"i am on the Coloured Side": The Roles of the White Suitor and the Black Mother in the Tragic Mulatta Narrative

Luders Manuel, Shannon D

Publication:
"i am on the Coloured Side": The Roles of the White Suitor and the Black Mother in the Tragic Mulatta Narrative

dc.contributor.advisor	Randall Knoper
dc.contributor.advisor	James Smethurst
dc.contributor.author	Luders Manuel, Shannon D
dc.contributor.department	University of Massachusetts Amherst
dc.contributor.department	English
dc.date	2023-09-23T08:16:09.000
dc.date.accessioned	2024-04-26T20:37:25Z
dc.date.available	2014-04-26T00:00:00Z
dc.date.issued	2013-01-01
dc.date.submitted	September
dc.description.abstract	What I propose to add to the already established dialogue regarding the tragic mulatta narrative is an investigation into the commonalities of the genre’s endings, as well as to assert that the tragic mulatta genre is present even at the turn of the 21st century with such works as Danzy Senna’s Caucasia. While my investigation by no means covers an exhaustive list of tragic mulatta narratives, the readings provide an overview of the ways in which the narrative has both evolved over time and stayed consistent during the antebellum, post-bellum, Harlem Renaissance, and the present day. I present each author as both building from previous authors’ works and as limited to the time period in which he or she pens the novel(s). The tragic mulatta of the post-bellum rejected white male suitors as a larger and more crucial rejection of sexual slavery and depravity, as well as attempting to shield the suitors from experiencing rejection from their own white contemporaries, as Angela does at the end of Plum Bun: “But I want you to know that from now on, so far as sides are concerned, I am on the coloured side. And I don’t want you to come over on that side” (373). However, the tragic mulattas continue to reject white male suitors even into the 21st century, and I assert that this repetition is limiting both to the characters themselves and to the narrative lives of contemporary mulatta readers. I further assert that the genre continues to pair rejection of the white male suitor with a reappropriation of true “blackness” and maternal domesticity. Through observing the tragic mulatta’s need to gain identity and sense of place through her darker mother or sister and the rejection of a white male suitor, tragic mulatta scholars—as well as critical race theorists in general—become more aware of the unique position the genre holds in identity formation as seen through what I believe are critical fictional texts for an interracial nation.
dc.description.degree	Master of Arts (M.A.)
dc.identifier.doi	https://doi.org/10.7275/4528530
dc.identifier.uri	https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14394/44573
dc.relation.url	https://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2291&context=theses&unstamped=1
dc.source.status	published
dc.subject	tragic mulatta
dc.subject	mixed race
dc.subject	multiracial
dc.subject	biracial
dc.subject	mulatta fiction
dc.subject	cultural identity
dc.subject	African American Studies
dc.subject	American Literature
dc.subject	Ethnic Studies
dc.subject	Literature in English, North America
dc.subject	Literature in English, North America, Ethnic and Cultural Minority
dc.subject	Modern Literature
dc.title	"i am on the Coloured Side": The Roles of the White Suitor and the Black Mother in the Tragic Mulatta Narrative
dc.type	campus
dc.type	article
dc.type	thesis
digcom.contributor.author	isAuthorOfPublication\|email:sludersmanuel@gmail.com\|institution:University of Massachusetts Amherst\|Luders Manuel, Shannon D
digcom.date.embargo	2014-04-26T00:00:00-07:00
digcom.identifier	theses/1134
digcom.identifier.contextkey	4528530
digcom.identifier.submissionpath	theses/1134
dspace.entity.type	Publication