Is it fair simply to say that slavery is different in Oroonoko's kingdom than it is in the European culture? In fact, is it even reasonable to make that sort of distinction, or is it simply “making excuses”? What does he seem to believe about concepts like freedom, liberty, and individual self-determination?Ĥ.
What do you suppose Behn wanted her readers to conclude from this fact, especially when it is taken together with her generally flattering portrait of Oroonoko? And yet Oroonoko himself trades in slaves. Oroonoko became an important document in the English campaign to abolish both the slave trade and slavery itself, and so its influence on other writing from the period (and afterward) was very considerable. Is Behn’s presentation of Oroonoko “racist”? When she describes him as “noble,” is she judging by white European standards? Is she over-compensating because he is not European? What can we discover from Behn’s story about English (and European) assumptions about race at the time?ģ. And she also describes his features in terms of familiar European (and therefore “white”) physical characteristics. At the same time, Behn takes care to distinguish him from “brown” Africans, whom she describes in much less flattering language.
Notice that she specifically assigns him positive aesthetic qualities: he is not just physically attractive, but Behn expresses his “blackness” is expressed in terms that almost suggest he is being described like a work of art. Consider the ways in which Behn treats Oroonoko as a black African person. Is he a “hero”? What qualities does he have that make him heroic? Does he have any qualities that seem to be clearly unheroic? Do you consider him to be “believable”? That is, does Behn seem to portray him realistically? What aspects of his character and action seem particularly realistic? Are there things about him that seem not to be realistic?Ģ. Oroonoko is the central character in Behn’s novel.
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