Aphra Behn, an certainly woman, still attracts critical attention with her novella Oroonoko. The aim of this essay was to find out the political implications of Oroonoko. First, the significance of the main character, Oroonoko, and interpreting his possible symbolism. Second, how the political sympathies of the author, were expressed in the book through her presentation of characters and plot. And third, the treatment by the author of slavery and racial issues, as seen in the political context.
Aphra Behn, the first Englishwoman to earn her living by writing, was noted for many of her works, among them Oroonoko, which Abrams calls "an important precursor to the novel" . Oroonoko, or the Royal Slave, is a novella from the Restoration period, published in 1688, and presented by author as "a true history."
The story, set in the New World, is told by a female narrator who recalls her acquaintance with a black African prince, Oroonoko. He was born in Coramantien (Coromantyn), fell in love with beautiful Imoinda, married her, and was divided from her by his grandfather, the king, who wanted her for himself and subsequently sold Imoinda into slavery. He "loses his freedom because he naively accepts the invitation of an English sea captain - with whom Oroonoko has engaged in slave trading - to dine aboard ship. Behn excoriates the `treachery' of the captain, who entraps the too-credulous prince and transports him to Surinam." Eventually, Oroonoko leads a slave revolt which results in failure, kills his wife Imoinda, and is punished by torture and execution. "The hero learns too late that the `good' Christians ... have repeatedly if perhaps not fully consciously deceived him" . The prince is depicted as noble and honest, educated, ye...
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Oroonoko – Slaughter of the Human Spirit. Aphra Behn introduces her characters in Oroonoko as beautiful people who possess pure, innocent love. Behn does this in an effort to make her readers feel and question. Her poetic description of their emotions magnifies the horror of the final scene. Behn's romantic love story is brought to a tragic end through brutality and death.
Oroonoko is a fascinating text overflowing with descriptions of complex relations between and within the different races. The attitudes and actions of the Aphra Behn and her characters would make for a rich analysis from any number of behavioral approaches, but there are many more layers to this story than the dominant racial themes. In fact, in "Oroonoko’s Blackness" Catherine Gallagher argues that the main character’s unusually dark skin color actually represents kingship, commodification, and the degree to which he and the author are embodied in the work. Though Gallagher recognizes the significance of Oroonoko’s ethnicity in the conflict between the African and European groups, she writes that it is displaced by these three ideas when examined from other perspectives. At times her arguments for this are difficult to decipher and appear contradictory, especially in the explanations on textuality, embodiment and transcendence, but, overall, the claims of the criticism are strong and convincing.
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The philosophy was one of natural slavery that deemed if anyone whose "function is the use of their bodies and nothing better," is by nature a slave. (12) Behn shows her awareness of the philosophical discussions within Oroonoko by incorporating the theme of ‘natural slaves’ into her text; the narrator talks of trying to make free those “who were by nature slaves” and that they were only “fit for such masters” (13) that could control them.
Behn’s protagonist, Oroonoko, is an exception to the typical African slave in every way in the narrator’s eyes. After all, he is a dashing, young prince who has received a special Western education because of his royal status. The author does everything in her power to separate Oroonoko from the other negro slaves and put him in a category of his own, and during
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