Box It Up and Put a Bow On It

Concluding the novel Kindred, I have re-read the sections regarding Dana’s arm loss and subsequent events as a result of that. There are many things to be said about the symbolism of this passage, but what caught my eye was how the police interact with this situation.

I see a lot of connection to how the loss of Dana’s arm is Octavia Butler explaining to the reader the gravity an experience like Dana had would have on her. Looking back at the trauma of slavery doesn’t leave us feeling particularly awesome, which is exemplified in the ripping apart of Dana’s arm.

Looking at the interactions of other’s to the loss of Dana’s arm shows a lot about what Butler interprets the interactions of people over slavery and other traumas. People are uncomfortable with trauma. Especially trauma that they have not felt or encountered before. The police assigned to figure out what happened to Dana really want Dana to just admit that Kevin was being violent towards her. They don’t know how to rationalize the situation any other way.

I feel this relates directly to the vast majority of us dealing with someone else’s trauma. If we can’t pinpoint it, rationalize it, we get extraordinarily uncomfortable or overwhelmed. I feel that this is a really unattractive quality of people, seeing as we would be a whole lot more peaceful if we could just try to conceptualize someone else’s pain.

So often does Dana encounter someone wanting to box her pain into neat boxes. Kevin also does this when he is trying to wrap his brain around the relationship Dana has toward Rufus. Instead of allowing it to be complicated and messy, Kevin gets frustrated and explains it in the easiest way he can: accuse her of infidelity. This has me thinking quite a bit about how Butler may be using these events to describe how white people try to box up the trauma of slavery felt by African Americans, not wanting to put in the effort to understand the complexities.