The Tragic Mulatto

In Lydia Maria Child’s, The Quadroons, both Rosalie and her daughter Xarifa are victimized because of their biracial heritage. In this story of the Tragic Mulatto, both characters are defeated by circumstances that lead to their tragic deaths. Despite being “highly cultivated in mind, manners, graceful as an antelope, and beautiful as the evening star,” Rosalie’s proscribed race forbids her from entering a legal marriage union with the man she loves. Despite these circumstances Rosalie replies, “Let the church that my mother loved sanction our union, and my own soul will be satisfied, without the protection of the state. If your affections fall from me, I would not, if I could, hold you by a legal fetter.” After many years of marriage, Rosalie comes to learn of his affections for a white woman and his intentions on marrying her, news that has left Rosalie heartbroken and devastated. Not legally bound to her love, she is powerless in the state of affairs. Deserted by her one true love, her only saving grace was her beautiful daughter Xarifa, but after enduring a year of “wild thoughts that pressed around her aching heart, and almost maddened her poor brain,” she was driven to suicide. Rosalie’s tragic death is a prime example of the hardships women of mixed race endured at the time. They had little, if any legal rights, and were similarly degraded as their African American sisters and brothers.

As for Xarifa, “what would be the destiny of this fascinating young creature, so radiant with life and beauty? She belonged to a proscribed race; and though the brown color on her soft cheek was scarcely deeper than the sunny side of a golden pear, yet was it sufficient to exclude her from virtuous society” (Child 7). Sheltered most of her life from the ridicule of the world, Xarifa was raised “like a flower deep hid in a rocky cleft” (Child 8). Unfortunately her tragedy landed her in the chains of slavery, “locked up…in the princely mansion of her master” (Child 9). Her sheltered childhood stripped away from her, Xarifa was exposed to the cruelties of bondage, and like her mother, was driven to a incomprehensible lunacy. Both women found love and lost love, powerless in their efforts to hold fast to the affections of their heart.