Defining the "Others", or Defined by the "Others"? (Blogpost 5)

Aphra Behn’s short novel Oroonoko: or The Royal Slave is the story of an African prince who falls in love with the beautiful Imoinda. Unfortunately for Oroonoko and Imoinda, their love is full of complications as Oroonoko’s grandfather, the King, is also in love with Imoinda and forces her into being his wife. Throughout the story, Oroonoko goes to great lengths to free Imoinda from her unwanted relationship with the King, but to no avail. Eventually, after being on the run for leading a slave revolt, after he has been enslaved, Oroonoko decides that it would be best to give Imoinda an honorable death so that she and their unborn child will not have to endure the wrath of the Englishmen. At the end of the story, after he has killed Imoinda, Oroonoko is caught and endures an inhumane death.

Okay, so I probably should have put a spoiler alert before that first paragraph. Yeah, I should have. However, if you have not read Behn’s Oroonoko, you should still give it a read. I am sure that you will get more out of reading the story than you will out of my brief synopsis. One thing that I find compelling about Oroonoko is that there are various ways to read and engage with the story. One could choose to focus on the plot and the characters’ love triangle, or one could choose to focus on Oroonoko as a heroic figure in the story. A reader could focus in on the issue of slavery, or the complexity of the action.

According to Warren Chernaik in his article Captains and Slaves: Aphra Behn and the Rhetoric of Republicanism concerning the literary criticisms of Oroonoko, “…it is surprising how little critical consensus there is about how [Oroonoko] treats the institution of slavery – whether it is pro-slavery, anti-slavery, thinks slavery is generally acceptable except when those who are enslaved happen to be heroes or kings, or, indeed, whether it simply treats slavery as a convenient metaphor” (97).

I agree with Chernaik’s claim that it is hard to solely state that Oroonoko is pro-slavery, or anti-slavery. I believe that the unease in not being able to classify Oroonoko as either-or is what makes the reading engaging. On one hand, Behn presents readers with a character who is an African prince, but on the other hand, she describes Oroonoko in a way that likens him to the Western ideas of beauty. So, if Oroonoko’s nose was not “…rising and Roman” like Behn states and if his physical attributes were more “…African and flat”, would Behn’s other characters have had high regard for Oroonoko? Better yet, would Behn, herself, have esteemed Oroonoko in the way that she did, had his physical features resembled those of the other enslaved Africans?

Chernaik answers this question in his article by stating, “Behn is addressing a popular audience in Restoration England, and using the conventions at her disposal” (98). In other words, Behn, when characterizing Oroonoko, knew which features would make him appeal to the English readers and which features would make him appeal to the Africans, and she chose which details to include and which to exclude. Behn makes it appear the Oroonoko’s status as an African prince grants him special recognition from the Englishmen, and from the other slaves, but also juxtaposes this assertion by thwarting his status when he becomes enslaved himself.

One could argue that the fact that Oroonoko becomes enslaved, thereby losing his status as an African prince in the eyes of the Englishmen, that the story is pro-slavery. Simply put, the African prince is outsmarted by an English sailor, tricked into enslavement, loses his status as an African prince, and killed by Englishmen at the end of the story. Sounds pro-slavery, right? Moreover, we are told, via Behn, that Oroonoko was once a willing participant in the slave trade. Yes, the African prince was responsible for trading some of his own people into the institution of slavery.

In response to this fact, Chernaik states, “[t]he paradox at the heart of Oroonoko is embodied in the subtitle: he is a Royal Slave, simultaneously elevated and debased…[however]…the attitude of this ‘great captain’ toward the institution of slavery is far from straightforward, since in his native Africa he has been implicated in the practice of slave trading…” (99). Moira Ferguson, as quoted in Chernaik’s article, states that “[t]he narrator (Behn) objects to the royal class of people being enslaved, not to the act of enslavement itself” (99). I found it ironic that Oroonoko would trade slaves, but the moment that he is enslaved it incites a sense of rebellion within him and it appears that he has a sudden problem with slavery.