Butler did a smart thing by making Dana a female in the book. It got me thinking that if Dana was maybe a Daniel that was helping Rufus that the story would look very different. If this new character would have done or tried to do the things that Dana did Daniel would have been labeled as a gay man because he would try to care for and watch over Rufus.
It would have been even worse if the main time traveler was a man and he was trying to help a character just like Rufus who happened to be a girl. Like Margaret this character would live an almost perfect life with only having to answer to her parents and have control over the slaves. Not only would a female Rufus not live an exciting life I couldn’t really see how she would get into trouble causing the time traveler to be her knight in shinning armor.
Overall, Butler’s story had the most profound effect on the readers because the damsel in distress was a male and the knight in shinning armor was a female. The setup for the book laid a good groundwork to get the slave narrative such a good and different story line to it.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Good work, Renata. Your post reminds me of Judith Butler's work on troubling gender. Now that I think about it, I think that you're absolutely right: Octavia Butler does reverse traditional gender roles and in so doing gets the reader to think about gender construction.
Sorry - I have no idea why I called you "Renata" in the previous comment. Where's my mind?
Post a Comment