Novels focusing on traumatic events in history have used different tools to access the past. The Piano Lesson by August Wilson is a film (based on a play) set during the Great Depression, while Kindred by Octavia Butler is a novel set in the 1970s and part of the 19th century. In Kindred, protagonist Dana learns more about her family's past and the trauma they suffered during the era of slavery. Similarly, in The Piano Lesson, siblings Boy Willie and Berniece, along with Berniece's daughter Maretha, learn the importance of their family's piano history to discover what their ancestors experienced at the era of slavery. Both stories focus on learning, through the use of supernatural elements, about the traumatic experiences of the characters' ancestors, and the importance of family and cultural history. Kindred and The Piano Lesson use elements of fantasy (i.e. haunting (ghosts) and time travel) to access the past, because, through these elements, the stories engage and describe things to people in modern or near modern times in a way that they could not do without them, and therefore enhance their understanding of the lingering traumas of past slavery in the United States. Say no to plagiarism. Get a custom essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essay Before traveling back in time and to Maryland, she doesn't know much about her family's past, not knowing only the names of a few. of his ancestors and a few other things. Her cultural heritage doesn't mean as much to her as it did later, and she doesn't really know how bad the days of slavery were. But then, after a second time, she travels across the country to the 19th century and discovers the type of violence that existed back then, it becomes more real to her and not something that, although she is still a part of, is more detached from. She becomes willing to use violence against people intending to harm her and, when asked if she will use a knife, she replies: “'Yes. Before last night I might not have been sure, but now I am. » (Butler 47). Butler uses the supernatural element of time travel here to show that even though people think they know what happened in the past (from history books/classes or other sources), they do not. often don't know and won't be able to fully understand it if they weren't there. Dana's learning about her cultural history through time travel gives us, as readers, a way to better connect to it, because unlike cultural trauma stories in which the characters come from a very different time , in Kindred, Dana has Knowledge and feelings much more similar to characters from a much older era than the modern reader, making the story much more real. Placing Dana (the first ignorant of the era of slavery) in the role of a "lonely black woman" (Butler 47) in the 19th century offers the reader "a journey of discovery that mirrors that of the protagonist, who allows us to imagine a “journey of discovery” a mimetic encounter “with a trauma that she has not experienced and with which, moreover, she perhaps has no cultural connection” (Setka 96). This is because the reader is from the same or similar era as Dana and therefore accepts the new information Dana receives in the same way she does. Similarly, in Kindred, Dana discovers more about.