Domestic Violence Equals Modern Slavery



Slaves Violence
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Domestic Violence
Image from jhsph.edu



Equals

My eighth blog for my English 102 class is about an interesting story that we are reading in class, the store is named “Kindred”. The story makes emphasis of two major problems we have been facing for many years around the world. These two problems are Domestic Violence and Slavery, which in fact become one big problem that affects many people. At the beginning of the story, the author makes the readers believe that Dana is a victim of domestic violence in her own house. By doing this, the author tries to catch the attention of the readers so that they think that the story is about domestic violence. However, later in the story we realize that Dana is being transported to the past; to the slavery time. On one of her returns to the present, Dana came back horribly beaten up; she had been whipped by her master, Tom Weylin. When she comes back, her relative, who assumes that Dana is being beaten by her husband, asks her why is she letting this happens to her.

In the story, the author wants to emphasize a problem that has been going on during many years. She addresses that some people adapt to domestic violence after they have suffered it a few times, especially those who are in love with the aggressor. After a couple of times of being physically abused, Dana’s and other slaves’ body get accustomed to the whips and this kind of violence suffer becomes a routine. Today, people who are victims of domestic violence also get used to be beaten all the time. In addition, because the love the aggressor, they decide to not do anything about this situation.

The author uses this scenario to compare domestic violence with slavery. These issues are both similar, almost the same issue. Domestic violence is the abusive behavior in the modern epoch and slavery is what they used to call it in the old days. Even after black slaves were badly whipped and tortured by their masters, they would still serve to them. Even though some slaves did not want to continue to serve their masters, they had no other choice. The same way, a woman who gets beaten by her partner is afraid to run away because she believes that if he catches her he may kill her.










The Fight

Rufus' manipulative love
Image from go-self-sufficient.com

My seventh blog for my Eng 102 class talks about the decisions and attitudes of the characters in the narrative story Kindred by Octavia Butler. One of the characters, whose name is Rufus, is a selfish and manipulating young man who wants everything to go his way. He does not care if he hurts someone along his way. He thinks that the way of loving someone is to mandate and dictate them for his will.

The author refers to Rufus as a "destructive single-minded love" (Butler 180) who shapes the lives of two of the characters who he loves; Alice and Dana. Alice, a free black, is Rufus’ friend and Dana is Rufu’s savior, mentor and friend who have to suffer the cruelty of his way of loving. He has always found a way to accomplish his wills by threating them with something they care about. Rufus have molded their lives according to his desires and wills, making them prisoners of his caprices.

Dana and Alice do not have other choice than confront Rufus' love and try to be submissive to his will. Rufus forces Dana to help him to convince Alice to go to his bed and Alice has to let him rape her. If Alice does not do what he has ordered to do voluntarily, she can easily get whipped in a cruel manner or be forced to have sex. She could escape but it would cost her life if he catches her. Dana desires and need to see her husband again; he is the only one that knows where she is. She cannot escape either because Rufus would kill her if he catches her.

Being the only way for them to not get hurt so brutally by Rufus, I stronly agree with the choices both Dana and Alice have made. This may sound bad, but I believe that is the only way for them to survive. Rufus would whip, rape and kill Alice if she goes against his will. And Dana would not be able to see her husband Kevin again if she does not help Rufus and act as his friend.

A Slave more educated than her Master

Slave owners began to fear the power of an educated slave.
Image from howstuffworks.com

In this blog I will explain the reason why I think Tom Weylin believes that Dana is trouble to his family and his plantation. Tom Weylin thinks that Dana is trouble for several reasons but mostly because of Dana’s ability to read and write, and her educated and proper manner to speak to others. She respects white people the same way she respects other people of her race, treating everyone at the plantation equally. However, he resents her education and dislikes the idea that a black woman could read and write better than him. He also dislikes the fact that Dana comes from a free state and she is an independent woman. The way Dana talks to him is considered inappropriate; he believes that as the master she should refer to him as if she is a slave and that she should feel afraid.  Tom Weylin is not only surprised by the way she acts but by the way she dresses; he disapproves the fact that she wears pants. Women in the 1800’s did not wear this kind of clothes, because at that time they believed that only man should wear pants.

Tom Weylin thinks that she is dangerous to the way of life in the Weylin household because he thinks that she is going teach the slaves freedom ideas and therefore they would be able to escape. In addition, he knows that because she is well educated, the slaves would admire her and feel motivated to learn and explore new things. She is also danger to the family because Dana is attached to the kid and she could change the way he should be treating the slaves in the future when Rufus takes control of the family slaves.

Slave Families Life

Slave Auction

Michele Bachmann's Family Values, circa 1861.

blogs.forbes.com

 

Family life in the United States at the epoch of slavery had no value. People were treated as piece of animals and sold to the highers bidder. Master and owners of slaves didn't care about their feelings nor their working ethic, they just wanted to make easy money by selling their whole family wife, children and babies. The states at this epoch had no legal protection for the slaves and their marriage. Kids and mom could be separated at any time and send any where without their concern or care. Most of  the families that were separated never got to see their family again. Slave families were taken to auctions an sold as if the were sheep or lamb. They were even sold by pounds and age. Their physical appearance made them worth more in the eyes of the bidders. The worst thing about it is the owners of these slave didn't even let them say goodbye and always made sure to send to saep[arte the families as much as they could by selling them to different states.

Learning Experience

Learning Experience
maitlandconnects.blogspot.com

  

My fourth blog is kind of interesting. It consists on me picking one of my previous blogs that I believe I have done a good job and I am proud of it. However, it is hard for me to just pick one because I believe that I have done well and proud of all of them. It has been a learning experience for me as writer, since I did not know much about literary terms and did not read poems before. It is been quite rough, I am not going to lie, but the overall progress has kept me motivated to do more. After writing the first 3 blogs, I can say that I have strengthened my skills as a writer impressively. Blogs 1 through 3, each and every one of them has been special.  

Let's start with the first one which was about choosing a passage about roses. This first blog taught me too many things at once. From the beginning it was a challenge since I have never done it before. The picking of the images, setting up my blog with a cool template design, quoting up the passage as a block quote, giving an introduction to the passage were the easy ones. But when it got to explaining the poem, trying to understand it and learning how to interpret the meaning of a word (symbols and/or allusion) that poet often use to suggest something greater than its literal meaning the task became quite hard and complicated. My second blog was somewhat the same just that this one was at a bigger scale. This time was a whole poem rather than just a quote like the first one.  On my third blog I learned great things too; how to paraphrase poem, picking key words and interpreting them and most valuable understanding the tone of a speaker. All these blogs together have made my experience in class greater, even though it is been tough I have learned a lot.

The projects we have done in class so far have been great. The professor has made it real interesting by creating houses in the class, something I have never done before. Working with My Plath House members have been excellent.  We have shared experience, learned from each other and understood better the class projects with the help of each other.

My experience evaluating the member of my house was great. They all are great writers and it was hard for me to find things wrong in their papers. By evaluating the member of my house I inspire my classmates to improve their skills. Also I have the opportunity to give and receive feedback from someone other than the professor. Lastly, this evaluation can help the member of the team to gather new ideas that they may have not tough before.