Author: Octavia Butler
Title: Kindred
Chapter: “The River”

Novels are generally built around central problems. The main character needs a problem to overcome in order to create narrative tension. It’s the tension that draws the reader in. We read to find out how the problem is resolved and what happens to the character as a result of it.

“The River” is the first real chapter of Kindred, after the Prologue, and in it we encounter both a primary problem and a secondary problem.

First and foremost, our character is pulled out of her own time and place and mysteriously dumped in an unknown place where she doesn’t have time to wonder what is happening because she is too busy trying to save a drowning boy. This is huge. She doesn’t know how it happens. She doesn’t know why it happens. She doesn’t know how to keep it from happening again. She doesn’t know how much danger she might be in if it does happen again. After all, she’s already been beaten and had a gun pointed at her in this first short episode.

To complicate matters, she has a husband. He seems to be introduced as a secondary source of friction in the novel. If he’s not an outright problem, he’s at least a complication. He seems nice enough, but he has his self-interest, and she has hers.

One, we know that she and her husband have been engaging in typical relationship power plays and that her husband has some typical traditional attitudes–whether he’s aware of the fact or not–about women’s roles in relationships. We don’t know much about him yet, but we do know that he leaves her to do the bulk of the unpacking after their move and that he gives her some attitude when she asks him to help:

He gave me a look that I knew wasn’t as malevolent as it seemed. He had the kind of pale, almost colorless eyes that made him seem distant and angry whether he was or not. He used them to intimidate people. Strangers. I grinned at him and went back to work. (13)

Two, Kevin is the only person she can talk to about what has happened to her, and he doesn’t fully believe her–at least not yet. He does his best to comfort her, but in some ways he makes matters worse because it is clear he isn’t ready to accept what she’s telling him as the truth. He thinks there must be some other explanation for something that is clearly beyond explanation.

That’s a lot packed into a relatively short chapter, but because we are savvy readers we know this chapter foreshadows what’s to come for Dana. Things are about to get a whole lot messier and more dangerous and more confusing, and we will be right there with her to see her through.

Topics for Research

• 1976–We learn in this chapter that Dana’s problems start on her 26th birthday on June 9, 1976. This gives us a range of dates to investigate. First, 1976 was the Bicentennial year for the country, so this is likely symbolic in the book, but it is also a time that can be researched. What else was happening in 1976? What was happening in Dana’s world at the time? What kind of music might she have been listening to? What was on TV? What was the political situation of the time? What would life have been like for her in 1976? If that’s not enough for you, think about the span of Dana’s life up to this point,1950-1976. Since we know her age in 1976, we also know that Dana was born in 1950. What has she lived through up to this point? What has happened in the Civil Rights Movement? What has happened in the Women’s Movement? What challenges can we assume Dana might have faced due to the time in which she lived?
• Trauma–When Dana returns to her home, she says she no longer feels safe there. She is experiencing shock and trauma based on her experience, and this feeling of not wanting to stay in the place where the event happened could be considered a normal part of trauma. The effects of trauma in this case could make an interesting research project.
• Time–One of the mysteries we’re presented with in this chapter is time itself. Dana says that she was gone for a few minutes, but Kevin says it was only a few seconds. He says she couldn’t have done the things she says she did in the time in which she was gone. This tells us that time moves at a different rate for her while she is away than it does back at her home or that she simply comes back close to the time when she leaves regardless of how long she is in the other place. This concept of time moving at different rates for Dana in her real life vs the alternate life she is pulled into, though, is definitely something worth researching. How have these time discrepancies been explored in other pieces of literature? Where do they show up in belief systems? What does science have to say about them? We know that the concept of differences in the rate at which time moves does show up in religious belief systems. In the Bible, for example, we’re told that Heaven has its own time that is not the same as Earth’s time:
  

  But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. (2 Peter 3:8)

  Other belief systems contain similar concepts, which could be interesting to explore.

  Science perhaps offers even more to research. One of the most intriguing concepts regarding time moving at different rates is called the twin paradox:

  In this supposed paradox, one of two twins travels at near the speed of light to a distant star and returns to the earth. Relativity dictates that when he comes back, he is younger than his identical twin brother. (Lasky)

  Watch this video to learn more about the Twin Paradox:

Discussion Topics

1. What do you think of the interaction between Dana and Kevin in “The River”? What do you think this tells us about their relationship and/or about the role Kevin will play in Dana’s problems to come?

2. Dana and Kevin have only just moved into their house the day before this story begins. She is still unpacking when she is pulled into another reality where her life is threatened. Would you blame it on the new house? Would you want to leave? Or would you stick it out and assume there is another explanation?

3. What do you think is the significance of the fact that this story starts on Dana’s birthday in the year of the country’s 200th birthday?