In American literature, around the 19th and 20th centuries, many writers instituted themes and mythical tales of the “tragic mulatto”. The tragic mulatto was usually a stereotypical, fictional character that was assumed to be sad, or even suicidal, due to being of mixed race. Failing to completely fit in the “white world” or even the “black world”, the “tragic mulatto” is illustrated as a victim of a society divided by race. This depiction typically influenced the notion that there is/ was no place for one that is neither completely “black” nor white”. The tragic mulatto myth historically painted people of mixed race as emotionally unstable, sexually seductive, effeminate or otherwise troubled.
“The tragic mulatto is usually a woman. Especially in mediocre melodramas, so often the vehicle for presenting the tragic mulatto character. Nothing supposedly inspires sympathy more than the plight of a beautiful woman whose touch of “impurity” makes her all the more attractive. The fact that many of these stereotyped characters are raised as white women—in fact as aristocratic white women and only discover their Negro blood as adults—allows white readers more identification with them than with full-blooded Negroes.”
—Judith R. Berzon, Neither White Nor Black: The Mulatto Character in American Fiction
As seen in our selected readings, the character of mixed race was often a she, appearing to be all white but part of her was black. At times, she would hide or deny her blackness through most of the story, but in the end it would eventually catch up to her, resulting in a tragic death. In narratives such as William Wells Brown’s “Clotele; the President’s daughter”(1853), this assumption is vividly evident.
In “The President’s Daughter”, Brown immediately opens with the auction of Currer, the presumed mistress of Thomas Jefferson, and their two daughters, Clotel and Althesa,