Our American Cousin Term Analysis

A 1858 play by British dramatist Tom Taylor, which ran primarily in the United States. Abraham Lincoln was watching this play at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., when he was assassinated by the actor John Wilkes Booth. The play takes on a significant role in The America Play, most of all because the work’s most famous line, “You sockdologizing old man-trap!,” repeats every time the Foundling Father reenacts the Lincoln assassination. (Booth really did assassinate Lincoln during this line, because he knew the audience’s laughter would mask the sound of his gunshot.) As the title indicates, the plot of the play revolves around a long-lost American relative visiting his estranged family in England, and its comedy is based on the perceived differences between American bluntness and British politeness. Two scenes from Our American Cousin interrupt Act Two of The America Play in the “Echo” sections, including the scene that ends with, “You sockdologizing old man-trap!” Arguably, Parks’s title also references Our American Cousin, and specifically the fact that one of the most important events in American history took place during a play that made a mockery of American culture.