Leverage and the Power Dynamics between Dana and Rufus

There is tension between Dana and Rufus throughout Kindred, at the beginning mostly because of their racial and gender differences, but only getting worse as they become more attached to each other and the other characters. They understand their mutual connection to varying extents -- they both know they're bonded for some reason, neither fully understand the time travel (who does?) besides that Dana shows up to save Rufus's life, and only Dana knows that she is Rufus's great-great-whatever-granddaughter. But because of their relationship -- especially the familial aspect -- they are linked and depend on each other to survive. As a result, they both have leverage over the other, which combines nastily with the societal power dynamics between a white man and black woman in the 1800s. With those two, it frequently feels like a frustrating back-and-forth between who can out-threaten the other into doing what they want, and often with significant, harmful stakes, causing the reader to constantly question who has the most power in the relationship, and what the implications may be.

Let's start with Dana. For whatever reason, Dana is called back to Rufus's time whenever he is in trouble, and she seems to be the only one able to save him in each circumstance. As long as Rufus never discovers that Dana must save him or she would die herself (which we will get into more later), that's some pretty solid bargaining power -- "do what I say or next time I'll let you die." And even though her identity as a black woman puts her at a serious disadvantage in Rufus's time (see previous parenthetical), I do think that something about Dana's knowledge of the future and the assuredness with which she carries herself intimidates Rufus a bit, consistently reminding him that he does place his life in the hands of her and her modern medicine. The fact that Dana has to act as a slave on the plantation also means that she can connect to Alice a lot better than Rufus can, putting Rufus in the position of asking Dana whenever he wants to send a message to Alice (which obviously isn't great, but at least Dana gets some say in the message Alice receives). In addition, the few times Kevin is with Dana and pretends to be her owner, Dana is able to have a little more freedom and separate herself from the Weylins (primarily through physical distance when she sleeps or works in Kevin's room).

Although Dana continuously saving Rufus's life should pretty much seal the deal on who answers to whom, there are many reasons why one could argue Rufus has as much, or even more, leverage on Dana as she has on him. First, and most obviously, whenever Rufus and Dana meet in Rufus's time, over pretty much any other dynamic there may be between the two, Rufus is still white and can harm Dana however he sees fit, at any time, with virtually no immediate repercussions (only made worse by the fact that it is only by extreme circumstance or drastic measures that Dana can escape back home). Of course, the long-term worry for Rufus is that Dana will stop saving his life, but (and this is me just hypothesizing) I think Rufus knows that Dana is generally not the kind of person to leave someone to die, no matter how terrible they are. He also doesn't know that Dana couldn't leave him to die anyway, lest she never be born. So, Rufus can afford to (and often does) push it with Dana and the other slaves. A large part of both Rufus's pushing it and Dana's position as a slave is that even if Rufus doesn't punish the slaves (or necessarily want to) himself, he can at any time point out to Dana, "if you don't do [insert command], [insert slaveowner] will punish [person]." I personally think the instances in which he implies a threat like that are some of Rufus's grossest, most manipulative, most evil moments (which is saying something).

As the relationship between Dana and Rufus grows more complex and they gain more leverage over each other, they also end up locked in a battle with another entity: time. At the beginning, neither could control a whole lot because Rufus couldn't call Dana, nor could Dana leave, on purpose. Dana also needed time to go quicker so that Hagar could be born, and Rufus in many ways wanted time to go slower, especially towards the end, when he became fixated on Dana not "leaving" him. In small ways, both ended up learning some of the rules of time travel, including that fact that at different times they attempted or committed self-harm to transport Dana. And by the end, once time truly had little power over Dana (once Hagar was born), and Rufus became more desperate and assaulted Dana after Alice's death, Dana once and for all made the decision to kill Rufus, losing her arm in the process. And thus their tenuous power struggle concluded.

Dana and Rufus had to constantly play a delicate game of bargaining to ensure their own survivals, and I'm not sure who (if either) ever had more power. What I am sure of is that I missed many other potentially significant details within their intricate relationships with each other and with the timeline. In the end, though, for better or worse, both characters fulfilled the destinies that time had written for them.