In life, people always have decisions to make, and behind those choices, there are motivations whether it be for survival, acceptance, love, or for revenge. This is demonstrated through the novel, Kindred by Octavia Butler when one of the main characters, Dana, travels back in time to meet her ancestor, Rufus Weylin, who calls for her when he is in danger. Everytime she goes back to Rufus's time, she has to make decisions that are essential to her survival. In Kindred, Octavia Butler uses the decisions each character makes to suggest the idea that his/her fate and the fate of those around them are affected by their choices. During Dana’s fourth trip, in a conversation between Dana and Alice, Butler suggests the idea that Liza, the sewing…show more content… As the conversation between Dana and Rufus starts to end, Dana heads out hoping to find Alice’s place. In the midst of all the chaos, Dana gets attacked and brutally beaten by a white belligerent man. Dana said “The man caught me, pulled me backward, threw me to the ground” (43). In the middle of Dana’s fourth trip, Alice goes to Dana with the letters she had written to Kevin. Dana had thought that Rufus sent all those letters long ago. Dana ruminates to herself “She took two letters from her apron pocket. Two letters, their seals broken, their faces covered with my handwriting” (170). After thinking everyone was asleep, Dana slowly and carefully left the Weylin's house. As Dana is walking away from the house, she states “I crept away from the Weylin house, moving through the darkness with even less confidence than I had felt when I fled to Alice’s house months before. Years before. I hadn’t known quite as well then what there was to fear. I had never seen a captured runaway like Alice….” (171). These scenes propose the idea that Rufus’s actions and or decisions intensely affect Dana’s future. Rufus can prevent things like Dana getting attacked or from her running away but he chooses not to. If Rufus had not start the fire, Dana would not have gone back in time at all, the attack would never had happen. Also, if
