One of the key issues that Octavia Butler formulates an argument on in Kindred is the idea that all of us are a product of our environment. One of the great philosophical and psychological debates is the role that the environment plays on our development and whether or not we are shaped completely or partly by nature. In the novel, Butler is making the argument that we are almost entirely shaped by our environment, which she portrays through Kevin’s reaction and adaptation to being transported back in time.
Kevin
is the most vivid example of this concept coming to life through the transformation
of his character throughout his time spent in the nineteenth century. In the
beginning of the story, we are presented with an image of Kevin that is very
caring for his wife and is willing to go through almost any hardship for her. Kevin
recounts his sister’s assertion that she “wouldn’t have you (Dana) in her house
– or me either if I married you” (Butler 110). In this way, he is demonstrating
the hardships that he is going through to be with Dana by forswearing his
family. While we see that he can be as loving as he is, it is unclear as to
whether or not this particular trait, or any of his other traits were a product
of his environment or his nature. As the story progresses however, we start to
see a different image of Kevin as he is trapped in the past. This
transformation is most pronounced when Kevin and Dana return to the present
after Rufus almost shot them. Dana runs after Kevin to try to reason with him
and when she touched him, she described him as having “glared at me as though I
was some stranger who had dared to lay hands on him” (194). While this could be
taken at face value alone, she goes on to compare the expression as “something
I was used to seeing on Tom Weylin. Something closed and ugly” (194). These
statements taken in conjunction reference a far greater implication than a
reaction to a simple stranger. There is a strong implication that Kevin has
picked up one of the parts of the south that he seemed dead set against when he
first set foot there. He has picked up racist tendencies which are embodied in his
reaction to Dana’s touch. He did not react that way because she may have seemed
a stranger, but because she was black. He had become so influenced by the
superiority of the whites in the past that his previously held ideals of
equality were overridden. In this way, we was shaped by his environment, not at
all by nature.
I agree with the idea that Eli is simply arguing for the law “because the American government had the power to force Tzuref to either move or be arrested if the case was brought up in court,” but I think there is more to just following governmental law. Eli is thrust in a position where his is set up as a center stage figure from Woodenten, who is truly supposed to represent the people and what they believe. Despite Eli’s efforts to ban Tzuref and the rest of the small Jewish community, he fails because the only person he truly associates with is Tzuref. To a certain degree, the personal meetings between the two individuals is set up to be a private, consensual matter before things get out of hand and need to be thrust into the law. However, it is also the only views of Eli acting on behalf of Woodenten that the audience is able to witness. There is no other account where Woodenten themselves confront the Yeshiva people and have a “council” meeting of their own; it is solely Eli’s responsibility. And Eli is clearly not in a stable position to decide either way because he too is questioning the morality of kicking out the Jewish community.
ReplyDeleteEli faces plenty of internal debates as he witnesses the young Jewish children fleeing away from him, or watches the old man walk around the streets in his traditional suit, and eventually the reaction of a Woodenten woman of him wearing the old black suit and hat. Eli’s role changes tremendously from the vicious man who wants to rid his town of Jews, to someone who now knows suffering and pain through another man’s shoes. Tzuref who is seemingly the bad guy, interprets laws in a way “that they do not really apply in the way that it seems they will and that they will not always be there” which gives room for Eli to contemplate and think about his actions as an oppressor. Eli doesn’t want to cause anymore suffering to Tzuref and his community, but the “law” is what causes him to return and act as though his voice represents the voice of Woodenten. Instead, Eli feels empathy and is released to walk freely, but still under the scorn of law implemented by his own community and that of the Tzuref’s.
Chris-
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that this novel looks at the age-old nature vs. nurture debate, especially through the character of Kevin, but I'm not sure I came to the same conclusions about it as you did. From a psychological standpoint the general conclusion seems to be that both nature and nurture play a significant role in who a person turns out to be; neither one nor the other taking superiority. Near the beginning of the story when Kevin is talking about going against his sister’s beliefs and loving Dana despite the fact that his sister will disown him for it, I agree that this could be nature or nurture. Kevin’s general attitude of racial equality, however, I believe is a product of his nurture because he lives in a time that accepts racial equality. Because of his nurture he is able to see the morally correct standpoint. This is in contrast with Rufus’ general attitude of superiority which I also believe to be a product of his environment.
After Kevin has lived in the ante bellum south for five years his demeanor does seem slightly cold toward Dana at first, but I think this is just because he is being required to adjust to living in such drastically different times. When he comes back to life in 1976 Kevin is just as loving toward Dana and just as supportive of racial equality (if not more so) than he was before his time travels, which I see as indicative of his nature. So, in a slightly confusing way, the influence of nature and nurture are both seen in Kevin’s attitude towards racial equality. His nurture allowed him to see that the morally correct viewpoint on race is to know that people from different races are equal, and when he went back in time his nature of seeing and doing the right thing showed through when he refused to give in to white superiority ideals of the time.
I definitely agree with what you are saying in that Kevin was unknowingly shaped by his environment, in which it was ingrained into his mind that he was superior even to his own wife based on their skin colors. Dana even worries that this will become a reality early on in the novel. “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.... if he survived here, it would be because he managed to tolerate the life here” (Butler 77). Kevin was the one person that Dana felt that she could trust implicitly, and yet he became a product of the very environment that he so hated at the beginning. Kevin says “I hate to think of you working for these people. I hate to think of you playing the part of a slave at all” (Butler 78). The very idea of slavery disgusts Kevin until he is slowly changed. I wrote a blog post on family and kinship in Butler’s novel, and I think that this connects interestingly to those themes. Relating this to kinship, this makes me wonder what the true definition of family is. Is Kevin no longer Dana’s family because he has been changed and begins to look down upon her? How would we, in today’s age, feel if our kin abused us and believed us to be lowly simply because we looked different? I think that the norms and ideals of kinship and what family should be are challenged by Butler in Kindred, and Kevin’s downward spiral into a racist white man brings up these questions.
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