ENG 2131 Study Guide - Final Guide: A Kindred Spirit, Twelve Years A Slave, Phillis Wheatley
17 Dec 2016
School
Department
Course
Professor
KINDRED
November 10th 2016
Context
-Writes about the human experience
-Although there are no slavery anymore, still racial tensions
-Questioning their ancestors: why were the slaves so passive about slavery, why didnât
they stand up for themselves â Kindred is a response to this question
-The sheer difïŹculty for slaves to merely survive; simple survival is a way of ïŹghting
back
-Kindred is her better selling book
-The title âKindredâ
-Kin: the protagonist is meeting her ancestors
-Kind: to be kind, to treat someone as if they were your kin
-Kind: type
-A kindred spirit: someone whoâs not connected to us by blood, but by spirit
(protagonist and Kevin are connected by spirit; they are kindred spirit)
-Slave Narratives
-The Interesting Narrative of Equiano
-Twelve Years A Slave
-Poems by Phyllis Wheatley
-âThe Middle Passageâ
-Slave trade began in the early 18th century
-âThe Golden Triangleâ; the passage for the ships; mortality rate very high, horrible
conditions, slaves would even try to commit suicides
-Idea of journey; a journey is a change in experience that has a signiïŹcant experience
in oneâs psyche;
-In this book, a journey across time
The Book
-Chapter names: âThe ____â, the âTheâ makes it signiïŹcant
-Archetype theories and models (Carl Jung)
-The River: the idea of water and river is a very important archetype and symbol;
Christian symbol, but precedes Christianity; by crossing water, being immersed
in water, something very important is happening
-The Fire: the four elements that make up the universe: Water, ïŹre, air and earth
â this book discusses water and ïŹre
-The Fall: the fall from Even, they disobeyed God and were fallen; sin
-The Struggle: physical ïŹght, a moral ïŹght, a spiritual ïŹght
-The Storm: archetypal and biblical event; leads to the ïŹood. Storm associated
with God(s) (Thor); the storm scene in which fear and terror lead to change
-The Rope: the hangmanâs rope, the slave rope, a spiritual rope that binds us to
each other, worshippers to their gods
-Not a book that can just be as a time travel book; Butler wants us to treat this book as
serious literature
-An important story, one that has signiïŹcance for all readers, white and black
-Prologue: confusing, in the middle of the action; what happened to her arm
-She uses a literary trope, âIn Media Resâ (literally means âin the middle of
thingsâ)
-The epic: should begin in Media Res, and then enlightenment throughout the rest
of the text about whatâs going on; a device to maintain interest
-Butler uses this trope to insist this is a story about slavery; itâs not just
entertainment; it is speaking to something cultural, the past affects the present
and continues to change it
-The reader is made to be feel the same confusion that Kevin and she feel when
they disappear; a sense of what thatâs like, whatâs happening, who those people
are
-Also the associated hour; her arm
-p. 11: horriïŹc sense of what exactly happened to her
-The River: movement across
-This river, for her and Rufus, indicate how signiïŹcant that change is
-The date is also important (1976)
-The bicentennial of the American revolution (1776 - 1976)
-âWhy is it that we hear the loudest yelps from the drivers of slaves?â
-June 9th 1976: as America is celebrating its 200 hundreds years of freedom, itâs
her birthday and she is taken back in the past
-She is taken back to the past and has to protect her ancestor from drowning
-CPR: she has to breathe into him
-Breath = spirit (same in ancient Greek); she is giving him air and life
-Sheâs attacked by his mother despite just having saved him; thereâs menace
-We can feel the shock and violence, the suddenness, the injustice of it,
âWhy me? Why is this happening to me?â; fear that sheâll never get home
and see her family again
-This is completely random; just like when someone was taken as a slave;
the lack of reason to it
-Kevin sees her disappear and reappear, and doesnât want to believe this; tries to
rationalize it and they almost have an argument about it; both of scared and
traumatized, but he doesnât want to accept this. She can feel the pain and she
knows sheâs wet; she knows itâs real
-The Fire: when sheâs pulled back again, shorty
-Speaking to something signiïŹcant thatâs happening
-All kind of symbols attached to ïŹre
-Trial by Fire; humans being tried by ïŹre, being burnt alive (which
happened to runaway slaves)
-Illumination
-This trial by ïŹre involves having to deal with white patrols that see her as a
runaway of slaves (we see brutality and beating that take place against slaves)
-A white patrol wants to rape her; she has to learn how to protect herself, but
she canât bring herself to gouge his eyes although she had the opportunity; itâs
a trial
Document Summary
Although there are no slavery anymore, still racial tensions. Questioning their ancestors: why were the slaves so passive about slavery, why didn"t they stand up for themselves kindred is a response to this question. The sheer dif culty for slaves to merely survive; simple survival is a way of ghting back. Kin: the protagonist is meeting her ancestors. Kind: to be kind, to treat someone as if they were your kin. A kindred spirit: someone who"s not connected to us by blood, but by spirit (protagonist and kevin are connected by spirit; they are kindred spirit) Slave trade began in the early 18th century. The golden triangle ; the passage for the ships; mortality rate very high, horrible conditions, slaves would even try to commit suicides. Idea of journey; a journey is a change in experience that has a signi cant experience in one"s psyche; In this book, a journey across time.
