Questions About Kindred

8/23/08

Towards the end of the novel Kindred, I had some questions that went unanswered. In the text Dana appears to help Rufus when he has malaria and Tom Weylin is an old man. In this part of the novel Dana threatens Tom Weylin by telling him she will not continue to help his son if he mistreats her. My question is, what brought about this change in Dana during this conversation with Tom. Despite his age he could have still had Dana punished or killed, she did not know yet if her lineage was safe, and she did not know if she could return to her own time if Rufus was dead. Butler seems to play this threat out as a bluff on Dana's part, but why bother making it to a man who could have her killed. Not only does this seem out of character, but it is rather stupid for someone as intelligent as Dana. Another thing that bothered me was Butler's inconsistency with Dana's travel through space. At the end of the book Dana loses her arm in the past because Rufus held on to her as she went back to her own time. My question is, how could she lose an arm when she could transport objects through time and space in her denim bag. Is it because Rufus was dead and Butler did not want to write about Dana coming back home with a corpse? The only reason I can see Butler making this inconsistency for would be to demonstrate how horrible a time period Dana was coming back from.