Human Condition As Dana soon discovers, the reality of slavery is even more disturbing than its depiction in books, films, and television shows. Before her trip to the past, Dana called the temp agency where she worked a "slave market," even though "the people who ran it couldn't care less whether or not you showed up to do the job they offered." turns out 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. Perhaps a more painful realization for Dana is how this cruel treatment oppresses the mind. “Slavery of any kind fostered strange relationships,” she notes, as all the slaves feel the same strange combination of fear, contempt, and affection toward Rufus that she does. At first he has difficulty understanding Sarah's patience with a master who has sold himself out. three of his children. Similarly, he notes that Isaac Greenwood "was like Sarah, holding back, not killing despite the 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 plagued by doubts about her own endurance: "Why was I so scared now, scared to death that I would have to run away again someday? ...I tried to distance myself from my thoughts, but they still came. Do you see how easily slaves are created? they said. "In the end, however, Dana realizes that she cannot accept slavery, even to a man who would not physically harm her. "A slave was a slave. Anything could have been done to her," Dana thinks as she plunges the knife into Rufus' side. Choices and Consequences The whole reason behind Dana's travels lies in... middle of paper... something that didn't work. They also a name. Some corresponding quirks in us that may or may not arise from being related “Her relationship with Kevin is based on a similar sense of shared difference. When they first meet, Dana thinks that "he was as lonely and out of place as I was." As she gets to know him, she realizes 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 alienated from the slave community: Carrie because of her mutism and Alice because of her role as Rufus' lover. Returning home doesn't cure Dana and Kevin from feeling out of place; it takes some time to readjust to the twentieth century. Once again, however, this alienation unites them: "It was easy for us to be together, knowing that we shared experiences that no one else would believe".."