Dana's Dilemma

Throughout the whole book, we see that Dana has this huge internal conflict with herself. She has to decide between making a morally correct choice, and the preservation of her own life. As an African-American woman who has lived in a time of freedom, it must be incredibly hard living in the pre-civil war era. She is constantly stuck with a choice between playing nice with white people, and appealing to the slaves. On one hand, if she takes and stand with the people of her own race, she risks her very own life. However, if she constant sucks up to the slave owners and become complicit in the various tortures that slave go through, she will be going against her own morals. This has lead a huge dilemma that Dana faces.

As a person living far past the end of the civil war, it must be hard watching people suffer. She must find it incredibly repulsing to have to negotiate with Rufus and his actions towards Alice. She is given the option to either be complicit in Rufus’s desire to rape Alice, or take a stand against him, and risk getting beaten. Morally, there is an obvious choice here. It is preventing the rape of a fellow human being. However, that action has its consequences. As seen in the scene where Rufus tries to convince Dana to help him rape Alice, Rufus is prone to this seemingly bipolar disorder. At the flip of a switch, he can turn from a demur individual to a raging bully. He yells “You talk to her- talk some sense into her or you’re going to watch while Jake Edwards beats some sense into her!” (Butler 163). Dana is at risk of getting whipped for her actions. However, for me, if I were in Dana’s place, I might still defy Rufus. I might even so far as to kill Rufus. It seems to me that despite Dana’s best efforts, Rufus is just going to end up being another terrible human being. However, this course of action leads to another problem. Since Dana is a time traveler, things are somewhat complicated. We know that Rufus and Alice eventually give birth to one of Dana’s ancestors. Simply killing Rufus might end up creating a paradox, and it might erase Dana’s existence. This leads to a huge moral quandary. Should Dana allow Rufus to rape Alice so that she can continue to survive? Or should she put a stop to it, and deliver justice to a would-be rapist? As readers, what would you do if you were in Dana’s shoes?