Greetings! So at this point I'm Actually almost finished with the book that we were assigned to read called Kindred . In todays blog I was asked to pick one of these questions and answer it fully.
Kindred can be both a noun and an adjective, describing a state of being, or a related familial group. In the novel, the word kindred holds both definitions to Dana. Using the noun definition of the work, it relates to her kin, both Alice and Rufus, and ultimately the head of her family line, Hagar. It could also show the duality between Rufus and Kevin, in the sense that they were kindred spirits drawn to Dana. The most obvious of this definition is Rufus. She is literally tied to him through space and time, connected with him on a deeper level. She also has this relationship in sorts to her husband Kevin. They are writers, creatives, the lost souls drawn together by literacy intimacy. In a sense every main character is kindred to Dana in one sense or another. They each have certain lessons to teach her about life and also herself.
The title of the book could be seen as ironic. In the antebellum south racial divisions, alongside gender roles, were heavily enforced, yet Dana was linked to these people, who outwardly seem so far away from her general being. She is a black woman who shares a bond with a plantation owner's son. If that doesn’t describe irony, I honestly don’t know what does. In the literal sense, the book title could show Dana’s actual family ties to Rufus and Alice, but in a more metaphysical sense, they are linked beyond the level of blood relation.
The Topsy Turvy doll, to me, shows that, in essence, we are all connected beings. I know the literal interpretation of what that doll represents, but I think it holds a stronger meaning to the bond all humans share regardless of insipid divisions we place on ourselves. Pertaining to the book, the doll could show, literally, that Dana, being black, was blood related to Rufus, who was white, and it shows the connection this has.
Nice thinking. I also think the doll happens to illustrate the novel nicely: the union of black/white in the U.S. which has been denied (by segregation), the fact that it seems as if the black part of the doll is "giving birth" to the white part pointing to the many generations of whites being raised by black mammies/nannies, the fact that the white part/ancestry is forbidden for blacks to have or acknowledge...it just goes on and on.
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