Table of Contents
Why did Rufus burn down the stable in Kindred?
Rufus tells Dana that he previously burned down the stable when his father sold a horse that Rufus wanted for himself. This time, Rufus set the fire to get revenge on his father for hitting him.
What did Rufus do in Kindred?
Rufus rapes and enslaves Alice and attempts to rape and enslave Dana. He longs to be loved but expects to always get his way, using coercion and violence if he is denied.
How does Rufus change in Kindred?
Rufus is a product of his time and culture, becoming harsher, more selfish, and crueler as the years go by and he is more immersed in the patriarchal slave-holding culture of the South. However, Rufus never learns to truly treat black people with respect and becomes an irredeemable character by the end of the novel.
Why does Rufus ask Dana to burn the map?
Dana agrees to burn the map she tore from her book about slavery. She does this at Rufus’s request because he says it is for her own safety. The map is a symbol of freedom because it provides a route to the North.
How does Rufus threaten Dana?
One morning, while Dana is coaxing Margaret Weylin to eat her breakfast, Rufus asks Dana to speak with him in the library. They threaten each other at first. Dana says she will let Rufus die when he needs her again, and Rufus threatens to send Dana to work in the fields.
What do Rufus and Dana have in common?
Both are involved with white men, Dana by choice and Alice by necessity. Both are born free and become slaves on the Weylin plantation. And as time goes by, her origins in the 1970s stop mattering as much to Rufus, and she begins to lose her sway over him.
What was Rufus last name in Kindred the fire?
He says his last name is Weylin and confirms that he has a young black friend, a free woman, named Alice Greenwood. When Dana hears these names, she realizes that Rufus is her ancestor. Rufus tells Dana that she would be safe at Alice’s house. He helps her sneak out of the house, and she helps him destroy the charred curtains.
Why did Rufus set the drapes on fire?
Dana bristles at the epithet, a reaction Rufus doesn’t understand. Dana asks him to call her a black woman instead. Rufus says he set fire to the drapes because his father beat him.
Who is the boy in Kindred the fire?
The boy turns out to be Rufus; he remembers almost drowning a few years earlier. He also remembers that before he went under, he saw Dana sitting in her apartment and unpacking books. Because she was wearing pants, Rufus thought Dana was a man. Rufus says he thinks Dana went back to the room with the books.
What happens in Rufus’s time in Kindred?
Rufus’s time demanded things of me that had never been demanded before, and it could easily kill me if I did not meet its demands. That was a stark, powerful reality that the gentle conveniences and luxuries of this house, of now, could not touch. Carrie clasped her hands around her neck again.