A Relative Pain: The Rape of History in Octavia Butler's "Kindred" and Phyllis Alesia Perry's "Stigmata"

Lisa A. Long

doi:10.2307/3250747

College English Mar 2002

A Relative Pain: The Rape of History in Octavia Butler's "Kindred" and Phyllis Alesia Perry's "Stigmata"

Lisa A. Long

Abstract

frican American writers are still writing slave narratives. One hundred thirtynine years after emancipation, more than four decades after the Civil Rights movement, the experience of slavery, the costs of escape, and the pain of remembering still compel attention. Yet even as the racial realities of modern America press literary scholars, historians, filmmakers, and others to keep our dark national history fresh in our collective consciousness, the march of time makes our peculiar institution seem reassuringly distant to some, and less recoverable than ever. As we began the twentieth century, thousands of ex-slaves were still alive, many testifying to their experiences (albeit often in compromised ways) through public forums such as the Work Projects Administration interviews. As we enter the twentyfirst century, no survivors remain, and very few who have actually beheld or spoken to a former slave. An experiential and bodily connection to slavery has been lost. No one alive bears the physical scars of African American enslavement, those visible

Journal: College English
Published: 2002-03-01
DOI: 10.2307/3250747
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Open Access: Closed
Topics: race and writing
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A Relative Pain: The Rape of History in Octavia Butler's "Kindred" and Phyllis Alesia Perry's "Stigmata"

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