Dana and Rufus officially have the most complicated relationship in history. The competition is over, folks. I've given up trying to characterize it because it changes throughout the book. But, adding a level of complication to that, while the transitions in their relationship must seem gradual and organic to Rufus, Dana probably has whiplash, trying to understand the child she met a few days ago as the adult standing in front of her.
On the one hand, one of the first things we learn about Rufus is that he's her ancestor, her great great [ad continuum] grandfather. Which makes the mother figure role she starts to occupy funny; the family tree actually goes the other way around. It makes sense that Rufus sees her this way: she shows up when he's in trouble, she reads to him, she takes care of him when he is sick. She even chides him the way a mother might, gently correcting him when he is a child. Obviously the situation cannot be read straight this way; Rufus sees Dana as racially inferior and occasionally tells her what to do in a way (I hope) most of us never do to our moms, but I think the evidence is there. For example, Margaret actually gets jealous of Dana when Rufus clearly prefers her reading.
The older Rufus gets, though, the less I see this mother-child dynamic. I suppose this makes sense as Rufus and Dana no longer have very disparate ages, but I am still SUPER creeped out by what this dynamic is being replaced with. Rufus, especially after the death of Tom Weylin, starts to see Dana as a wife figure. To where we have read he doesn't seem interested in "consummating" this "marriage", thank God, but rather he sees her as his "emotional" wife and Alice as his "physical" one. This idea is discussed by Dana explicitly after he calls them two halves of the same woman. If their physical appearances have maintained as similar as they were described early in the book, I would imagine this would be an even easier view to have. Its as if Rufus replaces the mutual wanting and loving he wanted with Alice, with Dana, who does actually love him in some way. He even tries to separate her from her real husband, Kevin, by refusing to mail Dana's letters to him.
It is difficult to picture all of these types of relating with another person into one relationship. Admittedly, its probably easier for Rufus. He doesn't know Dana is his own kin. He doesn't think of Dana as someone he grew up knowing, as she constantly disappeared for years on end. But from Dana's perspective, Rufus shares her gene pool and was a young child like two months ago. Ick.
I think this says more about how complicated long term time travel makes relationships than anything else. Additionally, it may say something about a culture in which a man's relationship with his mother might be similar in nature to that with his wife and that with his slave. All of a slave master's relationships are equally one sided and based in control. Maybe that's why Rufus doesn't find any of this as uncomfortable as I do.
It does seem like a fair point to concede that Rufus never gets that Dana is literally his ancestor, so the incestuous aspect of their relationship can't be something he's aware of. But you're right that Dana is *like* a mother to him, someone he first met as a very young boy, who cares for him, saves him and cleans him up, and comes when he calls. And this relationship slowly morphs from "he'd *never* . . ." to "he's actually trying it!"
ReplyDeleteIt's possible to see Rufus as deranged by grief (compounded by alcohol) in that final scene, where he fatally crosses the line. As with so much when we find ourselves "defending" Rufus, I want to offer the usual range of qualifiers--his attempted rape of Dana is inexcusable, and her self-defense is justified. His feelings about Dana here are as confused as his feelings for Alice, I'd say.
But even more disturbing, for me, is the way Dana briefly considers just letting him go through with the rape--"it would be easy to forgive him even this." And she's fully aware of the incestuous aspect. In fact, I'd say that her sense of maternal feeling for him is partly what (twistedly) allows her to be so forgiving, even to the very end.