Katrina Van Tassel and Alfred
Katrina Van Tassel from the Legend of the Sleepy Hollow and Alfred from the Mulatto. Katrina and Alfred are discussing their roles in their respective texts, and the dialogue takes place in Birmingham.
The essay seeks to create an imaginary dialogue between Katrina Van Tassel from Sleepy Hollow and Alfred from the Mulatto. The ‘Legend of the Sleepy Hollow’ is a gothic story, written by Washington Irving in 1820 and the ‘The Mulatto’ is a short story written about slavery experiences by a free person of color, Victor Sejour in 1837 while he was living abroad in Birmingham. . Katrina and Alfred are similar yet different in their own unique rights. The two characters possess some sort of power that gives them an upper advantage over others. They also operate in a manner that their actions vindicate them from any probable accusations that might be laid against them. The two are sources of tragedy in their respective plots; Katrina encourages his two suitors to continue chasing after her, and she forgets that she actually will be forced to narrow down to a single, and best choice as time goes by, while Alfred knows very well that he is Georges father because he raped Laisa. Georges was the product of the act. He does not bother to make right with him but instead uses his privilege to jump right into fathering Georges and being a father figure in his life. Besides, they are the movers of their respective texts, and the other characters are built around them.
Katrina Van Tassel is considered a flat character in the Legend of the Sleepy Hollow. The flatness is a result of the lack of complexity in her character. One can easily determine Katrina’s character in a few words. He is the only daughter of Baltus van Tassel, who is a wealthy Dutch farmer. The narrator often refers to her as ‘coquette’ several times in the text because of the insincerity of her affection towards members of the opposite sex. The narrator is the one that reveals to the reader all the information about Katrina because Katrina neither says nor does anything about her that supersedes or discredits the narrator’s descriptions. She is caught up in a love triangle whose other parties are Ichabod Crane and Brom Bones. Ichabod Krane was the schoolmaster in the small Dutch settlement of Sleepy Hollow, and his object of affection is Katrina van Tassel. Ichabod is therefore forced to go against other men who are also eyeing Katrina’s attention. His only other competition is Brom Bones who out-competes him from the word go. Brom is referred to as a ‘burly, roaring, roystering blade”. Ichabod and the narrator upon Brom’s into the list of men eyeing Katrina, all the other men are forced to reckon with the reality that they have very slim chances against Brom in achieving their objective. They considered going up against as being synonymous to crossing a lion in his armors.
The reason as to why Ichabod still thought he had a chance, was because Katrina, in her flirtatious character, had encouraged him to continue pursuing her, like she did for Brom Bones. Katrina refuses to narrow down to settling with one of her suitors. Despite being flirtatious, Katrina was a very independent woman, if the existing standards of the time are anything to go by. As a woman in the 18th Century America, where independence and female empowerment was not a widespread concept, Katrina did right by the two, as she manages to exert power through her beauty and the wealth that marrying her would confer. The narrator describes Katrina van Tassel as ‘a blooming lass of fresh eighteen; plump as a partridge; ripe and melting and rosy-cheeked as one of her father’s peaches, and universally famed, not merely for her beauty, but her vast expectations.’ She was an in-between of the ancient and the modern if her fashion was anything to go by. She would wear her ornaments that were made from pure yellow gold (a show of opulence) to accentuate her beauty. Indeed, Karina was the epitome of beauty during their time. She was set apart from the rest and was really pleasing to the eye.
Alfred of the Mulatto, on the other hand, was a man who is depicted as a master in the tale. He, however, suffers from power madness, where he feels that it is within his right to have anyone and everyone. Alfred raped Laisa leading to the birth of Georges. Alfred’s actions are the reasons why George grows up not knowing his father. His lack of knowledge of Alfred leads to some identity confliction. Laisa conceals Alfred’s identify from Georges for the very reason that Georges was the product of dishonourable and despicable act. The real conflict is defined by the fact that while Georges continues seeking for his true father, he considers Alfred as a father figure. As seen, the natural trope of the tragic mulatto’s characterization is evident by the aspect of identity confliction. In the course of the story, Alfred gets into power struggles with Georges, with the latter going through with his revenge plans to free himself from Alfred, and rebel against him. Alfred’s actions are a depiction of the actions of many other masters who slept with the female slaves they owned, getting them pregnant. The children would then struggle for a better part of their lives to establish a father figure but would quickly realize that they did not have that discretion.
Alfred largely contributes to the tragedy that defines the mulatto. He is of an oedipal complex Georges was born out of the “the violation of identity caused by miscegenation”, which explains why he was thorough with his revenge plan against Alfred and was fixated on the goal to kill him. In his mind, Georges is convinced that it is the only way he would sever the ties between himself and his absentee father. There is, however, a twist of events. When Georges found out that Alfred was his father, in what is a tragic twist to the mulatto, Georges took away his life. From the happenings, the reader meets the reality of what mixed-race slaves experienced. While George has started out on his plan to kill his absentee father, not for the sake of it, but to right the wrongs that he felt no one else other than himself would. There are high chances that Georges killed himself because he knew that when it came to Alfred there was no way to leverage his plan, considering that Alfred had been the only father figure in his life, the difference was that George lacked the knowledge that he actually was the one.