Kevin and Rufus (Part 2)

We’ve talked quite a bit in class about Kevin’s uncomfortable wedding proposal.

“How would you feel about getting married?” I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was. “You want to marry me?” “Yeah, don’t you want to marry me?” He grinned. “I’d let you type all my manuscripts.” I was drying our dinner dishes just then, and I threw the dish towel at him. He really had asked me to do some typing for him three times. I’d done it the first time, grudgingly, not telling him how much I hated typing, how I did all but the final drafts of my stories in longhand...The second time he asked, though, I told him, and I refused. He was annoyed. The third time when I refused again, he was angry.

 This, as well as other incidents, point to a power disparity between Kevin and Dana even in 1976, and suggest that perhaps the late 20th Century was not as progressive as we’d like to think. Kevin frequently expects Dana to do menial labor for him. She unpacks boxes while he sits in his office, and is washing and drying the dishes during this very conversation. However, it is more than this expectation that is problematic. It is that he not only expects her to do this work, but treats doing his menial labor as a privilege and expects her to be grateful for the opportunity. And by making this assumption it is clear that he does not care much at all about Dana as a person with opinions, feelings, and a career of her own. This reinforces the claim made by the article my group used for our panel presentation that the Western institution of marriage parallels slavery in that it is a commitment traditionally based on ownership and possession. Not only is an element of Kevin’s marriage proposal that Dana will do this work for him, but when Rufus asks Kevin if Dana belongs to him, he replies “In a way. She’s my wife.” Additionally, although one of Rufus’s takeaways from observing Kevin and Dana’s marriage is that an interracial relationship based at least partially on love is possible, he still thinks that if a white man wants to marry a black woman, her opinion and feelings regarding the relationship are irrelevant. When talking to Dana about Alice, he comments “If I lived in your time, I would have married her”. Would Alice have wanted to marry him? He doesn’t care.

A pointed parallel between Rufus and Kevin is that Rufus too asks Dana to write for him.

“I brought you here to write a few letters for me, not fight with me...I’ll tell you, I hate to write.” “You didn’t hate it six years ago.” “I didn’t have to do it then. I didn’t have eight or nine people all wanting answers, and wanting them now.” I twisted the pen in my hands. “You’ll never know how hard I worked in my own time to avoid doing jobs like this.”

Again, Dana is being asked by a white man to help him by writing words that are not entirely her own and that she will not receive credit for writing. That this is happening in the antebellum South as well as in 1976 highlights once again the power imbalance in Kevin and Dana’s relationship, and the ways in which race- and gender-based inequalities continue into the present. However, there are some key differences this time around. One of these is that instead of flat out refusing Rufus like she did Kevin, Dana agrees to do the work. There are several possible explanations for this. First of all, the stakes are much higher. It 1976, it was only Dana’s romantic relationship at stake. In the 1800s, Dana could see even more of the slaves on the Weylin plantation--many of whom she’s developed close relationships with--split up and sold to places even worse than where they are now. Additionally, by not complying with Rufus she is risking the continuation of his relationship with Alice, and therefore Hagar’s birth. Dana is put in the extremely uncomfortable position of having to help Rufus keep his plantation and perpetuate the system of slavery in order to ensure her own existence. Dana also talks about how she is horrified to find that she is adjusting to the 1800s and adopting a more submissive attitude. This factor, as well as fear for her personal safety, could also contribute to how she walked out of Kevin’s apartment in response to being asked to type his manuscripts, but agrees to help Rufus with his letters after minimal argument. It is also important to mention that Rufus, ironically, gives Dana more agency in this process and recognizes her feelings to a greater extent than Kevin did. She is writing the general message that he gives her, but has some freedom in how the letters are crafted. Rufus also recognizes how much she hates writing other people’s words and provides her with paper for her own use in exchange for writing for him. This contrast definitely does not help Kevin--whose motivations, attitudes, and actions were already questionable--in the reader’s eyes. 

Parallel Characters

***SPOILER ALERT!!! IF YOU HAVEN’T FINISHED KINDRED,
DON’T READ THIS POST***

There are many disturbing parallels between 1976 and the antebellum South that are
explored in Kindred. One of these is that Dana and Kevin each have a sort of
“counterpart” on the Weylin plantation whose identity blurs with theirs over the course
of the novel. Dana’s “counterpart” is clearly Alice. First of all, they are actually related
and share a strong family resemblance. Additionally, they were both born free but then
brought into slavery, attempt to run away from the Weylin plantation, and are the objects
of Rufus’s infatuation. Rufus even goes so far as to describe them as “one woman. Two
halves of a whole”, and following Alice’s death tries to convince Dana to stay with him
and replace Alice as their children’s mother (257). However, much like with Alice, when
words do not work Rufus is just as willing to use violence to get what he wants, and tries
to sexually assault Dana. This is where one crucial difference between Alice and Dana
becomes clear. When Rufus forces Dana to become complicit in his rape of Alice by sending
her to his room, Alice tells her “I ought to take a knife in there with me and cut his damn
throat… Now go tell him that! Tell him I’m talking ‘bout killing him!”. But although Alice
finds everything about Rufus repugnant, she does not kill him. Dana, on the other hand when
put in a similar position only hesitates briefly before plunging her knife into Rufus’s side. This
does not make Dana “stronger”, “braver”, or “better” than Alice, but simply reflects a difference
in them caused by their home times. Alice, who only knows the antebellum South, does not see
even her own body as belonging to her. Dana, who has grown up with Second-Wave Feminism,
sees control over her body as a given and draws this as one line she refuses to cross.

An even more disturbing parallel between characters is the one that emerges between Kevin and
Rufus. Dana and the reader are horrified by how quickly Kevin initially adjusts to the 1820s, saying
that slavery wasn’t as bad as he had expected, and and sometimes seeming really into acting like a
slave owner (e.g. his elaborate story explaining why he and Dana were travelling in Maryland).
Despite having a 1976 mindset, Kevin, aided by his privilege as a white man, is able to live at first
much as Rufus does--ignoring the suffering around him and getting everything he wants. Another
similarity is that Kevin and Rufus both attempt to push their menial work off onto Dana, while
simultaneously acting as if being able to do this work is a privilege. The most striking example of
this is that both Kevin and Rufus try to talk Dana, an aspiring author, into writing down their words
instead of her own. Kevin repeatedly asks her to type his manuscripts, and Rufus orders her to write
down and edit correspondence from his dictations. Rufus and Kevin also view their romantic
relationships similarly. They don’t see their partners as humans with emotions and opinions, and
assume that because they want something their partner will as well, or will at least accept it. This is
reflected in Kevin’s marriage proposal to Dana, as well as Rufus’s feelings towards Alice, and
particularly his statement “If I lived in your time, I would have married her” (124). Would Alice have
married him? The thought never crosses his mind.