Reading and presenting Lisa Yazek's article on Kindred gave me food for thought that had not popped up while reading the novel. I definitely missed the theme of readers becoming more disconnected with history and how Dana's experience is meant to illustrate how every event in the past affects us one way or another. I'll confess that I was one of those readers who views history as a random jumble of facts that affect other events. However, I never thought of them as necessarily affecting me. But why shouldn't they? After all, I came from my parents who came from their parents and something must have happened to create my bloodline, right? Upon pondering Yazek's assertion, I can really see where Butler was trying to drive home her dissatisfaction with the ubiquitous feeling of vague history.
Additionally, I had never thought about the role commercialism and advertisements play in shaping our views towards society. Yazek brings up ads from corporations like McDonald's and Coca-Cola and how they have promoted a more egalitarian society especially in the 1970s where the ads focused on equality between men and women (and racial equality to a somewhat lesser extent). These advertisements, in addition to the Civil Rights and Feminist movements, explains why going back and observing societal roles in the 19th Century was so shocking for Dana.
Finally, I think what both Yazek and Butler want to bring home to the reader is that America's history includes slavery and it is fundamental to how this country was founded. Moreover, this part of our nation's history is not that old, relatively speaking. Therefore, it is critical we don't brush this part of our history aside as an anomaly to the greatest nation that ever was.
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