Kindred: A few Notes

(thanks due to Jonpaul for these notes)

 

p. 15- slippage between pain and comfort which will repeat throughout the novel; Kevin's tight grip is painful, the tight towel is comfortable.

 

p. 18- Dana's body is open and vulnerable to being taken at anytime, even when nude.

 

p. 25- struggle for the power to name/address: nigger master, etc.

 

p.26- first instance of how violence of slavery pervades the entire social apparatus, and even the dynamics of the family

 

p.33- fear of white riders related to fear of "street violence." p. 35- fear commingled with comfort of human presence.

 

p. 43- Dana almost scratches Kevin's eyes out. The affective atmosphere of slavery beginning to seap into their relationship. p.49- " 'Tie that cord around you again,' said Kevin. I obeyed silently."

 

p.52- labor then and now. Dana is more acculturated to the slavery of agency work because it's done on a "free" market and its violence is far less explicit and excessive.

 

p. 68 Rufus forming an emotional attachment to Dana which will in part characterize his other disturbed attachments to women throughout the novel.

 

p. 75- Dana must ingest food from the past to survive- indicates how she is becoming increasingly enmeshed in the past. Again slippage between her fear of disease and the comfort of a full stomach.

 

p. 77- slavery poses a different danger to Kevin, the danger that he'll become acclimated to it.

 

p.99- slave children playing auction game before they even know what slavery is. Power relationships internalized from an early age.

 

p. 123- Alice doesn't even have the right to say "no" to Rufus.

 

p. 140-echoes of the present: Rufus, after reading the history book, asks "why the hell they still complaining about it?"

 

p. 163-164- Rufus coming into authority racially and sexually, but this does not preclude his earlier, vulnerable relationships.