred' s influence is further seen in Walter Mosley's 47 , a young adult novel of slavery and time travel, and in Kiese Laymon's Long Division . By creating characters who encounter profound difficulties but go on to become heroines and heroes of their own adventures, Butler redefined what a revolutionary looks like.

It's an impressive footprint for a novel that was published 43 years ago, at a time when it was commonly believed that Black people didn't read or write science fiction. Yet Butler was writing in a literary tradition that goes back nearly 165 years in English to the proto-science-fiction works of authors such as Martin R. Delany, Sutton E. Griggs, Charles W. Chesnutt, Pauline E. Hopkins and W.E.B. Du Bois.

Today her work continues to inspire a renaissance of Afrofuturism in its many forms. Her canonical influence is seen in the syllabi of universities across continents, in the graphic adaptations of her novels by Damian Duffy and John Jennings and in highly anticipated TV series and film adaptations of her books. Her presence lives in the stellar works of authors N. K. Jemisin, Andrea Hairston, Marlon James, Maurice Broaddus, Ibi Zoboi, and others.

Sixteen years after Butler's death, her legacy of fierce imagination feels more relevant than ever. With Kindred illuminating so much of the most compelling speculative fiction, the book stands as an icon for recasting today's challenges—envisioning new role models and possibilities in the process. —Sheree Renée Thomas

Sheree Renée Thomas is an award-winning fiction writer, poet and editor who lives in her hometown of Memphis, Tenn. She is co-editor of the upcoming anthology Africa Risen: A New Era of Speculative Fiction (Tordotcom, November 2022).

Toward a Better Evolutionary Biology

An icon of genetics research: the fruit fly. Credit: nechaev-kon/Getty Images

A Voice in the Wilderness: A Pioneering Biologist Explains How Evolution Can Help Us Solve Our Biggest Problems Joseph L. Graves Jr. Basic Books, 2022 ($30)

A Voice in the Wilderness is not at all a traditional “my life in science” memoir because until very recently, that tradition—and that life—was nearly exclusively white. Author Joseph L. Graves, Jr., is not. Graves, in fact, is the first African American to earn a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology in the U.S., which he received from Wayne State University in 1988. His book, about evolutionary science as it is lived and practiced, offers a forceful narrative that is simultaneously autobiographical and scientific.

Graves refuses to mask the political and experiential realities of the U.S., authentically narrating a life wherein robust methodical and theoretical approaches in evolutionary biology can, and should, be entangled with the struggle for social justice. He confronts the culpability of evolutionary sciences in the construction of race and the horrific realities of racism while revealing an optimistic view of the redeeming antiracist promises of those very same sciences. He offers thoughtful insights into the messy dialogues of science and religion and the complicated history of evolutionary biology, covering the good, the bad and the ugly. And, to my great pleasure, he nods to the inspiration Star Trek gave him and so many other researchers who dreamed of science and adventure shaped by the necessity of equity and justice.

This is an engaging book with a lot of cool science—although it is never presented without context. The author introduces us to the always amazing Drosophila , the fruit fly at the center of much discovery in genetics research; dips into the mathematical and biological impacts of chaos with surprising clarity; and gracefully, carefully, navigates the relation between the biology of sex and gender.

When the voices of nonwhite scholars such as Graves share their experiences and practice of science, it helps to generate a future where evolutionary biology can become a better version of itself. For the many students in this field who do not look like the dominant faces in the textbooks and on the walls of famous museums and academic departments, getting glimpses of life intertwined with actual scientific engagement, oppression, assistance, failure and success provides a necessary invitation to be where they are, to push on, to make a difference. — Agustín Fuentes

Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires by Douglas Rushkoff. W. W. Norton, 2022 ($26.95)

Earth's ultrarich have a plan for when the planet they've destroyed becomes uninhabitable: leaving it—and the rest of us—behind. In this brilliant and often horrifying analysis, media theory and digital economics professor Douglas Rushkoff explores the influence of what he calls “the Mindset,” a Silicon Valley–style fatalism that has billionaires believing that with enough capitalistic ambition and ruthless follow-through, they can escape their self-caused disaster. He exposes the Mindset as an antidemocratic, exploitative infection in society, arguing that our escape lies not in some island bunker or Mars mission but in institutional changes that reward interdependency over self-interest. — Michael Welch

The Biggest Ideas in the Universe: Space, Time, and Motion by Sean Carroll. Dutton, 2022 ($23)

Reading The Biggest Ideas in the Universe is like taking an introductory physics class with a star professor—but with all of the heady lectures and none of the tedious problem sets. Theoretical physicist and philosopher Sean Carroll levels up the standard popular-science book by explaining concepts such as mechanics and general relativity without dumbing them down—giving readers what he calls “the real stuff.” To STEM types, the result may feel like a more exciting version of requisite courses, but for those without the background, it might feel like a porthole into another world. — Maddie Bender

Natural History: Stories by Andrea Barrett. W. W. Norton, 2022 ($26.95)

National Book Award–winning writer Andrea Barrett's graceful short story collection reenters the community of scientist characters (some fictional, some historical) she introduced in her 1996 debut, Ship Fever . In a New York State village in the late 1800s, Henrietta Atkins defies convention by choosing a teaching career and her work in the natural sciences over homemaking. Barrett's interwoven stories examine Henrietta's complicated choices, as well as those of her friends and relations, moving forward in time through characters' shared experiences. Their friendships, scientific work and passions align and separate them in ways far more interesting than family ties alone. — Dana Dunham