A MULATTO GIRL AS OTHER IN WILLIAM WELLS BROWN’S CLOTEL; OR THE PRESIDENT’S DAUGHTER

Abstract

Clotel; Or The President’s Daughter is a novel written by William Wells Brown that was published in 1853. This novel telss about the social condition in the case of social gap between white and black people though slavery as the colonial effect in the United State around 1833. This thesis uses postcolonial as the approach to show the relation between the colonizercolonized and its result that is not just ended in the end of colonialism. It is shown in the slavery’s contribution to the existence of the mulatto. Furthermore, this thesis applies postcolonial theory by Homi K. Bhabha that especially takes “Otherness” and “Unhomeliness” as a tool to identify these two feelings through Clotel as a mulatto girl and the main character of the novel. Mulatto is closely related to hybridity, but this novel has different focus. It refers to the social critique about colonial effect through slavery that has big influence to the existence of the mulatto. Even, it happened when Thomas Jefferson became an author of Independency’s Declaration. Its condition makes this novel interesting to be choosen and analyzed. Using this thesis I want to show to the reader how big the colonial effect influences the colonized’s existence even it happened in the postcolonial. In order to completely understand I conduct this thesis starts with the general idea about the social condition of the author and the novel that is continued by the slavery role to the existence of the mulatto and goes to the specific analysis of Otherness and Unhomeliness. The result of the research shows that slavery gives the biggest influence to the growth of the mulatto’s otherness and unhomeliness feeling. The white characteristics that are involved to the mulatto does not have power to make her easily accepted in the society.