The Mixed-Blood Settles Scores: The Question of Racial Justice in Georges by Alexandre Dumas

Claudie Bernard

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The Mixed-Blood Settles Scores: The Question of Racial Justice in Georges by Alexandre Dumas

In: Best Served Cold: Studies on Revenge

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Claudie Bernard

Claudie Bernard
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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 39–47

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9781848880436_006

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The English word revenge has two equivalents in French: vengeance (revenge proper), and revanche (a settling of scores). This paper examines the functioning of these two concepts, as well as that of reprisals (the revenge of a group against another group), and their bearing on the question of racial justice in the novel Georges by Alexandre Dumas (1843). Georges is a free mixed-blood from Mauritius who dreams of ‘killing the colour prejudice’ against the mulattos. In order to prove to the whites that he is equal and even superior to them, he plans a shining settling of scores: the conquest of the white lady. His settlement turns to revenge when the whites threaten him, and, when they treat him like a ‘Negro,’ pushes him to lead the reprisals of the black slaves against their masters. In the end, can the protagonist claim to have ‘killed the colour prejudice’ against the mulattos? Obviously not. I interrogate the reasons of this failure, linking it to the heroic model cultivated by the mixed-blood, that of the proud (white) knight fighting a monster.

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Best Served Cold: Studies on Revenge

E-Book ISBN:: 9781848880436

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 29 Apr 2010

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The Mixed-Blood Settles Scores: The Question of Racial Justice in Georges by Alexandre Dumas

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Best Served Cold: Studies on Revenge

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