Are we better people?
Butler writes Rufus such that the reader could feel sympathy for him, despite his rape of Alice. Rufus is unfortunate to live in a time in which it is not appropriate for a white man to love a black woman.
However, if we imagine a parallel case in which Alice and Rufus grew up in the current day, Rufus would still face the same problems that he did before. Rufus' insane and unrequited love of Alice and Dana is his problem, and that wouldn't change even if he were born after slavery were abolished. It is only that in the time of slavery Rufus is able to get part of what he wants by raping Alice, thus causing Alice unimaginable suffering, which would not be allowed today. There is no reason to believe either that Rufus wouldn't have his insane love or Alice would love Rufus if the environment were changed, only that the way Rufus acts on that love would different in that different environment. If we were to believe Rufus to be a terrible person in the past, and his core personality wouldn't be different if he lived in the current day, he would be a similarly terrible person today. Or is it that a person isn't judged by their character, but instead by their actions?
It seems that if we follow the logic through to it's conclusion, a change in environment would not change the character of a person, but rather change the actions that they would take. In other words, we have not become better people because we are fundamentally different from those who lived in years past, but rather because our society only allows us to act in ways that are not to the detriment of the others who live with us.
Edit: after reading through the comments, I realize that much of my claim rests on the assumption that if Rufus grew up in the current day, the strength of his feelings of love would not change. But there is no reason for that assumption to be the case. The extent to which our character is determined by our environment may be large or small, but either way I don't know how much that is, so my claim that "a change in environment would not change the character of a person" is at best unfounded, and at worst completely incorrect. That was pretty stupid of me. Anyways, thanks for the great comments!
However, if we imagine a parallel case in which Alice and Rufus grew up in the current day, Rufus would still face the same problems that he did before. Rufus' insane and unrequited love of Alice and Dana is his problem, and that wouldn't change even if he were born after slavery were abolished. It is only that in the time of slavery Rufus is able to get part of what he wants by raping Alice, thus causing Alice unimaginable suffering, which would not be allowed today. There is no reason to believe either that Rufus wouldn't have his insane love or Alice would love Rufus if the environment were changed, only that the way Rufus acts on that love would different in that different environment. If we were to believe Rufus to be a terrible person in the past, and his core personality wouldn't be different if he lived in the current day, he would be a similarly terrible person today. Or is it that a person isn't judged by their character, but instead by their actions?
It seems that if we follow the logic through to it's conclusion, a change in environment would not change the character of a person, but rather change the actions that they would take. In other words, we have not become better people because we are fundamentally different from those who lived in years past, but rather because our society only allows us to act in ways that are not to the detriment of the others who live with us.
Edit: after reading through the comments, I realize that much of my claim rests on the assumption that if Rufus grew up in the current day, the strength of his feelings of love would not change. But there is no reason for that assumption to be the case. The extent to which our character is determined by our environment may be large or small, but either way I don't know how much that is, so my claim that "a change in environment would not change the character of a person" is at best unfounded, and at worst completely incorrect. That was pretty stupid of me. Anyways, thanks for the great comments!
I think I agree with you to some extent because I think that the book's treatment of Rufus' love as 'a love which is impossible given the time period' sort of takes away from the real reason their love should be impossible - because Alice does NOT love him back. It's not like if it was the present day Rufus would not have these same problems. Sure, a relationship between Rufus and Alice would *technically* be possible, but Alice still wouldn't love him back. Obviously though, the time period is what impacts Rufus' actions, because in a time where rape is no longer normalized, and women (especially black women) are far more respected in comparison, we don't know that Rufus would have behaved in the same way. This begs the question, is Rufus an inherently bad person who thinks that raping women is okay, or is he a product of his time period, and I think it's probably the latter ( though this doesn't excuse his actions at all).
ReplyDeleteI think that there are two ways to look at Rufus- either his defining characteristic is "love" for Alice, as you claim, or his defining characteristic is his assumption of his own superiority over black people, and his sense of entitlement that leads him to believe that Alice and Dana "belong" to him and he deserves their love. In my opinion the second view is more accurate -- yes, he does think he "loves" Alice, but what he thinks is "love" isn't anything that we would recognize as a healthy or natural love -- it's instead a result of how he feels entitled to Alice. He doesn't "love" her as a person but as an object. His "love" for Dana is no different -- he feels entitled to her affection. In this characterization of Rufus, I think your analysis is flawed. One of the fundamental truths this book tries to reveal is how a diseased situation like the past Rufus occupies leaves its (literal and figurative) mark on everyone -- and in Rufus's case, this "mark" is his deeply-held belief that he is entitled to Alice, a "mark" so strong that it essentially defines him. In this sense, Rufus's twisted moral compass isn't a result of who he is as a person -- rather, it is an illustration of how a diseased circumstance can twist a normal person into a terrible one. In contrast to your claim that "a change in environment would not change the character of a person," I think that the entire point of the novel is that a bad environment absolutely *can* change the character of a person -- it can twist the emotion that almost everyone would agree is positive, love, into just another expression of Rufus's perverse sense of entitlement towards other human beings.
ReplyDeleteI think for me I would think of it as, yes, we have evolved as people to an extent. Because what you're getting at is that the only difference in modern times would be that Alice wouldn't be raped by Rufus, but that his character would still be the same. But I think that assumes that we have an inherent character. Like who we are and how we think is immensely shaped by the environment, and therefore whether there was still unrequited love, in modern day the thought of raping Alice might not cross Rufus' mind, and it probably wouldn't cross it in terms of "Alice is a slave and I can do whatever I want, it is morally alright for me to do this". I think that it's true that our environment changes who we are and we're still people--biologically the same--which means that if we went back in time who's to say we wouldn't get immersed in that culture and act the way they do. However, the progress that we have made as people is not biological, it is that we have made certain ways of thinking about things much less valid, and therefore changed the way that people conceptualize things like rape and ownership of people. Which is progress
ReplyDeleteI think this is basically the point of laws and society- if given the opportunity, Rufus and his type would rape women like Alice all they wanted, and this isn't due to any specific irregularity in him, it's due to the permissiveness of the society around him. As we become aware of human nature and the more problematic aspects of it, it becomes necessary to legislate against certain things, as they're basically the only means by which to either a. prevent it or b. provide recourse to victims. People will probably always experience obsessive love and try to rape others to some extent, but as a society we've basically come to the agreement that that's a bad move, so we've done various things to try and reduce it.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I would caution against the assumption that Rufus would feel the same for Alice in the present day; there are so many variables to consider. Perhaps, without the constant feedback that, as a white man, he is entitled to the bodies of black women, things would be very different indeed. The relationship of Rufus and Alice could've looked like Dana and Kevin, and the relationship between Dana and Kevin could've looked like Rufus and Alice- it all depends on what's going around them.