Both men suffer, and both men have to continue living with that suffering, while losing the people they care about the most. That tragedy is even more apparent in Dove's work, with the misunderstanding about Augustus and what he managed to do in the plantation house. His fate seems more tragic, somehow, because he is being commended for something that he did not do, and is being treated as a hero when in fact he is nothing of the sort. He will have to live up to that reputation in the slave community and it is clear that he will not be able to continue that pretense for very long.

In conclusion, both of these plays use the central theme of incest for different purposes. Dove uses it to illustrate the enduring images of slavery, relationships between blacks and whites and how they were skewed, and how slaves were abused...
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