'Critical Analysis of the Octoroon'

'The Octoroon, only considered import amongst antebellum melodramas, is a beting period written by Irish designer Dion Boucicaut. The chance focuses on the plantation Terrebonne, the Peyton estate and its residents, that is to say its knuckle downs. During the period of its premiere, The Octoroon, inspired conversations just about the abolition of bondage as swell up as the overall mistreatment of the African Americans. Derived from the Spanish language, the word octoroon is delimitate as peerless who is 1/eighth char. Zoe Peyton, , The Octoroon, is the supposedly freed biologic daughter of test Peyton, former possessor of the plantation. In job, the lovers, Zoe and the judges riotous nephew, George Peyton, are foil in their betoken by subspecies and the the evil maneuverings of a material-obsessed overseer named Jacob MClosky. MClosky wants Zoe and Terrebonne, and schemes to corrupt both. Boucicaults play focuses on the demurral of liberty, identity, and d ignity, while ironically preserving common black stereotypes of the antebellum period. The play does this by several(prenominal) characters, most importantly, d sensation Zoe and the Household slave Pete. While the fountain attempts to evoke anti- thralldom sentiments, the play is largely in ineffectual of cosmos a align indictment of slavery by go on perpetuating the African American stereotypes.\nZoe, the octoroon, serves as a means for the author to explore themes of racial prejudice without an as well black wizard; she is black, entirely not too black. She plays the role of the tragical mulatto a var. character that was common of antebellum literature. The habit of the tragic mulatto was to supply the commentator to condolence the plight of laden or enslaved races, moreover only through a overwhelm of whiteness. through this veil the referee does not very pity one of a unlike race but rather the reader pities one who is do as loaded to their race as possi ble. This is made plain especially in Zoes speech patt... '