Olfactory Fatigue
The harsh environment of 1830s antebellum slavery leaves no one untouched.
At first, Dana thinks of herself as an observer of the past, someone who watches history fly by. However, Dana is forced to reconsider her role when she comes face-to-face with a re-enactment of a slave auction by slave children. That scene is brought to life when she comments on the smells of the Weylin plantation. Dana must come to terms with her reality - she’s living slavery, and slavery is deeply intertwined with her existence.
“Everyone smelled, black and white. Nobody washed enough or changed clothes often enough. The slaves worked up a sweat and the whites sweated without working. Kevin and I didn’t have enough clothes or any deodorant at all, so often, we smelled too. Surprisingly, we were beginning to get used to it” (98).
This description seems pretty accurate. The terrible hygiene in Dana's new environment reflects historical circumstances - the lack of running water meant that everyone really did smell bad. In addition, the last sentence makes sense from a scientific perspective. Humans become temporarily unable to smell a strong odor after an extended period of exposure (apparently this phenomenon is called olfactory fatigue).
With olfactory fatigue in mind, I think it’s interesting to analyze this metaphorically. From a modern perspective, slavery is obviously disgusting (it “smells”). However, what if slavery permeated every aspect of the world we’ve known for our entire lives? Even the smells are a reflection of the social dynamics of the South (Dana distinguishes between “working up a sweat” vs. “sweated without working”). Would we still see the cruelty in slavery? We’d like to think so, but honestly, I’m not too sure. At the very least, we would normalize the exploitation and degradation of Black people by white people. Olfactory fatigue partly explains why slavery remained in place as a legitimate means of economic production.
All slaves were officially freed after June 19, 1865. But over 150
years later, the stench has only evolved, not disappeared. We smell it in the
Confederate flag and the hundreds of Confederate monuments across the country.
Our police. Our segregated neighborhoods. America continues to reek of the
blood, sweat, and tears of the past. Even if we don’t contribute directly to
problematic parts of our society, we can’t wash the scent off our daily lives. Surprisingly,
we’ve gotten used to it.
I never thought of using olfactory fatigue as a metaphor for slavery, but your explanation makes a lot of sense. The point of Kindred was mostly for us readers to see what slavery was like than to see the lasting impact of slavery, but with real-life anecdotes, it is clear that slavery still has had a lasting "stench" on society. Butler makes it an important point that we would get used to slavery, one way or another, and this is showed again and again through Dana, Alice, and even Kevin.
ReplyDeleteHi, I had thought about this idea a bit but your explanation is really in depth, especially when it comes to how that stench relates to remnants of the Confederacy and ideas of white supremacy today. The longer Dana spends in Maryland, the more the stench seems to bother her less (and in a way, is normalized), since she's witnessing this violence and manipulation and violation on a daily basis. You point out that this stench is still around today and we've gotten used to it, something that I've really never thought that much of, especially since we're taught that all of that went away in the 1960s or whatever. Nice post!
ReplyDeleteWow, yes--olfactory fatigue (so glad to know there's a term for this thing that cat owners suffer when they no longer notice their stinky litter!) works so well as an extended metaphor for the 1619 thesis and the novel's general depiction of history and its legacy. When you mention the contemporary "stink" of things like monuments that romanticize or honor Confederate monuments, it really helps frame the work of consciousness-raising, of making white people in particular critically aware of white privilege and the historical legacies of inequity, it works well as a metaphor: we're trying to attune people to the "stink" again, to defamiliarize these common aspects of everyday life in order to *notice* them, and to think critically about the fact that the stink is so often overlooked.
ReplyDelete(ooh, I'd love to edit that sentence where I say that a monument honors a monument--where's the "edit" button, Blogger?!)
DeleteI was confused at first when I read the title of your post, but I'm glad I decided to continue to read it. Olfactory fatigue is such a good way to think about or to parallel Dana's time in the past. By using something as simple as olfactory fatigue, which most people can probably relate to firsthand, it gives us a better sense of how Dana faded into a sort of "numbness" to the horrible conditions in antebellum slavery. Great post, I really enjoyed reading it!
ReplyDeleteYour connection between the literal and figurative in that line is interesting, and you're totally right -- the amount of time we spend in a certain environment (sensory or social) definitely causes us to adapt to it. Great post!
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure how you turned this small detail into a great comparison, but I completely agree. It's clear that Kevin gets used to it pretty quickly, saying that the place wasn't too bad and idealizing the West. Dana doesn't completely get used to everything (it would be difficult, as she endured abuse), but there are some aspects of the society that she does get used to. Now, I think BLM was a big wake up call for many, but the majority of people have gotten used to unarmed black men being attacked by police. These days, it probably doesn't frequently make the news, and if it does, nobody seems really surprised, just scared.
ReplyDeleteThe idea of olfactory fatigue being symbolism for the conditions of slavery and how they compare to the modern world is really interesting, and I can definitely see the parallels in the story. Another similar set of parallels could be how dark the night is there versus in the modern day due to the lack of street lights. It really paints the time period as much more ominous and scary as well.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting the mental gymnastics that white people had to go through to convince themselves that what they were doing didn't smell. They argued that there was no smell at all, or that the smell didn't matter, or it was a sign of progress, or a smell permissable by God or something. In the end, it still stank fr
ReplyDeleteI have to admit, I too, was a bit confused when I read your blog title, wondering if maybe it was a mistaken link for an old blog post, but this actually works very well. I've never though of the metaphor of smells as a way to think about slavery as well as just different social conditions in general, but it makes a lot of sense. When we encounter a new smell, it can seem strange and shocking, but for people who are constantly surrounded by it and are acclimated to the smell, it might not even cross their mind. Thinking about social conditions this way is very interesting, and explains, at least to an extent, how people are unable to see the cruelty and harmfulness of the situations they are living in because it's simply all they've ever known. Great blog post!
ReplyDeleteThe metaphor in your post is so creative and works great with the circumstances in the book! Slavery is a perfect parallel to olfactory fatigue in that it was something that people just started to accept after a while in society. They grew numb to the torture and cruelness of slavery and saw it as part of the daily life in the time period. I also thought your observation that slavery "smelled" was spot on, and it makes perfect sense in context. Just like ignoring an awful smell, the white people learned to ignore the evilness of slavery and justify their actions through religious or other means.
ReplyDelete