The Role of the Observer in Kindred
Although Dana primarily assumes the role of an active participant in history while in the 19th century, she remains distanced from various aspects of the time period. On her initial visits to the past, Dana is immediately forced to enter an active role in history, interacting with her surroundings in order to survive. However, there are aspects of the past that she is never forced to confront due to the nature of her time-traveling circumstances. On a spectrum of involvement with the 19th century, Dana falls somewhere between the actual slaves who are condemned to a lifetime of brutal servitude and Kevin who is exclusively “an observer” of past events (Butler 101). Dana, a Black woman planted in a time where slavery is a legal institution, has no choice but to integrate herself into the past by taking on the role of a slave, thus becoming an active participant in history. In order to survive, Dana must adhere to the characteristics delineated by nineteenth-century social expectations...