Kindred: The Storm, The Rope, and Epilogue

by Octavia Butler
An acclaimed science-fiction classic, Kindred tells the story of Dana, an African-American woman in 1970s California who time-travels to the American South before the Civil War.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Prologue, The River, and The Fire; The Fall; The Fight; The Storm, The Rope, and Epilogue
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. extravagant
    recklessly wasteful
    ...Weylin was surprisingly extravagant with his candles and oil.
  2. stark
    severely simple
    That was a stark, powerful reality that the gentle conveniences and luxuries of this house, of now, could not touch.
  3. plantation
    an estate where cash crops are grown on a large scale
    There was a woman on Weylin’s plantation whose former master had cut three fingers from her right hand when he caught her writing.
  4. mob
    a disorderly crowd of people
    Around that time, I was accused of helping slaves to escape. I barely got out ahead of the mob.
  5. harrowing
    causing extreme distress
    When he did, it was always harrowing.
  6. scrawny
    being very thin
    I realized then, though, that if he ever hit me again, I would break his scrawny neck.
  7. flay
    strip the skin off
    “Go to Rufus. Take care of him. If anything happens to him, I’ll flay you alive!”
  8. purge
    rid of impurities
    He says all the doc knows is bleeding and blistering and purging and puking and making folks sicker than they was to start.
  9. miasma
    an unwholesome atmosphere
    “Doc says it’s something in the air that spreads ague—something off bad water and garbage. A miasma, he called it.”
  10. grisly
    shockingly repellent; inspiring horror
    I had to look at Nigel to see whether he was making a grisly joke.
  11. coax
    influence or persuade by gentle and persistent urging
    He didn’t want the tea, but I coaxed and bullied until he swallowed it.
  12. ominously
    in a manner suggesting something bad will happen
    I ran down the stairs and into the parlor where Weylin lay on a sofa, ominously still and silent.
  13. gaunt
    very thin, especially from disease or hunger or cold
    Her beauty had gone to a kind of fragile gauntness.
  14. impudent
    improperly forward or bold
    You were impudent before.
  15. fetch
    go or come after and bring or take back
    “You run around fetching and carrying for that woman like you love her. And half a day in the fields was all it took.”
  16. procession
    the action of a group moving ahead in regular formation
    At the end of the procession rode a second white man with a gun in his belt.
  17. vigorously
    in an energetic manner
    Carrie caught my wrist and shook her head vigorously.
  18. emetic
    a medicine that induces nausea and vomiting
    “Doc said he didn’t see how I’d made it without bleeding and a good emetic. Says I’m still weak because I didn’t get all the poisons out of my body.”
  19. knack
    a special way of doing something
    “I don’t think you have the knack.”
  20. stilted
    artificially formal or stiff
    I had to read several of the letters he’d received first to pick up the stilted formal style of the day.
  21. brevity
    the use of concise expressions
    I didn’t want Rufus having to face some creditor that I had angered with my twentieth-century brevity—which could come across as nineteenth-century abruptness, even discourtesy.
  22. wistful
    showing pensive sadness
    Young people began disappearing in pairs after a while, and some of the older ones stopped their eating or drinking or singing or talking long enough to give them looks of disapproval—or more understanding wistful looks.
  23. tactless
    lacking what is considerate in dealing with others
    “Anything to pinch a few pennies,” I said tactlessly.
  24. slate
    a writing tablet made of a thin layer of rock
    But he had said it, finally, and the boy came to me every day to learn to draw big clumsy letters on the slate Rufus bought him and read simple words and rhymes from the books Rufus himself had used.
  25. undersized
    smaller than normal for its kind
    Rufus looked surprised—as though it had never occurred to him that there might be anything special about the undersized runny-nosed child.
  26. hedge
    avoid or try to avoid fulfilling, answering, or performing
    I hedged a little. “It’s so soon...The baby’s only a few weeks old.”
  27. complacency
    the feeling you have when you are satisfied with yourself
    Then Sam James stopped me out by the cookhouse and my complacency was brought to an end.
  28. headlong
    at breakneck speed
    I ran headlong into Rufus, and felt him steady me, hold me.
  29. formidable
    extremely impressive in strength or excellence
    His grip was formidable.
  30. gingerly
    in a manner marked by extreme care or delicacy
    I rubbed my wrists gingerly.
  31. gangrene
    the localized death of living cells
    "...But I was afraid that if I used them to get home, I might die before you or some doctor figured out what was wrong with me. Or that if I didn’t die, I’d have some grisly side-effect—like gangrene.”
  32. sprawl
    sit or lie with one's limbs spread out
    I looked up, saw him sprawled across me where he had fallen.
  33. haggard
    showing the wearing effects of overwork or care or suffering
    He looked haggard and weary—looked as though it had been too long since he’d slept last, looked as though it would be even longer before he was able to sleep again.
  34. prerogative
    a right reserved exclusively by a person or group
    Insulting me was her prerogative.
  35. indifferent
    showing no care or concern in attitude or action
    Everyone attended—field hands, house servants, even the indifferent Evan Fowler.
  36. listless
    marked by low spirits; showing no enthusiasm
    He nodded listlessly.
  37. allude
    make an indirect reference to
    We had talked around him, alluded to him without quite mentioning him.
  38. oblique
    not direct, explicit, or straightforward
    He had apologized to me many times in many ways before, but his apologies had always been oblique, “Eat with me, Dana. Sarah is cooking up something special.”
  39. erratic
    liable to sudden unpredictable change
    And Rufus was Rufus—erratic, alternately generous and vicious.
  40. leaden
    made heavy or weighted down with weariness
    His body went limp and leaden across me.
Created on Thu Sep 07 15:23:19 EDT 2017 (updated Thu Sep 14 15:07:27 EDT 2017)

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