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Octoroon Essay

Decent Essays

Dion Boucicault’s The Octoroon is an example of melodrama and artistic mastery. First, it has all the marking of a melodrama which was popular in the 19th century, where you have the villain poses a threat to a hero or heroine. Not only is there a villain but he is so villainous that he poses a threat to all around him, not just the hero and heroine (granted many will argue that Zoe cannot be the heroine, due to racial perceptions at the time of his writings) of the story. Moreover, I would say that this is a piece of artistic mastery, it walks the line of political and social sentiments so gracefully and pulls at the heart strings in all the right ways without being abusive of the readers’/audiences’ emotions. For the purpose of this response, it is fair to discuss the political aspects of the play. The overriding political theme is the playwrights’ objective to question the laws place in a democratic society. Boucicault seems to be taking a stand against many of the injustices he sees the law upholding or even validating, such as slavery. Within the play Boucicault demeans the central figure to law, which is that of Judge Peyton who has passed by the time of the action. We see this in Scudder’s recounts of the Judges mishandling of …show more content…

While they cannot save Zoe, they are able to keep Solon and her family together. They work with each other and the auctioneer allows some leniency to make it happen. They also do their best to keep Zoe from falling into the hands of M’Closky. One may say that this is Boucicault’s effort to make sure that the play is produced, and while that may be true, I prefer to think of it as his effort to emphasize that the nation is not all bad or all good but presents some challenges in their

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