The man who freed the slaves by Elsie May Johnson

Peola, played adeptly by Fredi Washington, had skin that Imitation of Life (Laemmle & Stahl, 1934). These words were spoken by Peola, a tortured, self-hating black girl in the movie If you see me in the street, don't speak to me. These words are illustrative:ĭon't come for me. Is portrayed as a selfish woman who will give up all, including her black family, Most tragic mulattoes were women, although the self-loathing Sergeant Waters in A Soldier's Story (Jewison, 1984) clearly fits the tragic mulatto stereotype. Lives to continue 'a cycle of pain.' Both Solaria and Alpine are repulsed by blacks, Alpine, the light-skinned 'heroine,' dies in childbirth, but her white baby A more realistic but equallyĭepressing mulatto character is found in Geoffrey Barnes' novel Dark Lustre (1932). That her skin is becoming darker, Solaria drinks poison. Is revealed by the appearance of her brown-skinned brother. Vara Caspary's novel The White Girl (1929) told the story of Solaria, a beautiful mulatto who passes for white. Their favoriteĬharacter, the octoroon, wretched because of the 'single drop of midnight in her veins,'ĭesires a white lover above all else, and must therefore go down to a tragic end.(Brown, Urgings, indolence and potential savagery come from his Negro blood. His intellectual strivings and self-control come from his white blood, and his emotional Is the anguished victim of divided inheritance. White writers insist upon the mulatto's unhappiness for other reasons. Sterling Brown summarized the treatment of the tragic In a race-based society, the tragic mulatto found peace only in death. 'blackness' in herself she hated or feared whites yet desperately sought their approval. If light enough to 'pass' as white, sheĭid, but passing led to deeper self-loathing.

Her personal pathologies: self-hatred, depression, alcoholism, sexual perversion,Īnd suicide attempts being the most common. A century later literary and cinematic portrayals of the tragic mulatto emphasized

The man who freed the slaves by Elsie May Johnson