Octavia Butler’s “Kindred” is a novel
that binds the hiatus between a shadowed past and neoteric history as it conveys
the confluence of past and present time. The legacy of slavery has perpetuated through
many life cycles, claiming various forms in political, economical, and social norms. Although slavery has been abolished for almost
150 years, the concept and power structures which exploited slavery is still in
effect as vestiges of the master-slave mentality still persists today.
One passage in the novel describes the
symmetry of slavery in present time as the protagonist, Dana alludes to the labor
agency in which she works in as a “slave market” (Butler 52). Dana states, “I was working out of a casual
labor agency- we regulars called t a slave market. Actually, it was just the opposite of
slavery. The people who ran it couldn’t
have cared less whether or not you showed up to do the work they offered. They always had more job hunters than jobs
anyway” (Butler 52). While Dana could exercise
her freedom of choice to work or quit the agency, her economic and social
conditions depend on how she uses her degree of freedom. The face of modern slavery no longer
encompasses direct enslavement since the system has evolved to assimilate the
concept of slavery into much more sophisticated dimensions. Although Dana is not compelled into the labor
force by vapulation, she is compelled like everyone else, to grow dependent on
the system, and adjust to the relentless
hours of work, the inferior pay and working conditions, and more just to survive
in society.
Dana continues to describe the nature of the “slave
market” as she states, “Waiting with you were winos trying to work themselves
into a few more bottles, poor women with children trying to supplement their
welfare checks, kids trying to get a first job, older people who’d lost one job
too many, an usually a poor crazy old street lady who talked to herself constantly
and who wasn’t going to be hired no matter what because she only wore one shoe.”
(52). The bodies of labor ranging in
vast amounts from young kids to old adults, all in need for the demand to work
to simply adjust and sustain in society attribute to the passive slavery which
bind people to servitude as property of the system. This novel ultimately mirrors our own kindred
to the past through the irrevocable stories which continue to play out in contemporary
life for many amidst the ignorant notions of freedom, change, and
progress. The latter excerpt envelops
the essence of the modern shackles which stem from the very roots which allowed
for the conception of this “great nation” through the historic chains of
slavery.
