Human Condition As Dana soon discovers, the reality of slavery is even more disturbing than its depiction in books, films, and television programs. Before her trip down memory lane, Dana had called the temp agency where she worked a "slave market," even though "the people who ran it didn't care if you showed up to do the job or not." work they offered you.” proves to be an ironic contrast to life on the Weylin plantation, where a slave who visits his wife without his master's permission is brutally whipped. Dana realizes perhaps even more painfully how this cruel treatment oppresses her spirit. “Slavery of any kind fostered strange relationships,” she notes, as all slaves feel the same strange combination of fear, contempt, and affection toward Rufus as she does. At first, she has difficulty understanding Sarah's patience with a master who sold her. three of his children. Similarly, she observes that Isaac Greenwood "was like Sarah, holding back, not killing despite an anger I could only imagine. A lifetime of conditioning could be overcome, but not easily." "After being beaten following her attempt to escape, however, Dana is tormented by doubts about her own resistance: "Why was I so afraid now, so afraid that sooner or later I would have to report to again? ...I tried to push away the thoughts, but they kept coming back. See how easily slaves are made? Ultimately, however, Dana realizes she can't. not bring herself to accept slavery, even to a man who would not physically harm her. "A slave was a slave. We could do anything to him," Dana thinks as she plunges the knife into Rufus' side. Choices and Consequences The whole reason behind Dana's trip to the middle of paper... something that didn't happen. even have a name. Some corresponding strangeness in us that may or may not come from being related. "Her relationship with Kevin is based on a similar sense of shared difference. When they first met, Dana thinks he "was as alone and displaced as I was." As she gets to know him, she understands that this loneliness makes him “like me, a kindred spirit crazy enough to keep trying.” On the plantation, Dana's closest friends are people equally distant from the slave community: Carrie because of her muteness and Alice. because of her role as Rufus' mistress, returning home does not cure Dana and Kevin of feeling out of place; it takes them some time to readjust to the twentieth century; alienation brings them closer together: "It was easy for us to be together, knowing that we shared experiences that no one else would believe.."