Oroonoko

Book: Oroonoko

Aphra Behn

Lifespan: b. 1640 (England), d. 1689

First Published: 1688

First Published by: W. Canning (London)

Full Title: Oroonoko; or, The Royal Slave

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“The order of the original title indicates the direction of the narrative: from fictional romantic beginnings in the west African country of Coramantien, to the hero’s enslavement, to the subsequent events in Surinam that Behn herself may very well have witnessed during the 1660s. The movement chronicled by the title chronicles also suggests the importance of Behn’s text to the history of the novel, as well as its interest for modern readers.

Oroonoko is a notable warrior-prince, the grandson of the king, with whom he clashes over the beautiful Imoinda, Oroonoko’s lover and the object of the king’s jealous and impotent affections. In revenge for the lovers’ persistance, the king sells Imoinda as a slave while Oroonoko is betrayed into slavery. The two lovers meet again in Surinam where they are renamed Clemene and Caesar. Anxious to be free, Caesar persuades the slaves to revolt against their tormentors; the slaves are caught and Caesar is whipped almost to death. Clemene is now pregnant and, fearing that their child will also become a slave, they make a murder-suicide pact which concludes in tragedy, though not quite as Caesar had envisaged.

Behn’s extended short story gives a uniquely participatory role to the narrator, who is not only an “eye-witness” to many of the events she recounts as “true-history,” but refers to herself as an actor in the story. As a female, however, she is unable to save Oroonoko from the “obscure world” he has fallen into. The result is an oddly skewed general uncertainty that is still profoundly affecting: exotic romance mixes with an acute account of the slave trade and, in Surinam, the relations between the local Carib Indians, the English plantation owners, the slaves, and the Dutch. Historical, readerly, and authorial consciousness are here joined.”(JP)

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