Dana and Rufus's Relationship

Kindred's ending surprised me, namely the part where Rufus tried to rape Dana. It was disturbing on so many levels that I had many mixed feelings. For one thing, I've always thought of Dana and Rufus's relationship as sort of a parental one. Dana meets Rufus for the first time when he's a child and saves him from drowning, just as a mother would save her child (unless it's Margaret Weylin, apparently....). Furthermore, the way Dana is always forgiving Rufus. No matter what he does, somehow, Dana is constantly forgiving him. This also struck me as a parent-child relationship because even if a kid does something wrong, the parents generally reprimands him/her and then eventually forgives the child. The way Rufus becomes rebellious and is quick to assert his authority over Dana also reminded me of the way teens become "rebellious" and constantly remind their parents of their independence.

So when Rufus tried to rape Dana, the whole parent-child relationship didn't seem to fit. In fact, as the book progressed, the dynamic between Rufus and Dana changed in such a way that Dana wasn't really sure what to make of Rufus. For example, when she has to tell Alice that Rufus wants her in his bedroom and Alice asks her what she would do, Dana says she wouldn't go. At this point, I wondered if she was just saying that because she wasn't in Alice's position and it was easy for her to say no. But of course, when this actually does happen to her, Dana follows through. Anyway, Rufus and Dana's relationship becomes a lot more about who has more control. Before, there was a sense that they both needed each other; Rufus needed Dana to keep him alive and vice versa, since Dana is a descendant of Rufus. Once Hagar is born, though, the balance shifts; Rufus is no longer in control because Dana doesn't need him anymore. She has secured her safety in that she will be born, regardless of whether she keeps Rufus alive or not. She knows this and isn't hesitant to remind him several times that she could just conveniently not save him the next time he gets into trouble.

So their relationship goes from a parent-child dynamic with fairly equal footing to unequal footing in Rufus's favor, then in Dana's favor, and finally, into the termination of the relationship altogether by Dana. A lot of this has to do with Alice. Upon her death, we see Rufus begin to lose it. The resemblance between Dana and Alice has been mentioned several times up until now, but at this point, Rufus remarks on it. He says that they are "two parts of a whole." Then, when he tries to rape her, it's as if he's seeing her as a replacement for Alice, since before, he had never seen Dana in this way. When Tom Weylin tells Rufus to take Dana instead of Alice, Rufus is miffed and says that Alice is the only one he wants. This is the very thing Dana told Alice she would refuse to do, and placed in the position, she asserts her control and kills Rufus. (N.B. Had Rufus raped Dana anyway, he would be having sex with his own great-great-granddaughter. Then what would their child be, anyway? It just violates all kinds of laws). The way the book ends up is perhaps the only way it could have ended: with Dana forcefully severing the relationship when Rufus was essentially trying to rope Dana into his world. Of course, she still has a reminder of that world--she's lost her arm--but Dana belongs in the twentieth century, so I think the ending makes sense.