Human Condition
Dana soon learns that the harsh reality of slavery is far more horrifying than its representation in books, movies, and TV shows. Before her journey to the past, Dana referred to the temp agency where she worked as a "slave market," even though "the people who ran it couldn't have cared less whether or not you showed up to do the work they offered."

This proves to be a stark contrast to life on the Weylin plantation, where a slave who visits his wife without his master's permission is savagely whipped. A more agonizing realization for Dana is how this brutal treatment crushes the spirit. "Slavery of any kind fostered strange relationships," she observes, noting that all the slaves share a peculiar mix of fear, contempt, and affection toward Rufus, just as she does.

Initially, she struggles to understand Sarah's patience with a master who sold three of her children. Similarly, she notes that Isaac Greenwood "was like Sarah, holding himself back, not killing despite anger I could only imagine. A lifetime of conditioning could be overcome, but not easily."

After being beaten following an escape attempt, Dana is plagued by doubts about her own resilience: "Why was I so frightened now—frightened sick at the thought that sooner or later, I would have to run again? … I tried to get away from my thoughts, but they still came. See how easily slaves are made? they said."

Ultimately, Dana understands that she cannot accept slavery, even to a man who might not physically harm her. "A slave was a slave. Anything could be done to her," Dana reflects as she plunges the knife into Rufus' side.

Choices and Consequences
Dana's journeys into the past are driven by the need to survive. She feels compelled to save Rufus not just to ensure his survival but also that of her entire family. Despite her modern education, Dana questions whether she has the strength and endurance of her ancestors: "To survive, my ancestors had to put up with more than I ever could," she confides to Kevin.

During her second trip to the past, her squeamishness prevents her from defending herself against a patroller. However, the next time, she is prepared to inflict harm to escape: "I could do it now. I could do anything." She finds it ironic that her role is to protect a white man: "I was the worst possible guardian for him—a black to watch over him in a society that considered blacks subhuman, a woman to watch over him in a society that considered women perennial children."

Despite her doubts, she manages to save Rufus on multiple occasions and learns valuable survival skills along the way. By listening to the field hands in the cookhouse and observing the other house slaves, she gathers crucial information: "Without knowing it, they prepared me to survive."

The instinct to survive is incredibly powerful, and for slaves, this often means making excruciating decisions. "Mama said she'd rather be dead than be a slave," Alice remembers, but Dana disagrees: "Better to stay alive.… At least while there's a chance to get free." Believing her survival odds improve by befriending the Weylins, she adopts the role of a slave during her time on the plantation. As long as this decision remains hers and she retains some control over her life, she finds she can endure more than she ever thought possible.

However, accepting this role requires Dana to make some very difficult decisions. For example, she persuades Alice to sleep with Rufus willingly to spare her another beating. Dana becomes a quiet and obedient worker, even though this makes the other slaves view her with suspicion. As she tells Sam, the field hands, "aren't the only ones who have to do things they don't like to stay alive and whole." It is only when Rufus tries to strip away the last bit of control she has—control over her body—that Dana decides to kill him.

Appearances and Reality
The bizarre nature of their time travels forces Dana and Kevin to question how much their perceptions align with reality. When Dana returns from her first journey, Kevin struggles to accept her explanation of where she has been. Yet he has no alternative explanation for her sudden disappearance. "I know what I saw, and what I did—my facts," Dana tells him. "They're no crazier than yours."

After Dana's second trip, however, Kevin concedes, "I wouldn't dare act as though I didn't believe. After all, when you vanish from here, you must go someplace." Even though he finally gets proof by accompanying Dana on one of these trips, his point remains: to communicate with others, you sometimes need to accept their perceptions of reality—no matter how strange—as valid.

While Dana and Kevin live together in the past, they discover another facet of the connection between appearances and reality: sometimes when you pretend, it starts to feel real. Initially, Dana is merely "pretending" to be a slave, someone who sleeps with her master because she has no choice. Even though she knows deep down that she and Kevin are married equals, she still feels uneasy when she sneaks into his room: "I felt almost as though I really was doing something shameful, happily playing whore for my supposed owner."

Eventually, she realizes she cannot remain just a modern observer playing the "role" of a slave. She becomes involved: she quietly teaches Nigel to read, befriends Carrie and Alice, and plans her escape after being beaten. Ultimately, she cannot fully accept the reality of life as a slave and leaves the past by killing Rufus.

Difference
Living as a modern woman in the past, Dana's experiences and viewpoints starkly contrast with those around her. This inevitably makes her feel isolated and out of place. Ironically, it might be this mutual sense of alienation that draws her to others. When she contemplates why she is pulled back in time to save Rufus, she realizes that their blood connection doesn't fully explain it: "What we had was something new, something that didn't even have a name. Some matching strangeness in us that may or may not have come from being related."

Her bond with Kevin is founded on a similar feeling of shared difference. Upon their initial meeting, Dana perceives him as being "as lonely and out of place as I was." As she gets to know him better, she recognizes that this shared loneliness makes him "like me—a kindred spirit crazy enough to keep on trying." On the plantation, Dana's closest companions are those who also feel alienated from the slave community: Carrie due to her muteness, and Alice because of her position as Rufus' mistress.

Even after returning home, Dana and Kevin continue to feel out of place, taking some time to readjust to the twentieth century. However, this shared sense of alienation strengthens their bond: "It was easy for us to be together, knowing we shared experiences no one else would believe."

In the final episode of Dana's time-traveling journey between antebellum Maryland and 1970s Los Angeles, her arm becomes trapped in the wall of her home. This moment symbolizes how we are ensnared by history, with no means of escape. Some of us do not even survive these historical traumas, which can be seen as an even worse fate than amputation. In essence, history mutilates us.

Conversely, history also fuels us with an energy that manifests as desire and anger, guiding and empowering our lives. For those who inherit the legacy of American slavery, the repercussions of this painful social condition permeate our existence and shape us, regardless of our racial identity, but particularly for African-American and Caucasian individuals.

The destructive impacts of America's slave system are issues that every generation of Americans must address. These effects are enduring and cannot be erased. The pressing question is whether it is possible to prevent the repetition of these crimes, given that many people still seek to perpetuate them. Some individuals continue to commit such acts, aiming, for instance, to keep a significant portion of the world's population in slavery—a goal inherent in all determined forms of capitalism. Additionally, it is particularly frustrating that, even in the late twentieth century, women still do not enjoy equality with men.

Butler’s portrayal of the two main characters, Dana and Rufus, conveys many of the novel’s complex themes. The depth of the characterizations is contingent upon the narrative technique: By making Dana the first-person narrator, Butler makes readers not only understand but also empathize with her psychological and physical dilemmas as she lives in the slavery era. Moreover, the empathy that Dana has for the slaves marks her narration, enhancing readers’ knowledge of the brutality they suffered.

One of Kindred’s central themes is the role of environment in shaping people’s attitudes and personalities. Moreover, Butler makes clear her belief that environment and training shape one’s self-image and, thus, one’s feelings toward one’s own and others’ power or powerlessness. Butler’s principal concern regarding these themes is the development and acceptance of racism. Similar to the main plot of Mark Twain’s The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson (1894), these themes are enacted in Rufus’s development, for Dana realizes that from childhood Rufus is being steadily trained to assume both his position as master and the related racist attitudes and behaviors. Kevin sums up this theme when he discusses Dana’s hopes to prevent Rufus from becoming more racist as he grows up:After all, his environment will be influencing him every day you’re gone. And from what I’ve heard, it’s common in this time for the master’s children to be on nearly equal terms with the slaves. But maturity is supposed to put both in their “places.”

Another central theme is the relation of both race and gender roles to privilege and power. This theme is especially striking when one compares Rufus’s and Kevin’s experiences with Dana’s and Alice’s. Rufus asserts more and more boldly that racial superiority and abuse of African Americans, including his sexual abuse of Alice, are a part of his power and privilege as a white man. In comparison, Kevin’s initial belief that it would be fun to live during the slavery era shows the racial naïveté and insensitivity afforded by his position as a white man who has lived free from oppression. In contrast, Butler portrays the sexism, sexual exploitation, and abuse that are symbolized especially by Alice’s treatment at the hands of Rufus. Factors of race and gender are central to the oppression and exploitation Dana experiences, again mostly at the hands of Rufus.

Thus, while Butler does not underestimate mistreatment and exploitation of African American males, Dana’s experiences in the antebellum South particularly make clear that the gender and racial privilege enjoyed by such vastly different white men as Rufus and Kevin negatively affects both the characters of these men and the lives of African American women.