Dana 2.0

SPOILER ALERT! IF YOU HAVE NOT FINISHED KINDRED YET, DO NOT KEEP READING!

The second time Dana travels to the 19th century, it ends with a white man trying to rape her. She is then sent back to the 20th century, when she mistakes Kevin for her assailant.

The last time Dana travels to the 19th century, it ends with a white man trying to rape her. She is then sent back to the 20th century, when the police mistake Kevin for her assailant.

There is a difference though. The second time, she thinks about stabbing the white man's eyes with her fingers, crippling or killing him, but she can't do it. She is a 20th century person, someone who she later tells Kevin is not strong enough to survive the early 19th century South. The last time, she stabs Rufus, killing him. She is now a 19th century person as well. She has lost her 20th century ideals in the 19th century because she knows they can't keep her alive then. She also knows what she is doing more the last time because it was a man she knows all too well in a place she knows all too well.

At one point during her last trip (page 255), Dana says to Rufus, "'I don't belong here.'" He responds, "'Yes you do! As far as I'm concerned, you do." Previously in the book, he had acknowledged openly that she was different and out of her true place and time. But by the end of the book, Rufus sees Dana as just part of his normal life and no one treats her any more like she is from 150 years later. What has changed?

On a very basic level, she has spent a lot of time there, so people have gotten used to her presence. However, she also had to change as a person, and she did. She learned and adopted the methods necessary to survive in the 19th century as a slave. She became tougher, something she had previously compared herself to her ancestors about. She still does not say she is like her ancestors in their drive to survive, but at least she now knows she could physically survive if she had to go back again for any reason. She has stopped acting the part of a slave, and has become one for all intents and purposes. She has stopped acting the part of Alice's friend and Rufus' (mentor? savior? friend? whatever) and become that figure for real. So when she comes at first in The Fire, Dana is making up lines to fit her new character, but before she leaves in The Rope, she is being herself. Her own dilemmas, her own fears, her own opinions are being expressed in her words, not just a pretend slave's.

Additionally, Dana no longer trusts Rufus. She previously thought he was a good, moral person, then she thought she could teach/train him, then she thought she could manipulate him, but she now knows none of that is realistic. She knows he is not to be trusted and he has become like any other slave-owner/white man in the antebellum South (there are a few differences between him and others, but for the most part he behaves in the same ways).

Dana does hesitate before stabbing Rufus (we get to read her inner monologue) but she still does it. She has time to think, enough time to decide to act. The parallels between the second trip's ending and the last trip's ending make us wonder about Dana's development, because although the basics are similar, the characters have been drastically altered.