education -- what is it good for?

I know that we've moved on from Kindred, but I can't help but write about an issue in the novel that has interested me because of the differences in how it is portrayed. It's an idea that has brought up moments of true hope for the future, but also those of futility. What I'm introducing is the role of education as we see it playing out in the antebellum South.

Recognizing the power of education in Kindred is fairly easy. From the start, we see Dana as an intelligent young writer whose very manner of speaking, when she goes back to Rufus' time, puts people on edge. Aside from that, her limited knowledge of medicine saves Rufus and Alice on multiple occasions. Books and maps are also depicted as incredibly significant for slaves, because, if taught how to read them, these items could provide methods of escape. Convinced that her position of a map will get her hurt, Rufus convinces Dana to burns the map she brought from 1976. Later though, we see Rufus teaching his son Joe to read a map. However, he limits what he shows his son, refusing to draw in the river in order to keep Joe from understanding where exactly the Weylin plantation is and how one would be able to leave it. Dana also tries to teach slaves to read. In secret, we see her teaching Nigel and Carrie, but she's beaten upon Tom Weylin's discovery of the lessons, because he realizes the threat that would come to him if his slaves were literate. Not only does reading provide an advantage in finding a method of escape, but in Tom Weylin's mind, it plants the idea of escape. In books, one can read stories of slaves rebelling against their oppressors and fighting their way to freedom, as in the Bible (in fact, we see Alice naming her children after escaped slaves in the Bible), or newspaper articles about successful slave revolts. As a result, there comes an obvious power in being able to read. Knowing how to write would also have given a slave the ability to forge their own passes or freedom papers.

However, I think that Butler also presents the limitations of education. Almost naively, Dana thinks that she can change the past by educating Rufus, Nigel, Carrie, and the other slaves. She begins the book believing that her efforts can "keep him [Rufus] from growing up into a red-haired version of his father." However, over the course of the novel, we realize that Dana's attempts at teaching Rufus about modern equality and racial respect have little effect. Rufus uses his skills of writing and reading only to continue correspondences his father began, and to continue the legacy of the Weylin plantation. True, Rufus may, in some ways, be more kind to his slaves than Tom Weylin was. I'm really hesitant to use the word "kind" here, but Rufus does allow his slaves to learn how to read, and teaches his son some lessons himself. Unfortunately, literacy lessons are the extent to which Rufus might be more humane that his father. Dana also realizes the futility in teaching Carrie how to write. Ordinarily, the ability to write would be extremely beneficial to someone who is mute, but in Carrie's circumstances, "the only people who could read her writing would be those who might punish her for being able to write." We learn in the epilogue that almost all of the slaves that Dana knew had been sold again into slavery. Even in regards to escaping the plantation, all of Dana's knowledge of escaping the South that she learned about in school doesn't help her in her attempt to run away from the Weylin plantation -- she's caught almost immediately. Dana's twentieth century sensibilities don't help her situation much at the plantation either, as she eventually just falls into the role of a slave. In her position, trying to convince everyone to believe in her educated ideals would require the overturning of the entire social system.

Ultimately, the extent to which education can change a person's life is depicted fairly bleakly in Butler's novel, despite all of the potential power that literacy supposedly brings. I got a fuzzy sense of disappointment at the end of Kindred as I realized that Dana's attempts to change her surroundings with what she knows about the future have completely failed. Hagar, perhaps, may have benefited from Dana's efforts, but I still found it sad how little Dana's knowledge was able to help her and the ones she loved survive the antebellum South.