Kindred

This week, you are finishing Kindred and writing a paper about Dana’s choices in a practical and ethical sense.
More specifically, you will write about what she might have done differently, the impact you think it might have
had based on conditions in the story, and on our world today.
The main question your paper should explore is simple but can be difficult to answer: If you were Dana, what
would the ethical thing be to do in this situation? For example, do you kill Rufus? Do you try to educate him?
Do you try to free or educate other slaves? Or do you go along with it and hope you can do better things when
the time is right? And: why?
While you are thinking through these questions, always keep in mind what arguments does the book make for
or against your choice? Do you think Dana made the right choices when she visited the past, especially with
what she did to Rufus in the end? Why? Do you think Rufus would have changed?
You can choose to answer these questions by thinking about whether Dana had a responsibility first to herself,
to the other slaves, or to change Rufus? Would it have had an impact on the wider world, or on our world
today?
In particular, I want you to use concrete examples from the book. Make sure you describe situations from her
perspective and how her choices played out.