A Deep Dive into the Timeline of Kindred
Octavia Butler’s Kindred is an incredibly rich and complex book which investigates several themes, particularly racism, with the device of time travel. By transporting Dana, and eventually Kevin, into the early 1800s, Butler is able to use both then and 1976 as settings for the situations her characters encounter as they navigate race-related issues. Obviously, time travel is not the main theme of the book, but Butler’s description of the time travel, and the rules of that time travel, are incredibly interesting, and, at least in my opinion, don’t work. There are lots of rules of time travel, and while Butler makes her book appear to be logically sound, there are paradoxes within that I think are worth noting. Also, I got confused several times while writing this and I’m still not totally sure it makes sense so my apologies if it does not.
In Kindred, Dana travels back whenever she needs to save Rufus, a fact that is discovered early in the book. Rufus is Dana’s ancestor, so she cannot possibly exist without him but he can possibly exist without her (although there are questions about whether he would, though more on that soon. I just mean that Rufus does not need Dana in order to be born). This is admittedly also true of Alice, but for the purposes of this post, I’ll be talking about just Rufus. So, towards the middle of the book, Rufus has gotten into a fight with Isaac, and according to Dana, he looks like he’s losing. Chances are, if Dana hadn’t intervened, Rufus would be dead. However, Dana does intervene in the situation, and Rufus is saved by her actions. This is where the logic gets iffy: In order for Dana to possibly be alive (for Rufus to have started the family line), Dana must be alive (to save Rufus here). If Dana weren’t there, she wouldn’t have been born, because Rufus would’ve died. This paradox doesn’t work, because in order for it to work, 1976 has to have happened before Rufus’ time, because Dana needs to be sent back before Rufus dies in the timeline of Dana’s life. However, Rufus needs to father Hagar, which hasn’t happened yet when Isaac is beating him up, before Dana can be born. Therefore, Rufus getting beaten up (Event 1) has to happen before Dana is born, but also, Event 1 has to happen after Dana is born. See the problem?
So, there are several major models of time travel, and Kindred could fit into two of those: the single timeline or the multiple timeline. The single timeline is where there’s, well, only one timeline, and everything is already going to happen no matter what. When people go back in time, they can’t actually change much, as what’s happened is set in stone, and will happen no matter what (Harry Potter 3 with Harry doing the patronus that he thinks was his father––there’s one timeline, and he has to do that). You could also have multiple timelines, where things aren’t as set in stone and history is subject to change (Back to the Future where Marty starts disappearing and his parents become cool when he comes back––because of what happens in the past the future changes, branching into a new timeline, therefore multiple timelines). I have pondered which of these Kindred is, and honestly, it seems pretty unclear. Dana goes back and tries to change things for the people living on the plantation, and make their lives better as much as possible, creating a new timeline and changing the past one. This presumably also has ripple effects on the future, as anything you do in the past, especially that far back, that wasn’t originally done, will change the future. In the world of Kindred, it doesn’t, which also seems odd, but that’s something for another day. Still, it seems like new timelines would have been made by what Dana changes, but they aren’t: her future is just the same as it would’ve been. Because of all this, along with the fact that I’m far from an expert on the subject (I just think it’s cool) I’m not really sure how many timelines there are. Either way, though, while the timeline in Kindred isn’t the most important part of the novel, it’s still quite an interesting part to look at.
Interesting post. Part of what makes Kindred compelling to me is that Dana really doesn't have much of an impact on the modern day. In the other two books we read, we could trace historical occurrences in the present day, but Dana seemingly has no lasting effect on the past. It could be the case that Dana's actions create a "diverging timeline", but to me, I think that events generally would have happened the same way with Dana or without (in the grand scheme of things - Dana doesn't draw up blueprints for flamethrowers that get handed over secretly to the federal government).
ReplyDeleteI'd also agree about Dana's modern impact! Throughout the entirety of Kindred, I was kiiiinda hoping there would be some cool butterfly effect moments where because she helped do *Xyz*, this memorial is now dedicated to their memory or something among those lines. But given how small Dana's impact was on Rufus and on the rest of the past as a whole, then yeah, I'd say that butterfly effect wouldn't have even made it out of the chrysalis
DeleteGeez, this such a cool post. I'd given this time-travel stuff some thought myself, and I think it's impossible to know what sort of timeline system Kindred is based on without making any assumptions. I'd like to say that the multiple parallel timelines model is true since it's the simplest, but we can't really rule out the single timeline version either since there's no way to prove or disprove Dana's existence in any given timeline. There's no records, no clues, no guarantee that Rufus wouldn't have survived even without Dana rescuing him, so sadly that means no evidence for us. Still, I think it's fitting for a postmodern novel to be this way; there's no one, objectively true version, and we're all free to speculate and believe whichever one we please.
ReplyDeleteThe timelines in this book make some really cool blog posts! I hadn't even considered the possibility of multiple timelines. That makes me think about what other timelines could look like. What if Dana couldn't escape using fear in one? What would happen if she let Rufus die in another? Great post and really cool idea!
ReplyDeleteMaybe the most interesting part of this "butterfly effect" dilemma for me has to do with Dana's explicit interest in having some kind of ameliorative effect on the people living at the Weylin plantation, when at the same time, she is trying NOT to change things to the extent that, for instance, Alice and Rufus never reproduce. There's an obvious contradiction here, which is brought to the surface when Dana is trying to persuade Alice that it's better for everyone if she goes "gently" to Rufus--she tries to persuade herself that she is "helping" Alice avoid pain and suffering, but what do we make of the fact that RUFUS is the one who uses these terms to persuade her? In the end, there's no indication that any of her efforts have had any effect (except, perhaps, for Rufus's children, who are freed). We can debate the ethics of persuading Alice to "go gently" rather than to resist--there IS an argument to be made that this will reduce her suffering, but we're splitting hairs here, given the disproportionate suffering this woman will be forced to endure. I see the super-messy scene with Rufus and then with Alice, which we looked at so closely in class, as the moment where these contradictions become most pressing for Dana, and she is at her most disingenuous ("it's your choice" etc.).
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your look into the specific mechanics of Butler's time travel; even though we do find paradox within it, maybe the virtues of postmodernism give this a blessing as we throw away the nice, clean-cut explanations that may otherwise be typical. However, embracing this paradox does bring us a question on where to draw the line between incomplete ideas and purposeful inconsistencies.
ReplyDeleteThanks for bringing this topic up! I wish that Butler had explained the logic of Kindred's time travel more, being that it is a major plot device. I always wondered about what would happen if Dana refused to help Rufus, would he live/succeed anyway? It's kind of depressing to think that Dana couldn't change anything/was always meant to be sent back and traumatized from the beginning, but that's one of the only options that make sense to me. Also why doesn't the time travel go both ways? Why is specifically Rufus so special that he gets a guardian Dana throughout his life but none of her other ancestors/Dana herself do??? Was it unfinished business? Anyway, I enjoyed reading your post, it was super interesting!!
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