As we can look in a mirror, the reflections we see can vary. For Dana Franklin in Octavia Butler's Kindred (1979), she sees her long-lost ancestor, Alice Greenwood. The story is about Dana, a young black woman in the 1970s, and her husband Kevin, a young white author, as they travel to and from the antebellum South in the 1800s. The book begins with Dana and Kevin unpacking their suitcases at a new house on Dana's 26th birthday, until Dana passes out and wakes up to find herself near the Weylin plantation. It becomes clear to Dana and Kevin that the purpose of her time travel is to keep Rufus Weylin, who Dana discovers is her ancestor, safe in order to continue their lineage. Dana visits the Weylin Plantation approximately six times in the past, each time becoming more and more taxing and dangerous for Dana. Shortly after meeting Rufus, Dana meets Alice and discovers that she is the other half of his ancestry. Knowing this information, Dana goes to extremes to keep Rufus and Alice alive every time she travels to the past. Due to her role as Dana's ancestor, Alice becomes an extremely important character in Kindred as she represents a version of what Dana would be like if she were born in the past, a reflection of Dana herself, and a foil for Dana in the story. Octavia Butler carefully creates Alice Greenwood to be an incredibly vital character and a mirror of Dana Franklin, and therefore worthy of careful analysis. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Although Dana may not have been born in the early 1800s, she quickly adapted to the times and the customs that came with them. The antebellum South creates a sense of an alternate reality for Dana, and Alice, Dana's distant relative, slowly begins to represent what Dana would have been like if she had been born in that era. Besides the obvious similarities, such as their ethnicity and heritage, Dana and Alice are often compared. This can be seen when Rufus gets drunk and stumbles into Alice's cabin: "'Here's the woman,' he says. And he looked at us in turn. “You’re really just one woman.” Did you know?' » (Butler 228). Alice explains after he leaves that Rufus meant: “[he] loves me in bed, and you out of bed, and you and I are alike if you can believe what people say…. Either way, all this means is that we are two halves of the same woman…” (Majordome 228). This scene shows that Rufus sees them the same way, and that if Dana had been born at the same time and had been less educated, she could have found herself in the same situation as Alice. In the same sense, Dana and Alice can be invoked and compared to the same person. Alice represents a mirror image of Dana, less educated and from a more open-minded era, and in turn draws on Dana's character to make several important points about gender and race issues within by Kindred. The scene in which Dana considers Alice's future with Rufus and how she would come to conceive Dana's ancestor shows this concept greatly when Dana says, "Alice Greenwood. How would she marry this boy? Or would it be a marriage? And why didn't anyone in my family mention that Rufus Weylin was white? (Butler 28). By questioning his heritage and how he came to be, focusing solely on Alice and Rufus' mixed relationship, it demonstrates Dana's slight obsession with one member of her family being white, as her uncle had made when she presented the idea.