Yay! I'm done!

So it all has a relatively happy ending - Dana slays the evil slave owner. I figured she would, just not like this. In the chapter, "The Fire", when she was still new to that age, Dana used violence stricktly for survival . After being tackled and beaten by a man, she was perfectly capable of defending herself against him - and she did, eventually: "In that instant, I knew I could... destroy him...The thought sickened me, froze my hands where they were... My chance was gone, and I'd done nothing" (pg. 42). She settles for simply incapacitating him.

But what I'd found interesting was that when faced with death, when the decision of whether to dipose of her attacker or not could not be dwelled on, Dana had some trouble. But later, when Rufus tried to rape her, and immediate survival was not the issue, she had no problem with making the decision to end his life. (I'm not saying I wouldn't either, but one could argue that Dana has been bumped down a peg, ethically.) Maybe she was still really peeved at all the other stuff he did...

Kindred was a good read, but not nearly as good as Beloved, by Toni Morrison. Seriously guys, that book is intense.