The Octoroon by Dion Boucicault

First published: 1953

First produced: 1859, at the Winter Garden Theatre, New York City

Type of plot: Social realism

Time of work: Prior to the American Civil War

Locale: A plantation in Louisiana

Principal Characters:

• Zoe, the daughter of a slave and Judge Peyton
• George Peyton, the judge’s nephew
• Mrs. Peyton, the judge’s widow
• Dora Sunnyside, a southern belle
• Jacob M’Closky, a Yankee and former overseer of the Peyton estate, who still owns one half of it
• Salem Scudder, a Yankee and current overseer of the Peyton estate
• Paul, a slave boy
• Wahnotee, a Native American man

The Play

The Octoroon is a drama of plantation life and miscegenation in antebellum America, written by an Irishman who visited the South. As act 1 begins, the selling of Terrebonne Plantation, the Peyton estate, is imminent. Various liens have been placed on the property, and the most substantial is the one held by Jacob M’Closky, Terrebonne’s former overseer. He tricked the late Judge Peyton into mortgaging one thousand acres, the plantation’s richest half, to him. After the judge’s death, Salem Scudder, who replaced M’Closky as overseer, plummeted Terrebonne into further debt as a result of bad “inventions and improvements” on the estate. Two years have elapsed since the judge’s death, and George Peyton, the judge’s nephew and heir of Terrebonne, has recently arrived from Paris. Although Dora Sunnyside falls in love with George, he loves Zoe, the beautiful daughter of Judge Peyton and one of his slaves. The judge’s widow also loves Zoe; the widow treats her as if she were her daughter and worries what will happen to Zoe, who has not been raised as a slave, after her death. M’Closky intends to own the plantation and make Zoe his concubine. When he reveals his intentions to Zoe, she wants nothing to do with him. M’Closky stops her from leaving his presence until Scudder, who is also in love with Zoe and regrets his role in Terrebonne’s demise, intervenes, draws his knife, and warns M’Closky to let her walk away. M’Closky acquiesces.

As act 1 ends, M’Closky steals the paper signed by the judge proclaiming Zoe’s freedom. M’Closky knows that the paper is now invalid, since liens have been placed on the Peyton estate. Paul and Wahnotee go to the landing to get the mail from the steamboat: Mrs. Peyton anxiously awaits a letter from England that would stop the plantation’s sale. She expects a sizable settlement for a twenty-year-old debt owed to her late husband. M’Closky plans to steal the letter.

In act 2, the wealthy Dora urges Zoe to encourage George to marry her, and consequently she will purchase Terrebonne. When Zoe approaches George on Dora’s behalf, he expresses his love for Zoe. He proposes to her only to have her reject him because interracial marriage is illegal. George argues that they could live abroad, but Zoe still refuses his offer because she knows his aunt would not accept their marriage. M’Closky overhears the young couple’s conversation just before he spies on Paul and Wahnotee as they are returning to Terrebonne with the mail. They discover Scudder’s camera, and Paul poses as Wahnotee is about to take his picture. M’Closky sneaks up on Paul and strikes him on the head with Wahnotee’s tomahawk, killing Paul. M’Closky then steals the mailbags and finds the letter from Liverpool. Wahnotee smashes the camera, believing that he has killed Paul, and carries his body away.

Act 3 begins with people assuming that Wahnotee killed Paul and talking of lynching the Native American on the very day that the auction of Terrebonne is to take place. When Mrs. Peyton learns that Dora wants to marry George and that George loves Zoe, she encourages him to marry Dora. George tries to propose to Dora, but he and Zoe confess their love for each other. Then the auctioneer informs Zoe that her status has been changed: She is now a slave and must be sold at the auction along with the house and other slaves. Dora’s father buys Terrebonne at the auction on her behalf. M’Closky is the highest bidder for Zoe.

In act 4 the photographic plate is found and reveals that M’Closky is Paul’s murderer. In act 5 Wahnotee murders M’Closky. Mrs. Peyton receives the letter that saves Terrebonne from the auction block. George gains control of Terrebonne but loses his love. Unbeknownst to the major characters, Zoe swallows poison and dies with George at her side. So ends Boucicault’s original The Octoroon. The British demanded a different outcome; thus he drafted “The English Happy Ending” which he acknowledged the British public “composed” and he “edited.” In the revised version, George rescues Zoe, and the audience may infer that they will marry.

Dramatic Devices

Boucicault’s dramatic adaptation of Mayne Reid’s novel, The Quadroon, was not the first to bring the issue of slavery to the stage; various adaptations of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s famous novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin: Or, Life Among the Lowly (1852) preceded it, and like the dramatic versions of Stowe’s novel, The Octoroon relies heavily on melodramatic devices. There is the required conflict between good and evil; in this case, freedom and slavery clash. Thus the conflict exists between Zoe, the virtuous victim, and the villain M’Closky, who purchases her. Zoe is an ideal heroine according to the standards of melodrama; she is morally upright, and she is terrorized by the despicable M’Closky and slavery. Melodrama manipulates the emotions of the audience, who pity and have sympathy for the oppressed Zoe as she is not free to marry the man she loves and is sold to the man she detests. Zoe tells George that although she loves him and has hopes as well as ambitions, she can only know despair and suffering.

Melodrama also depends upon plot twists by the villain, and M’Closky does this on at least two occasions: He gains ownership in Terrebonne and intercepts the letter that would halt the auction. Once he possesses the letter, he knows that the auction will be held and that he can purchase Zoe. Melodrama may also employ sensational physical acts, and in The Octoroon, Boucicault creates a spectacle with a fire on board the steamer in the American version, and the steamboat’s explosion in the British version.

Another dramatic device of interest is Boucicault’s inclusion of the camera. At first, it appears to be merely another of Scudder’s “improvements.” Ironically it convicts M’Closky of Paul’s murder. Boucicault, who apparently read of the inadvertent photographing of a murder in Albany Fonblanque’s novel The Filibuster: A Story of American Life (1862), is credited as the first dramatist to use the camera to reveal the villain on the stage.

Critical Context

Writing plays was not Dion Boucicault’s only contribution to theater. He was an actor, director, and manager. Yet he is best known as a dramatist. Boucicault created at least 141 extant plays that span a period of fifty-four years. His comedy of manners London Assurance (pr., pb. 1841) was Boucicault’s first highly successful play and revealed his potential to create quality drama. Boucicault’s first successful American play was the melodramatic The Poor of New York (pr., pb. 1857). This play was followed two years later by a better-written melodrama, his controversial The Octoroon; the play was extremely popular during its time and remains a noteworthy example of earlier American drama. Boucicault, a nineteenth century dramatist, is primarily remembered in the twenty-first century for three Irish plays: The Colleen Bawn (pr., pb. 1860), Arrah-na-Pogue: Or, The Wicklow Wedding (pr. 1864, pb. 1865), and The Shaughraun (pr. 1874, pb. 1880), which was his greatest artistic and commercial success. Arrah-na-Pogue was the only one of this trio of Irish plays that did not premiere in New York.

Like the various dramatic adaptations of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, The Octoroon is classified as a slavery play. Unlike its predecessors, Boucicault’s play is a more unified and polished work. During the nineteenth century, autobiographies by former slaves such as Frederick Douglass, William Wells Brown, and Harriet Jacobs were potent tools in the antislavery crusade. Many readers of these narratives were awakened to the evils of slavery. In a similar manner, The Octoroon, with its ability to evoke various antislavery sentiments, served as an important tool for abolitionists. More than a century later, The Octoroon remains a valuable resource that reveals the insight and courage of a nineteenth century playwright who dared to bring the inflammatory issue of slavery to the stage.

Sources for Further Study

Fawkes, Richard. Dion Boucicault: A Biography. New York: Quartet Books, 1979.

Hogan, Robert. Dion Boucicault. New York: Twayne, 1969.

Parkin, Andrew. Introduction to Selected Plays of Dion Boucicault. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1987.

Richardson, Gary A. “Boucicault’s The Octoroon and American Law.” Theatre Journal 34 (1982): 155-164.

Roach, Joseph R. “Slave Spectacles and Tragic Octoroons: A Cultural Genealogy of Antebellum Performance.” Theatre Survey 33 (1992): 167-187.

Thomson, Peter, ed. Introduction to Plays by Dion Boucicault. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984.

Watt, Stephen, and Gary A. Richardson, eds. American Drama: Colonial to Contemporary. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1995.