The use of the first-person narrative in Octavia Butler's Kindred achieves three main impacts: a contextual limit to the narrative itself, a deeper connection to the character, and, most importantly, an emphasis on personal importance and impact over large-scale cultural implications.
First-person narrative features the narrator as a character in the story, recounting first-hand experiences as they unfold in the eyes of that speaker. This limits the reader to what that speaker perceives and how they interpret those events, and it shapes the scope of the narrative in a way that forces the reader to walk in the speaker's shoes, so to speak.
With a first-person narrative, the reader is not afforded exposition, multiple perspectives, or any other element that hasn't been directly experienced by the narrator. In Kindred, the impact of this is best exemplified by the ways in which each flashback influences Dana's understanding, and subsequently the readers' understandings, of the history of slavery, how slavery developed as a social political institution, and how that development has and will continue to shape and influence American culture.
First-person narrative also creates a deep connection to the character itself. It transforms a report of events into a personal story, which serves to increase the emotional connection to the speaker that the reader feels. This effect can be likened to the feeling one gets seeing on the news that a building burned down and took the lives of 25 people vs the feeling one gets when hearing that story from a family member of one of the deceased. It creates pathways for a different kind of emotional response and a different set of contextual implications. In Kindred, this is best exemplified by the visceral accounts of violence, abuse, and oppression experienced during Dana's time travel and the growth Dana and Kevin experience as a result.
Because of the aforementioned effects, first-person narrative also serves to emphasize the personal impacts of a story or experience rather than the larger cultural implications. Within a story, when a narrator tells a story as though it happened to them vs. around them, it centers the story on the character and the event, which changes how the writer will discuss those things. Outside of the story, the first-person narrative changes how the reader will consider that story in a larger context. In Kindred, this is best exemplified by how the story is regarded culturally. Slavery is not an American secret, but the history of it is sugar-coated and white-washed to give American history a more heroic and freedom-centered vibe. By writing Kindred in the first person, Butler eliminates the ability of the reader to place the story in the social context. It forces the reader to think about and experience slavery from the perspective of an individual, rather than from the perspective of a present society reflecting on the poor choices of a past one. This serves to critique the American narrative of our own slavery-fueled past as well as reshape that narrative to better reflect the actual, visceral experiences black Americans have had.
Had Kindred been written as a third-person narrative, the reader would not so easily be able to synthesize each of the time-travel experiences into a story of personal growth and enlightenment but would instead see them as isolated events. The reader would not so easily be able to focus on the specific interpersonal dynamics, or the inherent causation and correlation that dynamic suggests, but would rather consider each event as unique and miss out on the historical interconnections. The reader would not so easily be able to escape the pre-existing social and political contexts associated with the history of slavery in America.
Kindred is told in first-person narration, which means that a particular character—in this case, Dana—uses "I" and her own experience to tell the story.
First-person narration can be beneficial because it allows the reader to fully enter into the mind of one of the primary characters. We know Dana's thoughts, feelings, and actions intimately, as well as those things she perceives about the people/characters around her.
However, this type of narration can also present limitations, as we are only given a one-sided view of what the other characters may be like. With third-person or even omniscient narration, you get more of a diverse range of direct and indirect characterizations of each of the other characters.
We might have more information on Rufus's thought processes, for instance, or those of Dana's husband, Kevin.
Sometimes, too, bias can be a problem that arises with a story narrated in the first person.
Kindred is told from the first person perspective. This means that the narrator is a character within the story. In this story, the narrator is Dana. The advantage of a first person narration is that readers really get to know the thoughts and emotions of Dana. Additionally, we learn as she learns, and we discover with her how her time-travel ability works. It makes the events of the story feel very personal to a reader. Unfortunately, the first person narration doesn't give readers good insights into what other characters are thinking or doing. Those characters have to say something or do something that Dana can see or hear for us to know about it. A third person narration would eliminate this aspect of the story, especially if the narration is omniscient. The reader could get more information from a third person narrator; however, a consequence would be that we would lose that close, emotional connection with Dana.
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