The Essential Time Traveling

I really think that the time travel aspect of Kindred is important for two reasons: it allows the narrator--Dana--to tell the story from a modern perspective, and it allows for jumps in time.  The modern perspective of the narrator is important because we, the readers, are reading it in a modern time.  The perspective is not distancing because we can understand what Dana is going through. It is better than if the story was written from an actual slave's perspective.  The whole situation is foreign to Dana just as it is foreign to any current reader.

The second aspect that the technique of time travel allows for is a jump in time. Through the use of time travel Dana only ever arrives in the past at pivotal moments.  She doesn't age herself because hardly anytime passes in her current time.  She is getting a crash course of American history.  She sees Rufus grow up within one year of her own actual time.  This allows her to see how prejudice is something that is learned.  When Rufus is young he is willing to listen to Dana.  For example, after Rufus starts his curtains on fire Dana asks him to refer to her as a black woman instead of the derogatory term of "nigger."  However, as Dana returns in future dates it becomes harder and harder for Dana to get through to Rufus as he becomes set in the prejudicial mindset.  It becomes more of a battle of wills between the two.