indulges Rufus. Like her husband, she is abusive to the house slaves. She leaves for a long period after her infant twins die and returns with an opium addiction. Hagar Weylin: Rufus and Alice's youngest daughter. Hagar is a direct ancestor through Dana's maternal line. Luke: A slave at the Weylin plantation and Nigel's father. Luke works as Weylin's overseer until Weylin sells him for not being sufficiently obedient. Nigel: The son of Luke and an enslaved woman at the Weylin Plantation. As a small boy, he is also Rufus's playmate. Dana secretly teaches him to read and write. When older, he tries to flee, but is captured; when back on the plantation, he forms a family with Sarah's daughter, Carrie. Carrie: Sarah's daughter and Nigel's wife. Although Carrie is mute, she helps Dana find the strength for the hard compromises she must make to survive. Liza: An enslaved woman jealous of Dana's getting special treatment by the Weylins, she snitches on Dana when she runs away, causing her to get caught and whipped. Tess: An enslaved woman used as a sexual slave by Tom Weylin. Jake Edwards: One of the white overseers of the Weylin plantation, who also uses Tess sexually. Main themes Realistic depiction of slavery and slave communities Kindred was written to explore how a modern black woman would deal with a slave society, where most black people were considered property, a world where "all of society was arrayed against you." During an interview, Butler said that, while she read slave narratives for background, she believed that if she wanted people to read her book, she would have to present a less violent version of slavery than found in these accounts. Scholars of Kindred consider the novel an accurate, fictional account of slave experiences. Concluding that "there probably is no more vivid depiction of life on an Eastern Shore plantation than that found in Kindred," Sandra Y. Govan traces how Butler's book follows the classic patterns of the slave narrative genre: loss of innocence, harsh punishment, strategies of resistance, life in the slave quarters, struggle for education, experience of sexual abuse, realization of white religious hypocrisy, and attempts to escape, with ultimate success. Robert Crossley notes that Butler's intense first-person narration deliberately echoes many slave narratives, thereby giving the story "a degree of authenticity and seriousness." Lisa Yaszek sees Dana's visceral first-hand account as a deliberate criticism