Bodies bear history. This is the idea that stuck with me the most this week. In “The Octoroon”, Zoe’s body bears the history of sexual abuse and racial encounter. She is the manifestation of crisis, violence, and liminality. Viewing Zoe from this lens is trapping. We are born with one body – Zoe cannot change the circumstances around her birth or the history that her body represents. Her body bears a story that cannot be simply erased.
Zoe feels trapped in her body, in her state as “The Octoroon”. She is disgusted by the impurity in her blood. She feels liminality in her identity, and to have power over her body she commits suicide. Zoe feels no other option.
This past semester I took a course in human genetics. We studied the concept of epigenetics, or how our DNA changes after we are born based on our environment. For example, identical twins, whose genetic makeup comes from the same egg, can have differences in their genome later in life based on their environment. This poses an interesting question to how the octoroon would be perceived today in the context of new innovations in science. We are learning so much about how to control and change our DNA, which Zoe feels so trapped by.
Another concept in epigenetics that focuses on bodies carrying history is how changes in our parent’s DNA can be passed down to us. It was long thought that changes in DNA throughout someone life were not passed onto children. But, it was found through studies of a famine in Holland during World War II, that changes in DNA caused by malnutrition were passed onto successive generations. I think epigenetics is interesting to look at concerning “The Octoroon”, which is so focused on the makeup of Zoe’s DNA and how it defines her status.
This response is especially interesting, especially after reading In Dahomey. While Zoe sees her body as a trap, Williams and Walker use the body as a source of resistance and liberation. Granted, Zoe does this as well when she commits suicide; this shows agency through ownership of one’s body. Yet In Dahomey shows that the story of the body can be changed and defined by oneself. Rather than allowing the societal understandings of one’s body to dominate perception, Williams and Walker attempted to show that people can define their bodies by themselves, which is a freeing concept. Thus, we can recognize the body moving from trapping to liberators in these two pieces.