The social construct of race and racial identity is one that has been so influential that it became deeply-ingrained into the structure of American society from the beginning. While the emphasis of race in American society manifested an abundant amount of negativity in a multitude of different ways, one of these ways which is important and different to consider is how negativity surrounding specific racial identities can greatly alter one’s self image and beliefs about what they think that they are worthy and/or deserving of.
At the time of Dion Boucicault’s play The Octoroon, a play about a young girl named Zoe who was one-eighth black in 1800s America, American society had deemed that even the smallest amount of black lineage designated (and dominated) your racial identity as black, even if you were able to visually pass as white. Given the extreme negativity towards blackness and black people at this time, this was often something that people wanted to hide if they were able because they knew that if people found out they were even the smallest bit black, they would forever be defined by that very small component of their racial identity. The Octoroon’s Zoe deals with this issue very heavily and personally: after hearing a love profession from George, a white man who could give her a good life, she begins to spiral about how her culturally-dominant black identity is what will indefinitely drive them apart. In addition to this belief, it is also very clear how deeply this racial identity is wired into and intertwined with her personal identity. Not only does she describe herself as being cursed and an “unclean thing,” but also that her race binds her to a life of suffering that she may never escape from (Boucicault, 154). As a white man who does not understand, naturally, George is very confused and tries to reason with Zoe, however, as certainly as her racial identity is defined, her mind is made up and there is no changing it.