While reading and discussing Libra, I thought that Lee had very similar characteristics to Forrest Gump. Primarily regarding Lee’s tendency to be on the sidelines of major historical occurrences. Whether intentionally or not, Lee is seemingly observing monumental moments in history similar to how Forrest Gump finds himself observing the critical historical moments of his time period. We see Lee traveling to the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and helping interrogate the downed U2 pilot during the international crisis. He positions himself in anti-castro organizations and hands out political leaflets. In many ways we see Lee’s desire to be remembered and align himself in the broader arc of his historical time period. Viewing his own detainment as signs that he is a political revolutionist, Lee is almost always attempting to merge his identity with that of the world around him. We see Forrest Gump do this as well. He finds himself fighting in the Vietnam War, accidentally vi...
Kevin’s character in Kindred was basic. He enters the 19th century as a normal white male from the 1970s. As he is forced to ‘role play’ with Dana into the roles of slavery, Olivia Butler begins to drop hints that he is beginning to internalize the world of slavery. He begins to talk about how the Weylin plantation is not that bad, having had only one whipping. He claims that things around the house “just gets done.” With all these hints that Kevin was beginning to internalize the dynamics of the 19th century, we see no further development of this. Kevin escapes to the north and helps the underground railroad, and when he meets Dana again his morals and thoughts are relatively unchanged. Personally, I think Kevin's character in Kindred was two one-dimensional. The way Kevin is maintained as a non-racist, 1970s man makes his involvement in the story unimportant. I think Kevin could have had a valuable experience having gone to the 19th century as a white man, similar to Dan...