Are we biased against Kevin?

            Aside from Dana and Rufus, Kevin is one of the most important characters in Kindred, and without his help, Dana would probably not have been able to mentally deal with her first few trips back to 1819. Surprisingly, however, considering Dana’s dependence on him at the beginning of the book, relatively brief exposure to segregated life on the Weylin plantation seemed to pull them apart. Consciously, of course, they both maintained the same views they had as before, but unconsciously, Kevin began to make remarks with undertones that associated him with the Weylins, while Dana, who probably would have recognized the truth on the surface of his statements and not pressed him for the deeper meaning in 1976, now finds them hard to stomach, having been placed in a situation where she is by definition opposed to the Weylins and white supremacy.

            The first major instance of this is when Kevin mentions how interesting it could be to go to the west and experience the old western culture. Dana is much more cynical. “‘West,’ [she] said bitterly. ‘That’s where they’re doing it to the Indians instead of the blacks!’” (97). Now, after reading Dana’s scathing retort, I originally felt like Kevin had just made one of his daft comments that shows how much he has been changed by living alongside the Weylins, but on second thought, I think it is actually exactly the opposite. Kevin’s idea to leave the south and go west is perfectly natural, considering that Dana currently has to deal with the inhumane treatment of African-Americans under the system of white supremacy, whereas in the west oppression of African-Americans was not nearly as bad. In addition, as Kevin says, it would be quite an experience, and to Dana’s point that that was where they were “doing it to the Indians,” just going to the west wouldn’t change this fact at all. Indeed, I think Dana’s retort was more a reflection of her frustration at being thrown into the world of slavery and white supremacy than anything else.

            Kevin, of course, is not without fault either, and has clearly been changed by living on the Weylin plantation. When Dana says she is teaching Nigel how to read and write, for example, he responds by saying he sees “Weylin was right about educated slaves” (101). While this statement is clearly true – Tom Weylin didn’t want to educate his slaves for fear they might forge papers securing their freedom – it associates him with Weylin in a way that Dana highly disapproves of, and draws attention to the fact that they have been separated more and more because of their racial status.

            Overall, I think that both Dana and Kevin have changed in understandable ways, and that it is hard for us to criticize either of them. Although Butler writes the book in a way that creates a lot of sympathy for Dana, while causing us to be somewhat suspicious of Kevin, I would argue that this a bias we need to overcome, and that both Dana and Kevin have been equally affected by their lives in 1819 through no fault of their own.

Do the Tralfamadorians Justify the Structure of Slaughterhouse-Five?

            For a book whose main purpose is to describe the bombing of Dresden, a distinctly historical rather than fictional event, in a way that persuades people that war is an unnecessary evil, Slaughterhouse-Five has a lot of unexpected quirks. At first sight, the weirdest and most blatantly fictional of these is the subplot about Billy Pilgrim’s kidnapping by the Tralfamadorians, a race of mysterious green aliens that is the source of pretty much all of the wisdom in the book. Ironically, however, it is this subplot that makes the book’s metanarrative of Vonnegut thinking back to his experiences in Dresden all the more real, in my opinion.

            First, consider a traditional war story. The narrative’s chronology would be strictly linear, events would be described in vivid detail, and the hero would take would take some brave, selfless action at the end. Even more importantly, the story would be told from the perspective of either the hero or a narrator who can’t see the future, and as a result, there would be a lot more suspense. In Slaughterhouse-Five, however, Vonnegut is telling his story solely through his own memories, and so he knows what will happen after the events he is describing, allowing him to jump back and forth in time. Indeed, the chronology of the book is very reflective of one’s train of thought when trying to remember something. You don’t start at some moment and relive events linearly as they unfold; rather, you make connections in your mind between memories at different points in time, and eventually these connections prompt you to remember enough details about an event to get a general picture of what happened. The Tralfamadorians are simply Vonnegut’s way of explaining the odd chronological structure of the narrative without breaking the fourth wall. He first gives them the authority of being a superior species that understands the fourth dimension, making sure that we as humans don’t have the means to contradict them, and then lets them explain that all moments exist at the same time, allowing Billy to get unstuck in time and travel from one to another.

Another consequence of Vonnegut writing in Billy’s future is that it is difficult for him to make the novel suspenseful. He already knows what will happen and his memories of events during WWII are colored by this, so he can’t describe them as if Billy doesn’t know what will happen either. Once again, he justifies this by allowing Billy to get unstuck in time and see the future, and by having the Tralfamadorians tell Billy that universe is deterministic. Since Billy knows that the future is set in stone and there is nothing he can do to change it, his apathy and lack of heroism makes a lot more sense – why do something selfless when you know that it won’t change anything? One might as well enjoy life as much as possible and not worry about the future.

            Throughout this book, we see a very interesting mix between science fiction and reality. By merging these two seemingly separate historical and fictional areas, Vonnegut is able to strengthen his metanarrative, leading to a very unorthodox and thought-provoking anti-war novel.