Of the characters in Octavia Butler's Kindred, one stands out as it forces readers into a particularly uncomfortable moral dilemma. From a zoomed out perspective, Rufus Weylin is just evil. He is a slave-owning Southern man who actively engages in brutal violence including the rape of Alice and the constant threats to beat Dana. However, Butler's narrative constantly provides the smallest slivers of redemption, making Rufus a controversially sympathetic villain that causes clearcut interpretations of him to be completely inadequate in describing him. To call him a one-dimensional monster would be reductive, as he is certainly capable of what seems like genuine affection and kindness (at least, in his time period). He loves Dana in his own twisted way, as she acts as his confidante and supernatural guardian angel, constantly saving him from danger. In some cases, Rufus even shows a desire to be a better person than his father Tom Weylin. But his actions are still objectively despicable, and thus the question arises: can you, or should you, distinguish the humanity in someone who perpetuates and benefits from an inherently dehumanizing system?
Since Butler seems to only provide tidbits of Rufus's redeemable actions, it's important to draw them out as much as possible to make the two ends of the analysis as contrasting as possible. Most of Rufus's positive actions are derived from moments of vulnerability caused by the rifts in how he views his society caused by Dana. Rufus shows her a significant level of trust, confessing his feelings from time to time and also somehow managing to accept her insane origin as a time traveler from the future (Butler 64). Would a colder-hearted person with a lesser moral compass trust someone with an account as ridiculous as Dana's? Granted, Rufus is very young in the Fall, so his naivety may be affecting his response to her story, but the fact that his heart still has some drive to connect with others through trust is a very good sign.
Some more examples of his hidden empathy are brought out in significant ways throughout the novel. When Tom Weylin sells Sarah's children, Rufus displays a notable level of sympathy due to his connection with Jim, one of Sarah's sons. He says, "'[Jim] taught me how to ride when I was little. But Daddy sold him anyways.'" (Butler 86). In another unrelated case, after Alice's suicide, Rufus is so distraught that he legally frees Joe and Hagar, their children (Butler 251). This is arguably his most significant moral action. These actions suggest that within a man struggling with being corrupted by the imbalanced power he wields, there is a part of Rufus capable of recognizing and reciprocating love to the point of making a gesture of remorse on a legally-binding level.
Unfortunately, the case against Rufus's redemption is overwhelming and undermines pretty much any of his "good" deeds. Alice and Dana are the two people Rufus gives exceptional special treatment for, but this treatment is equally kind as it is toxic. His love for Alice is sustained through his possessive and violent urges, which results in her being raped. This negative outcome of Rufus's love completely negates or even outweighs his previously mentioned willingness to legally free their children. As for his relationship with Dana, he deliberately doesn't send the letters from Kevin to keep her isolated and under his control (Butler 179). Furthermore, his final attempt to force himself on Dana after previously alluding she and Alice were "only one woman" (Butler 228) shows that his core desires were for ownership, not for love or connection. This reveals that Rufus was only looking for a person to control, and that if Alice didn't exist, Dana would have been the one in her situation. These examples erase any moral credit that he earned in previously mentioned cases.
To connect all the evidence, Butler's goal with Rufus isn't to create a redeemable villain. Rather, she wants to demonstrate the cunning and corrupting nature of slavery. Kindred paints the system of slavery as an environment that directly manufactures evil instead of merely fostering it, which is what Butler's main intent in the metanarrative is. What makes the novel so unsettling is that a person like Rufus can have these moments of genuine feeling yet still be a monster. Whether he really intended to control Alice and Dana is another question entirely that creates an entirely new dimension of analysis to this argument. Did growing up as the oppressor in this system make Rufus instinctually justify and act on attempts to subjugate others? Regardless of the answers to this question, redeeming Rufus ignores the very foundation of the story's metanarrative: in a world built on the belief that people are property, anything, even love, is a weapon.
Hi Leo, I like how you highlight that Rufus can't be a one-dimensional character. As horrible as some of his actions are, we as readers have seen a more gentle and genuinely affectionate side of him, and it puts us in a really confusing position. The question you pose: can you, or should you, distinguish the humanity in someone who perpetuates and benefits from an inherently dehumanizing system? It's such a hard one to answer but I think you did a good job laying out the details.
ReplyDeleteHi Leo. Your take on how Rufus, is just a vehicle to paint the slave system as the whole as the true villain, is really interesting. I think I focused a lot on how evil of a person Rufus becomes despite his influences. But its also very true that Rufus is still very human, and, at times, empathetic even in the later parts of the book.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that Rufus is not necessarily a one-dimensional monster, at least until "The Rope." For much of the book, he is indeed capable of showing kindness and even love. But society slowly corrupts him into exactly that, and Dana is finally forced to kill him after he crosses the one boundary she will NEVER compromise on. Plus, looking at his actions all together through a more critical lens reveals that he was almost never doing them out of the goodness of his heart; his core desires were those for "ownership, not for love or connection." Regardless of how Rufus meets his end, though, I still appreciate the detail with which you explore the question you pose at the start, and the conclusion you come to and the sentence you end on are both spectacular.
ReplyDeleteHi Leo, You made a thorough analyzation that documents the many instances in how there is more to Rufus Weylin and he doesn't just depict the stereotypical slaveowner such as his father, but instead is almost conflicted in what type of person as he learns to feel at least some degree of sympathy for slaves that could be perceived as ahead of his time but goes through with this "kindness" on how a plantation owner. This blog had a lot of great structure and flow went through smooth like butter, you should be a rapper someday. Great blog!
ReplyDeleteHey Leo, I think the way you talked about Rufus' character was compelling, especially the way you showed how Butler intentionally keeps him morally complicated instead of letting readers settle into an easy judgment. You did a great job highlighting the rare moments of vulnerability that make him feel human, only to contrast them with the overwhelming cruelty that ultimately defines him.
ReplyDeleteAt one point late in her narrative, in the scene where Dana is participating in the holiday corn-shucking party and everyone acts all friendly and deferential to Rufus when he comes by to get their applause and thanks, and then they all talk shit about him when he leaves, Dana observes that "slavery of any kind fostered strange relationships." This ambivalence you describe about Rufus is portrayed as endemic to the system of slavery itself: these people all live on the same property; the domestic servants interact with the Weylins in intimate ways; and they indeed have relationships and feelings for each other, even if the "system" does its best to prohibit such ambiguities. And Dana herself has a "strange relationship" to Rufus, of course--but it isn't SO different from Nigel's strange relationship with the guy who used to be his buddy and now has the power to sell his children. Nigel remains friendly with Rufus, even joking with him and throwing dirt bombs at him, but he is also keen to escape at the first opportunity, and he wants his children to learn to read. It's not a matter of all the slave-owners in the South being "evil" or "villains"--even more horrifying, they are "normal people" just following the rules for business at the time. The "strange relationships" are part of the deal, and this too has a historical legacy: Dana's own family line is born out of the strange relationship between Alice and Rufus. She is compelled to affirm and endorse BOTH sides as equally contributing to her existence. And in a sense, the same is true of everyone living in the United States today.
ReplyDeleteHi Leo, great post! I agree with how Butler shows these little slivers of humanness of Rufus, just to continuously shatter them, shows how Butler wishes to avoid easy moral binaries. There's a point to be made that we should hate both the game AND the player, while also acknowledging (and struggling) with the fact that the modern-day America that we live on is based on hundreds of years of slaver.
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