Rufus Weylin in Kindred Essay Example

“When parents neglect their responsibility to correctly discipline their children society suffers. The results are crimes and harm committed against others''. - Ellen J. barrie. Rufus is a slave owners son who is spirtually connected to the main character Dana (and her great grandfather) who is from 1976, when rufus finds him self in danger- Dana time travels back to the scene to where rufus is in trouble. Each time Dana travels back to the 1800s,  Rufus continues to grow as a human but he ultimately gets worse as a person. Rufus - young and misguided, has never been shown love in any other form beside anger, hate and being smothered. Rufus' relationship with his parents and the wrong image of love caused him to negatively impact those around him, what he thought was love was just another person's misfortune. Rufus' relationship with his parents was ultimately his downfall. That neglect and emotional abuse caused him to be confused with what real love is. When trying not to be his parents more so his father, he ended up inflicting that pain and trauma onto others. He just simply became the worst version of himself. 

As Dana began to constantly come in and out of his life he developed a dependence on her for her love and care. As he began to grow he didn't know how to correctly show love, with his dad Tom Weylin being a harsh slave owner he always had him as a image as what he is supposed to be. Growing up in the 1800s there was only a few paths you could take to adult hood, if you were black you were either a slave with no freedom or a free black with little freedom. Rufus being a slave owner’s son would mostly grow up to all he knows. He hated his father and feared him growing up, which caused him to act in rebellion against him for example in the fire rufus says “I wanted daddy to give me Nero- a horse I liked but he sold him to the Reverend Wyndham just because Reverend Wyndham offered a lot of money. Daddy already has a lot of money. Anyway, I got mad and burned down the stable''. This just showcases how whenever Rufus did not get what he wanted he would always resort to violence. Dana then says in a later line “The boy already knew more about revenge than I did. What kind of man was he going to grow up into?”. She in a way foreshadowed how he was going to grow up- an angry and violent man had she treated the certain things rufus said seriously she could have determined her own and others fate.  His father caused him to act in such violent ways which carried to his adulthood and he began acting violent towards others.  He then later learned to respect his father and channel his selfish ways as a slave owner and even calls him “fair” regardless of the cruel things he has done as he’s somewhat oblivious to that. As the story progresses we discover a new character Alice, she is introduced as Rufus’ friend and she is a free black who lived with her mother in a cabin. We later find out that Alice is Dana’s ancestor who gives birth to her grandmother hadger, making her Dana’s great grandmother.  As Rufus grows he starts to develop a love for Alice which he knows is forbidden, he loves her  however she doesn’t love him back and it drives him crazy. When Dana travels back to the 1800s for the fourth time (the fight) we come back to a much older Rufus at this point it is very uncertain if he will actually change, he's much older in his teen years and more hormonal. When we see him he is being beaten by a slave name Isaac who is revealed to be Alice's husband. The reason being that Rufus has tried to rape alice. Rufus has used his privilege and power of being a white man and slave owners son to rape alice to reclaim that power. He hates that he got rejected by a black woman and the shame is just too insufferable. He doesn’t know how to show Alice that he loves he just makes her miserable by the constant abuse and obsession. Rufus says, "Go to her. Send her to me. I'll have her whether you help or not. All I want you to do is fix it so I don't have to beat her. You're no friend of hers if you won't do that much!" It's very clear that Rufus doesn't actually feel bad but instead thinks Alice is at fault by refusing to give in. He knows he can do anything to get her and tries to get her love no matter what even if it means getting her love in a non authentic way by buying her. This was the only way she could truly belong to him by being treated as his possession. 

Rufus and Alice’s relationship had eventually developed to where they had two children Joe and Hadger. Alice was forced to have Rufus’ children and had zero respect or care for rufus. It was mentioned that the only time Alice had smiled with rufus was when hadger was born. He felt as though by her having his children that she would end up loving him. Rufus knew how much she cared about her children, he used this against her. Rufus wanted to put fear in Alice that would make her regret leaving him, he sent Joe and Hadger to his aunts in order to make Alice think that he sold them. Alice then killed herself because she felt as though she was nothing without her children. Rufus drove Alice to kill herself, he might not have hanged her but he gave the final push to end it all. This is where Rufus starts to figure out that he is a bad guy, as Dana blames him for her death.  Rufus says "Damn you, Dana! Stop saying that! Stop saying I killed her" (6.3.87), he knows what he has done he feels guilty but he’d never admit that he killed her. This was where we finally see him realize how his actions and attitude really affects others and even those that he loves. Finally we get to the most complex relationship in kindred, Rufus and Dana. Dana time traveled back to the 1800s each time to rescue Rufus he developed a dependence on her for her love and care. He obviously wasn’t being treated well by his father but his mother did truly love him, but what so so different about Dana love and his mothers love? The simple answer is that he actually had respect for Dana (very little) and saw her as a person with her own personal morals and values; he just sees his mother as a weak person. This relationship they had started to develop as Rufus got older and started to feel entitled. Each time Dana would try to leave he would beg her not to leave and when he was younger of course it was viewed as cute but when he got older you really start to see how possessive he was over her. He would do anything to prevent Dana from leaving, for example on page 180 (the fight) Rufus states, “ I wanted to keep you here,” he whispered. “Kevin hates this place. He would have taken you up North”. Rufus liked having Dana be dependent on him for the letters he liked being in control of her, if you love someone why would you try to keep them away from happiness?. Rufus progressively got more harsh with Dana, he threatened to shoot kevin if she left him, he sent her to the field because he was angry about his fathers death, but finally Dana realized he was never going to change. After Alice kills herself and he expresses some sort of regret, it would have been possible for him to change but he never did. He tries to rape Dana in the end going to his last resort: violence, he so bad wants to keep Dana with him so he tries to rape her, but it just led to his own death. 

What could anyone have done? He was going down that path no matter what anyone did, it funny because Dana only wanted the best for him, but the more caring and considerate she had been the worse he got.