Character Clues

Character Analysis

Actions

Actions speak a lot louder than words in this book. Rufus, for example, likes to talk about how nice he is. But when push comes to shove his actions don't back up this statement at all. Rufus tries to rape Alice and then asks Dana to put in a good word for him when he fails. Plus he causes Alice's suicide after he tells her he's sold her children to a slave trader. Yet, through all this, Rufus refuses to believe he's a bad guy. He assumes that women should immediately forgive him when he's done something wrong because that's the way his mother always treated him. Dana tries her best to turn Rufus into a better guy. But in the end she just gives up and stabs him. That kind of action will tell you a little something about Dana, too.

Family Life

Rufus' family life isn't all that great. The kid pretty much spends his entire childhood volleying between the crushing affection of his mother and the stern harshness of his father. And no, the two extremes don't balance each other out. In fact, they turn Rufus into a really volatile dude. His father basically teaches him to be hard on people. His mother teaches him to always expect people to forgive him and make him feel good. And combined with the slave-owning society he grows up in, Rufus' family life is a major reason why Rufus grows up to be such a jerk.

Food

Dana makes a point of reminding us on several occasions about the eating situation at the Weylin plantation. It goes something like this: the Weylins eat beautiful and nourishing meals while the slaves eat some sort of gruel in a separate cookhouse. On lucky nights, the slaves get a crack at the Weylins' leftovers. Rufus likes it when Dana eats with him at his bedside, yet he's also cautious about the fact that his dad would lose it if he saw Rufus eating in the same room as a black person. There are many ways that the white people in this book police their boundaries with black people, and food is a super-important boundary.

Location

It's fair to say that location has a lot to do with shaping the characters in this book. It's especially fair to say this when the two major locations are 1976 California and 1815 Maryland. We'll go with the obvious and say that slavery doesn't exist in 1976 California. Dana is a product of the modern world and Rufus Weylin is a product of southern, slave-owning society. Rufus treats people (and especially women) like personal property while Dana speaks her mind and insists on being treated as an equal. But you can even see the difference location can make by the change that happens to Dana once she's in Maryland for long enough. Eventually, she learns to act like a slave just to avoid being whipped. This change tells us a lot about her and a lot about how much you surroundings can mold who you are.

Occupation

Rufus Weylin grows up to become a plantation owner with over a dozen slaves. And among all the jobs out there that can tell you a lot about a person, slave-owner must be right up there. As you might expect, Rufus learns to treat other human beings like private property that he can use whatever way he wants. His major frustration comes from the fact that he also wants these slaves to like him and to think he's a good person. This inner conflict is what pushes Rufus to do a lot of bad stuff. Meanwhile, Dana and Kevin are both writers, which helps explain why they're both so thoughtful about their situation and about all the moral issues they face when they travel back in time.