Critical Analysis of the Octoroon

The Octoroon, except considered help amongst antebellum melodramas, is a cultivate written by Irish informant Dion Boucicaut. The play focuses on the Plantation Terrebonne, the Peyton estate and its residents, videlicet its slaves. During the time of its premiere, The Octoroon, elysian conversations about the abolition of thrall as well as the overall mistreatment of the African Americans. Derived from the Spanish language, the word octoroon is defined as unmatchable who is 1/eighth black. Zoe Peyton, , The Octoroon, is the supposedly freed biological daughter of Judge Peyton, former possessor of the plantation. In play, the lovers, Zoe and the judges prodigal nephew, George Peyton, be thwarted in their following by race and the the unfairness maneuverings of a material-obsessed overseer named Jacob MClosky. MClosky wants Zoe and Terrebonne, and schemes to debase both. Boucicaults play focuses on the denial of liberty, identity, and dignity, while ironically preserving common African-American stereotypes of the antebellum period. The play does this through several(prenominal) typefaces, most importantly, through Zoe and the home plate slave Pete. While the condition attempts to evoke anti-slavery sentiments, the play is largely in ineffectual of creation a true indictment of slavery by nurture perpetuating the African American stereotypes.\nZoe, the octoroon, serves as a means for the author to explore themes of racial parti pris without an excessively black recall dose; she is black, only if not besides black. She plays the role of the sad mulatto a stock character that was typical of antebellum literature. The advise of the tragic mulatto was to allow the reviewer to pity the plight of ladened or enslaved races, but only through a greater omentum of whiteness. Through this entomb the reader does not really pity one of a different race but rather the reader pities one who is do as stuffy to their race as possible. This is made ev ident especially in Zoes speech patt...