Better Slaveowner, Worse Person, Rufe's Paradox

Introduction

When we first meet Rufus Weylin as an adult slave owner in Octavia Butler's Kindred, it's tempting to measure his cruelty against his father's and call it progress. Rufus doesn't seem to go out of his way to brutalize his slaves the way Tom Weylin did. He protects some of them, even calls them friends. But this apparent improvement reveals something far more disturbing. Rufus is a "better" slave owner than his father, but he's ultimately a worse person. This paradox shows us both the success and the failure of Dana's influence on him, and it forces us to ask an uncomfortable question: what does it mean to be a "better" slave owner when you understand your slaves are fully human?

Tom Weylin's cruelty is impersonal and consistent. He brutalizes his slaves, seeing them as property that needs to be controlled through fear and violence. Rufus is different. He doesn't physically punish most of his slaves as frequently. He protects certain slaves, like when he prevents his father from selling Nigel. He treats some slaves as friends or at least as people rather than pure property.

But the systemic cruelty continues. The field slaves still suffer under the overseer. The work is still grueling. Rufus may be less personally cruel in some ways, but he still runs a plantation built on human suffering.

Where Dana Comes In

Over Dana's longest stay of eight months, Rufus only physically abuses one person among the named characters she's close to: Alice. Despite her relationships with Nigel, Carrie, and Sarah, Dana doesn't witness Rufus whipping or beating any of them. And this isn't because Dana has become desensitized. She still reacts strongly when Rufus sells Sam and Tess. She's grown closer to Nigel, Carrie, and Sarah, and she would absolutely notice and mention if Rufus abused them.

Rufus's relationship with Nigel shows this most clearly. He treats Nigel as a friend and as a human being. They were raised together, and Rufus protects him from being sold.

Rufus' Relationships

Here's where things get disturbing. Rufus's worst cruelty doesn't come from seeing slaves as property. It comes from seeing them as human beings whose feelings he can manipulate and whose suffering he causes while fully understanding what he's doing.

His treatment of Alice is the most horrifying example. Rufus doesn't treat Alice as mere property. He treats her as someone he "loves," someone he's in a relationship with. But this is actually worse than simple ownership. It's a twisted, abusive relationship where Rufus has all the power and Alice has none. He uses psychological manipulation alongside physical violence. He understands her feelings well enough to hurt her in the most painful ways possible.

The comparison to modern domestic abuse is unavoidable. Rufus's treatment of Alice has all the elements: manipulation, violence, possessiveness, cycles of harm and false tenderness. But it's domestic abuse with an absolute power imbalance and zero protections for the victim. His "love" directly causes immense suffering, and he causes it while fully understanding Alice's humanity.

Dana gets caught in this same dynamic. And Sam gets sold for the crime of talking to Dana. Rufus punishes people not for breaking plantation rules, but for getting in the way of his possessive "love."

Rufus can be more cruel than his father precisely because he sees slaves as people with feelings he can manipulate and hurt. His father's cruelty was terrible but impersonal. Rufus's cruelty is personal and calculated.

Conclusion

When I first finished Kindred, I thought Dana's influence on Rufus had completely failed. But the situation is more complicated. Dana absolutely pushed Rufus in the right direction. He's less casually cruel than Tom Weylin to most slaves. He forms genuine human connections with Nigel. He doesn't go out of his way to punish slaves outside his twisted emotional entanglements.

The problem is that Rufus's recognition of slaves' humanity gets corrupted by the absolute power he has over them. He has all the power with no checks on it. So he takes the humanity Dana taught him to see and turns it into something poisonous. He turns it into possessive, abusive "love." He uses his understanding of people's feelings to manipulate them more effectively.

Dana influenced him. She succeeded in teaching him that slaves are people. But she couldn't save him from what power does to someone who sees others as human yet still owns them.