dana's complicated and potentially abusive relationships
Hi all, as you all know we're reading Kindred this time. Or well, we finished it. Regardless, let's talk about Dana. More specifically, her relationships, and how she becomes unhealthily depend on them.
I'd like to start off with her relationship with Kevin. While this is the milder one of the two relationships I'd like to talk about today- being that messing it up doesn't result in something akin to death/severe harm to self- it still has huge impacts on the story. Now, while I can't speak about how interracial relationships with older men tended to go in 1976- I can say that their relationship has somewhat given me a weird vibe. More so towards the middle of the book. (By the end the weirdness is somehow magically removed. Maybe Kevin went to couple's therapy). By this, I mean the weird dependency Kevin is trying to get Dana to form with him.
Now, while not every relationship is meant to be abusive, and symptoms of an abusive relationship could very well carry over into a healthy one, this issue has always put a bad taste in my mouth. It's incredibly off-putting to me that a partner (especially the one that seems to be more so in charge in this relationship) would need to have control over his soon to be spouse's finances. Especially being after he tried to get her to do secretary work for him, and then proposed to her. More on that later. But in many sketchy relationships, an abuser might try to remove financial control from their partner to maintain control over their life. I'm getting that pattern here. He offers for Dana to move in with him, and to share his finances so she no longer has to work. This is almost wholesome. But it gets more concerning to me as he contrinues to try to be in control of her life, to force her to be dependant on him. This becomes more of an issue as when they are both transported to the late 1700s/early 1800s. She tries to push him away, to get him to not come with her when she time travels. He stays with her either way, going against her wishes. And then, when they come to terms with the situation they're in, he makes it clear that she cannot survive without him. That she needs him for protection from this time period. He seems to do whatever is in his power to maintain that she is dependant on him.
It also leaves a bad taste in my mouth that he immediantly tried to get her to marry him the instant she tried to leave him. After he yells at her for not doing labor for him (typing his manuscript), she leaves, to her own house. He refuses to take a "no" as an answer from her, even though he's not even offering to pay her for the work. He acts as if it's her duty as his partner to do work for him. Which is kinda especially gross in the context of a slave narrative. And when she comes back, he seems to want to make sure she doesn't leave him again. He asks her to marry him. Which is kind of a loaded question. He's expecting a yes, and so she tells him yes. It's unclear in the story if she says yes because she really wants to or if she feels obligated to. Regardless, that moment has always left a weird impression. It doesn't seem like a super healthy relationship, if anything it seems highly rushed because he was the only person who she could form a relationship with, her only option.
And then we have her relationship with Rufus. Her family, whether she wants to admit that or not. She feels a duty to protect him- at least until Hagar survives. Though she goes through the ordeal, trying not to let that affect her actions, it still plays a huge role in her decisions. She feels the need to protect him, even when he's being insufferable or cruel. She depends on him to keep her safe, to provide shelter and food until she is allowed to return to 1976. She depends on him for the safety of her friends. And this dependency allows for him to take advantage of her. For him to be able to whip her and to force her into doing never ending tasks. Though he's awful to her, she has to defend him, protect him, and nurture him. Because she is obligated to, dependant on him for her safety and dependant on him to have a child to continue her family line.
Anyways, all of her friendships and relationships with people were all really weird and kind of gross. The only ones that weren't super pressured were with Sarah, Carrie, and Nigel. Arguably, the best characters in this book. The ending was entirely satisfying, finally killing off Rufus (who really should have been dead since scene 1, he is an incredibly reckless character who has no sense of self-preservation). She became her own person again. And magically has a better(?) relationship with Kevin that doesn't seem quite so strained. Girlboss.
Though Kevin is, in my mind, a generally sympathetic character, I definitely agree that some dynamics and moments between him and Dana seem concerning. His anger towards Dana for not typing his manuscripts and then his really weird comment about "forgiving her" if she got raped were some red flags, and also his general lack of understanding of Dana's experience as a slave on the plantation make is very frustrating. However, I would say that Kevin still has good intentions, and when he clung to Dana to time travel with her, it was from a place of love, rather than a need for control over her. I think though Kevin is pretty ignorant, he genuinely cares about Dana, and that doesn't seem to change during his time in the 18th century.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure I agree that the "weirdness" between Dana and Kevin is entirely removed by the end of the novel (although we could maybe posit his five years in 19th-century exile as something like his "couples therapy"--the experience changes him!). There's the discomfiting stuff where he seems to be getting "jealous" of Rufus, even prodding Dana about her feelings for him. And there's the moment when he says he'd "forgive" her if she'd been raped by Rufus. And he is much more certain than she is that this whole thing is over and she doesn't have to worry about it anymore--even (rather symbolically) trying to get her to come with him to enjoy the 4th of July Bicentennial fireworks at the Rose Bowl. In a major symbolic contrast, Kevin is celebrating America with his friends, while Dana is dragged once more back into America's past to fight for her life and freedom.
ReplyDeleteDana clearly has a pattern of getting stuck with the short end of the stick when it comes to relationships. I agree that from the beginning, her and Kevin's relationship had some red flags to me. There's so much about the dynamic and the way Kevin acts that is concerning, as you've layed out in your blog. I was also particularly troubled by the way this does or does not exist at the end of the book. While the weirdness is not completely gone, it does seem to fade away a good deal, which is a bit confusing. Additionally, I think most of us can agree that Dana's relationship with Rufus just has so much wrong with it. The familial, time, racial, and dependence for literal survival aspects of their relationship are so complicated and clearly destructive. Here's to hoping Dana gets some justice and can have some positive, mutually respectful, non-complicated relationships in her future.
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