The Tragic Mulatto and Passing

Abstract

The tragic mulatto is among the most recognizable figures in American literature. Its first appears in the late 1830s and continues to be found in twenty-first-century fiction. Passing is an element in many tragic mulatto narratives and becomes focal in the twentieth century. The standard narratives developed around the tragic mulatto expose and interrogate the social and cultural mores of the American South and the legacies of slavery, but some of its historical and discursive roots lie in eighteenth-century Orientalism and the Caribbean. Although many character elements and plot points have remained in play from the nineteenth century to the present, the narrative arc has changed to reflect shifting values and popular preoccupations.