An AP Literature practice Q3.
In many works of literature, a character experiences a physical, psychological, or temporal exile—a state of being forcibly removed, separated, or transported from their familiar home, culture, or time period. This experience of exile often exposes the central tensions within a society while testing the character’s core values, identity, and agency.
Either from your own reading or from the list below, choose a work of fiction in which a character experiences such a state of exile. Then, in a well-written essay, analyze how the character’s exile illuminates the complex power dynamics of their environment and contributes to the meaning of the work as a whole.
In her novel Kindred, Octavia Butler exiles her protagonist Edana “Dana” Franklin from her modern-day apartment onto an 1800s slave plantation. Dana’s exile from the modern day into the antebellum South leads her to realize that neither masters nor enslaved people are unilaterally good or evil, and that slavery victimizes and indoctrinates white and Black alike.
In her exile, the bond Dana forms to Rufus Weylin forces her to reconsider her modern preconception that Southern whites were entirely complicit in perpetrating slavery. As a child, Rufus displays genuine love for Dana and also befriends an enslaved girl on his plantation, Alice Greenwood. He shows no obvious signs of racism—apart from those already engrained in his culture, like casual use of racial slurs—and generally treats Dana with the same respect he would show a white person; in fact, he sometimes shows Dana even more respect than he does his own mother, with whom he quarrels several times.
Thus, when Rufus succumbs to the ideals of slavery in the end, Dana realizes how the banality of slavery can indoctrinate even a child who shows genuine love and respect toward Black people. Despite his initial goodwill, Rufus finds it impossible to resist the power to coerce an entire race of people according to his will. This coercion begins subtly, when Rufus takes advantage of his power over Dana to withhold her letters from Kevin, with the selfish motive of keeping her to himself; but once this incident sets the precedent for how easily he can manipulate African-Americans to his own desires, he abuses his newfound power more and more. This transformation climaxes when he rapes his childhood friend, Alice Greenwood, demonstrating how slavery has corrupted his desires by allowing him to satiate them to any degree, without retribution. Thus, the power dynamic created by slavery tempts all white people with desires to fulfill, no matter their initial attitudes toward African-Americans.
By luring generation after generation of white slave holders with the promise of unpunished satiation of desires, the ideal acts as a self-maintaining mechanism that dissuades any slaveholder from breaking the cycle. To keep the enslaved in oppression, slavery disseminates a different ideal also portrayed in Kindred: that if one simply keeps their head down, all will be fine.
Reflection
As written, the essay focuses more on Rufus’ story rather than Dana’s exile. Perhaps I could’ve written something more like:
Dana’s exile brings her modern enlightened ideals into conflict with the antebellum South, and her ultimate defeat demonstrates that even the humanization of enslaved people cannot stop the juggernaut of institutional slavery.
TS1: Dana tries to remedy the horrorsproblems ofshe perceives during her exile with her modern-day ideals, and she initially believes that humanizing enslaved people for Rufus Weylin will force him to recognize the moral necessity of abandoning slavery.
- tries to teach him not to use the n-word
- also tries to be a friend to rufus
TS2: However, even after Rufus comes to perceive Dana and Alice Greenwood as friends rather than property, his sympathies still succumb to the tempting reward that comes with perpetrating institutional slavery: the ability to satiate any desire with an African-American, without retribution.
- Rufus first taps into this power when he lies to Dana and withholds her letters from Kevin, knowing that even were she to find out, she could not take any action against him.
- Once he begins to realize he can manipulate and use African-Americans however he desires with no fear of retribution, his