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“THE TROUBLE BEGAN LONG BEFORE”: THE POST-APOCALYPTIC PRESENT OF OCTAVIA BUTLER’S KINDRED

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Date Issued:
2021
Abstract/Description:
The aim of this thesis is to examine Octavia Butler’s novel Kindred as a work of post-apocalyptic literature that uses American slavery as its apocalyptic event. I will argue that Kindred critiques the use of linear time and the narratives of progress that are commonplace within the science fiction genre by focusing on an apocalypse from America’s historical past, instead of creating an apocalypse in an imagined future. To do this, I will examine how the novel challenges the reader’s understanding of time and history alongside another work of post-apocalyptic literature, Walter M. Miller Jr’s novel A Canticle for Leibowitz. I will also utilize apocalyptic theory to argue that Kindred should be considered a post-apocalyptic novel, and by comparing it to Butler’s other works of apocalyptic fiction. Ultimately, Kindred expands the possibilities of postapocalyptic fiction by demonstrating that we are already living in a post-apocalyptic reality.
Title: “THE TROUBLE BEGAN LONG BEFORE”: THE POST-APOCALYPTIC PRESENT OF OCTAVIA BUTLER’S KINDRED.
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Name(s): Moskal, Christopher R., author
MacDonald, Ian, Thesis advisor
Florida Atlantic University, Degree grantor
Department of English
Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters
Type of Resource: text
Genre: Electronic Thesis Or Dissertation
Date Created: 2021
Date Issued: 2021
Publisher: Florida Atlantic University
Place of Publication: Boca Raton, Fla.
Physical Form: application/pdf
Extent: 70 p.
Language(s): English
Abstract/Description: The aim of this thesis is to examine Octavia Butler’s novel Kindred as a work of post-apocalyptic literature that uses American slavery as its apocalyptic event. I will argue that Kindred critiques the use of linear time and the narratives of progress that are commonplace within the science fiction genre by focusing on an apocalypse from America’s historical past, instead of creating an apocalypse in an imagined future. To do this, I will examine how the novel challenges the reader’s understanding of time and history alongside another work of post-apocalyptic literature, Walter M. Miller Jr’s novel A Canticle for Leibowitz. I will also utilize apocalyptic theory to argue that Kindred should be considered a post-apocalyptic novel, and by comparing it to Butler’s other works of apocalyptic fiction. Ultimately, Kindred expands the possibilities of postapocalyptic fiction by demonstrating that we are already living in a post-apocalyptic reality.
Identifier: FA00013763 (IID)
Degree granted: Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2021.
Collection: FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection
Note(s): Includes bibliography.
Subject(s): Butler, Octavia E. Kindred
Apocalyptic fiction
Butler, Octavia E.--Criticism and interpretation
Persistent Link to This Record: http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00013763
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Host Institution: FAU
Is Part of Series: Florida Atlantic University Digital Library Collections.