User:Joe0312/sandbox

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Summary 1: “Prologue," "The River,"and 'The Fire."
In the prologue of the book, "Kindred" by Olivia E. Butler we get a sense of uneasiness as if there was something wrong but we are not quite sure of what it is. The fact that Dana is in the hospital and that she has lost an arm can only aggravate things more. Then, there’s Dana’s husband Kevin who’s accused by the police as being the one who has “hurt” Dana. He just doesn’t seem to have a clear answer to what has happened or why, he can only say half-truth. Nonetheless, Dana and Kevin know that the truth is out of this world, it is inexplicable.

"The River"
In the first chapter, “The River” Dana experiences something she cannot understand. She travels back in time, back to 1815 in a matter of seconds. She becomes dizzy and “sick” before being drawn to the past, before finding herself in a river where a small kid is drowning. When Dana sees him she hurries to help him and get him out of the river. After she finally takes the kid out between her own confusion and bewilderment she decides to do a mouth to mouth resurrection to the kid. Seconds later, the mother of the kid starts beating up Dana because she thinks she’s hurting her son, Rufus. When the kid is finally breathing and Dana looks up she finds a man standing in front of her with a rifle to her face. Dana is horrified, scared of dying, experiencing true fear for the first time. Suddenly, she disappears and comes back home and when she does she’s all wet and covered in mud. This is real, it is as real as her and she cannot begin to understand how can such thing happen. Her husband witnessed it and just like her he can’t comprehend this situation, they simply cannot imagine the magnitude of traveling through time and space and how it will alter their lives forever.

"The Fire"
In the chapter to follow, “The Fire” Dana is drawn back into time to find a boy in trouble. There’s fire and the boy is frightened because he thinks he will set his house on fire. Immediately Dana helps the boy extinguish the fire and she notices something in him, he looks like the boy she rescued in the river. The boy is different, he’s taller, he’s older how can that be? She saved him a few hours ago! Dana needs answers to all her questions, it appears like she comes back whenever Rufus gets into far more trouble than he can handle and she has no control over it. Quickly she learns that Rufus Weylin is not just a kid, he is one of her ancestors, this only leaves Dana in a state of disorientation and bewilderment. In the process of running away from the heartless father of Rufus Dana finds herself in an unknown place trying to find people she has never met. Suddenly, she discovers what appear to be patrollers that make sure that slaves are where they are supposed to be brutally whipping a man who’s tied to a tree while his wife is beaten by another man. Dana has never felt the burning ache of torture, she has never seen the desperate cries of innocent people nor has she sensed the agony of someone coming out of their pores. Not until one of the patrollers tries to rape her and it’s then when fear creeps into every corner of her being. Once more, Dana comes back home only to find Kevin as afraid as she is. When they talk about what has happened, they conclude that fear is the reason of her traveling, that when Rufus fears for his life she is the one to help him and when she fears for her life is when she will come back home.

Summary 2: "The Fall"
In the chapter, “The Fall” Dana is drawn back in time by the unfortunate broken leg of Rufus. The difference is that this time Kevin travels with her and he gets to know all the struggles and dangers that Dana has to face. When they go back they have to pretend that Kevin is Dana’s master, they do this so that they can not only survive but also stay at the Weylin’s house with the only purpose of getting close to Rufus. Kevin and Dana have to go through a lot of humiliations, specially Dana since she has to take the role of a slave. Nonetheless, they both agree to carry on because Dana wants to make sure that Rufus has enough memories of her if she’s ever to come back. Dana will have to keep her head down in front of “lady” Margaret and all her tries to get Dana out of her house. While she’s there she decides that she wants to teach Nigel how to read and write. She decides to steal a book from Mr. Weylin’s library and start teaching him until the day she gets caught. Tom Weylin whips her until she thinks she’s going to die, quivering and covered with her own vomit, mud and fear. She returns home, leaving Kevin back in 1815.

Summary 3: "The Fight"
This chapter, “The Fight” introduces us to new feelings and sensations. We learn that Rufus is not exactly who he seems to be when he’s with Dana and that Kevin went North, hoping to see her again. When Dana is finally called back by Rufus eight days after her last visit, she learns so much about the kid she thought she knew. Rufus has raped Alice and caused her so much pain in the name of his naive and childish “love”. Everything at the Weylian’s house has changed in those five years Dana was absent. First of all, after the death of her twin babies Margaret has left her Christian house and to the rest this are truly good news since they get to rest for a while. Nonetheless, still gets into trouble every now and then, that is until she tries to runaway after finding out what kind of person Rufus really is. Dana is whipped once more and this time Kevin is not there to even try to protect her. However, at the end, Kevin comes back to her and together confront Rufus. When Dana becomes scared for both Kevin’s and her own life they finally go back home, safe and sound.

Butler's Biography Assignment
The overall article as well as its language is pretty clear and direct. It serves as a reference point for the readers to know where they need to go to obtain the information they need. However, the article lacks of meaning, importance and relevance when it comes to narrowing down her persona. This again needs to be divided into who Butler was as a professional writer and who she was as a person, as one of us. The article does discuss her early life and education as well as her most common works. Nonetheless, I feel as if there are other aspects of her life that are missing but that made a big impact on how she was and how she developed as a professional writer. For instance, what things inspired her. Her passions and obstacles, her life experiences and dreams, the list really is endless. I strongly believe that this is a truly important part of her because it would be something that Butler herself would value. Throughout her works, Butler expressed her interest that goes far beyond being a human and the basic characteristics of being one. What she values are feelings, senses, colors, smells and life itself and all of this is reflected in each of her writings, Kindred being one of them. When looking at the list of her winning awards, I believe that the ones that could easily be condensed into one footnote are: Nebula Award for Best Novel. As for the “External Links”, in my personal opinion I would like to see other things, videos, writers, foundations, or simply just people that run in a parallel way to Butler’s own ideas and interests. I am genuinely interested in getting to know in a more profound way who she was, this is because of how she started out being an introverted girl and then evolved into a powerful and eloquent writer. What seems to be useful about the “External Links” section is that it connects the readers to some of the things that first inspired and helped Butler such as, the Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship. Nonetheless, it also contains some unnecessary links that only take up space and are not so relevant or simply do not contribute to her biography. An example is, Octavia E. Butler home page or Octavia Butler biography, the article should not have links to other websites that discuss Butler’s biography since that had to be already discussed and well explained.

Summary 4: "The Storm"
Only a few hours have past for Dana to enjoy the presence and well-being of Kevin. Even though he is completely confused and out of place that he cannot fully believe that he is a 1976 person, he cannot believe how easy life is for the people there. It’s understandable, he’s angry, confused, tired and depressed all because he spent five years of his life living under the cruel reality of slavery. However, before Dana and Kevin can truly enjoyed of being reunited Dana is called back again and Kevin has brought her backpack just in time. This time Dana is not called back just to help Rufus who was drowning as Dana says, “lying in a ditch, drowning in mud and whiskey and his own vomit” (Butler 200), but also to help Tom Weylin himself from a heart attack. At the beginning, Dana is to take full care of Rufus because Weylin believes she is some kind of “witch” until he dies and Rufus has to take charge of the plantation. After the unfortunate death of Weylin, Rufus became the owner and Master of the plantation, some people were happy and some others like Dana were scared of what Rufus could be capable of doing. Rufus blames Dana for the death of his father and so he decides to punish Dana by making her work in the fields and being whipped every single time she is not fast enough, this meant a big betrayal to Dana who thought Rufus would never do anything like that to her. With Weylin’s death came the return of Margaret who surprisingly asked for Dana to be her own servant. Even if Dana didn’t like the job and sleeping on Margaret’s floor, it kept her from doing other heavier tasks like going back to the fields. Rufus and Dana had already lost two babies and the only one who is felt is a little boy named Joe. Nonetheless, the relationship between them is still cold and distanced, Alice still wants to runaway with her son, or at least she wants Rufus to give freedom to Joe. Even when Rufus does not allow Joe to be free he lets Dana teach him and other kids how to read and write, Joe is surprisingly an outstanding fast learner, bright and competitive. During this trip Dana discovers that Rufus wants her and does not want her to leave or anyone else around her. Therefore, he sells Sam, a field worker because he was jealous of him and saw him as a threat even though he had a family. When Dana tries to stop Rufus from selling Sam he responds by hitting her, by directly hurting her and with this, Rufus betrayed himself and the agreement between them. This event lead Dana to become completely desperate, she had already ensured Hagar’s birth and there was nothing holding her back this time. She took one of his knifes and a pot full of warm water and cut her wrist until she was numb and couldn’t feel anymore.

Summary 5:"The Rope"
A very decisive chapter after the sudden death of Alice which was what brought Dana back to Rufus. Alice was cold and hanging from a rope all because Rufus pushed her so far that death seemed to be the best way to break away from him and all of his limitations. To the surprise of Dana Rufus made sure that both Hagar and Joe were legally free since that was all he could do after depriving them from their mother. Now that Rufus is lonely and has no one to turn to he cannot help but see the similarities of Alice and Dana, how they are both halves of each other and he cannot stop himself from wanting Dana. However, Dana knows that she would never get to think of him as a lover nor a master, she would rather die so when she feels that Rufus is trying to own her she will risk her own life if it’s necessary. Rufus knows that and tries to be as gentle as possible but his desire for her is greater, so Dana takes his knife and stabs him as he rips her arm off. Horrified and bleeding she goes back home, back to Kevin and safety feeling as though she has left something behind.

Summary 6:"Epilogue"
Now that Rufus is dead there is no reason for Dana to go back to slavery any more, she owns her life now. However, both Dana and Kevin decide to go to Maryland and look through newspapers and legal articles that could explain to them what had happened to all the people after Rufus death. All they found was that supposedly Rufus had die when his house caught fire and that most slaves were sold. There was nothing else, nothing they could find, nothing to search for. Perhaps the death of Rufus meant the rebirth of Dana’s sanity but all the marks that the past and the cruelty of slavery will hunt her forever.