rufus why

As I make my way through Kindred, I'm struck by how shocked Dana seems at Rufus's reaction to things because really, he's extremely predictable.

Rufus was born into white planter life. He was, from the day he was born, conditioned to believe that blacks were inferior to whites. Dana first talked to Rufus when he was about 10 - at this point, he's already gone through his most formative years, and still has only a small understanding of sympathy and empathy. When she talks to him about his use of the n-word, he seems very confused. Clearly, her message didn't sink in. And yet, when she sees him again after he breaks his leg, she's seemingly shocked that he still uses the n-word. She says, "I don't like that word, remember?" As if a 5 minute conversation with a 10 year old could completely change how and when he used that word. It would be great if that's how the human mind worked, but it's not.

So at this point, when he's dealing with the broken leg, Rufus has two main role models - Dana and his father. They have completely different ideals, mindsets, etc. Rufus obviously wants to please both of them, but by trying to balance the two mindsets, he ends up with a very interesting personality. When he's alone with Dana, he's more likely to be kind towards her, but when they're in the presence of Tom Weylin, he becomes  more commanding. This pattern becomes apparent as we see more scenes where the three of them interact. By the end of the section, it seems like she's adapted to it, even if she isn't happy about it. She seems to have some level of understanding of what Rufus is willing to do in order to please whoever he wants at a given time.

Given that background, why was Dana so shocked when Rufus pulled a gun on her? My theory is that she was wedded to the childlike version of Rufus - the one who didn't realize that what he was doing was wrong. The one who was easily convinced into believing what she said. She didn't want to let that go because she felt she had some level of connection to him, and it's hard to protect someone who you hate. On another level, if something were to happen to him, she couldn't exist. So really, her need to have a good image of him in her mind is self-preservation.

sometimes curtains are just blue

As I read Slaughterhouse 5, I tried to come up with some possible deep, introspective things about the book that I could write about for my blogpost. The list was very short, and by the time I got around to writing, most of my ideas had already been covered in somebody else's blog. It occurred to me that this might not be entirely my fault. The other books we've read this semester have had something obviously deep and meaningful to delve into, but Slaughterhouse 5 seemed much more simplistic. Maybe it was the phrase "so it goes." It introduces a sense of finality to the statements Vonnegut makes. There's no room for the reader to look more closely at a passage and ponder, "what did Vonnegut really mean when he wrote about this?" because he's already told us what he means. When Vonnegut writes, "The champagne was dead. So it goes" (73), he was not subtly comparing the flat champagne to the monotony of Billy's life. He was saying the champagne was dead. So it goes. This doesn't mean there's absolutely nothing deep in Slaughterhouse 5 - There's still the underlying anti-war message, as well as the message that death is inevitable but it's okay because time is an illusion - it just means that the parts that are truly deep and meaningful have already been beaten to death.