59 pages 1 hour read

Octavia E. Butler

Kindred

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1979

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Chapter 5-EpilogueChapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 5 Summary: “The Storm”

Content Warning: The Chapter 6 Summary of this section includes depictions of sexual assault and death by suicide.



When Kevin and Dana arrive home, Kevin has a slight accent and trouble readjusting to life in 1976. He also reveals that he helped enslaved people escape in the past. That same day, Dana travels back to Rufus alone. She arrives during a storm to find Rufus drunk and unconscious in a puddle. It has been six years since she was there last.

Tom Weylin commands her to continue saving Rufus’s life, and Dana responds by demanding he treat her fairly. Dana helps Rufus recover from what she believes is malaria but later learns is dengue fever. Dana learns Alice has lost two of Rufus’s children due to the plantation doctor’s incompetence, but one child named Joe survived. Later, Tom Weylin has a heart attack, and despite Dana’s CPR, he dies. Rufus blames Dana and punishes her by sending her to work the fields under the cruel new overseer, Evan Fowler. Margaret Weylin returns to the plantation and requests Dana to care for her. Margaret is addicted to laudanum and has mellowed in her harsh treatment of Dana. The other enslaved people despise Dana because they consider her a traitor for being so intimate with the Weylins.

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