Oroonoko; or, The Royal Slave was the first English novel offering a sympathetic view of the suffering of slaves. While little is known of Behn’s younger life, she claimed to have lived in Surinam, the setting for her story. First published in 1678, it appeared a decade later as part of her Three Histories. Behn was one of the first to mix what had been considered separate elements from the romance and the novel. She designed a tale she hoped would appeal to logic, set within exotic surroundings and featuring as a protagonist an individual representing what Renaissance readers would recognize as a “noble savage.” His innocent nature, reminiscent of humans prior to the Edenic fall from grace through sin, appealed to them.

Oroonoko’s physical prowess contributes to the aforementioned “miraculous contingencies and impossible performances,” as in one scene when he kills a tiger that multiple bullets could not stop. However, it is his ethical and moral fiber that Behn designs to most impress her readers, as her narrator writes of the Indians, “the People represented to me an absolute Idea of the first State of Innocence, before Man knew how to sin: And ’tis most evident and plain, that simple Nature is the most harmless, inoffensive and virtuous Mistress.”

Oroonoko belongs to a tribe of Indians called Caribs who proved themselves superior to supposedly more sophisticated Europeans because they lack vice. They stand ready to be corrupted by the white practitioners of imperialism. Furthermore, Oroonoko represents royalty as the grandson of an African king. He loves the beautiful Imoinda, daughter of his grandfather’s general, but unfortunately, so does his grandfather. When the king recognizes that he shares his love of Imoinda with his grandson, he sells her into slavery.

Oroonoko is captured by white slavers and finds Imoinda, who soon becomes pregnant with his child. Renamed Caesar, he helps unite and inspire the black slaves to escape with an impassioned speech in which he questions the actions of the enslavers who did not honorably defeat those they enslaved, but rather have “bought and sold” the captives “like Apes or Monkeys, to be the sport of Women, Fools and Cowards.” Behn carefully distinguishes the Indians, whom she views as noble and possessing innate value, from the blacks, who are simple brutes.

Her first-person narration from the position of a white woman allows her to express the desire to separate herself from the barbarian acts of the whites, whose lack of a moral code repulses her. However, she realistically remains a powerless female who can do nothing to help rescue Oroonoko from her culture’s self-interest.

The slaves are hunted down and surrender to Byam, a deputy governor, who promises to pardon them. Byam does not keep his word and publicly whips Oroonoko, committing an act the tribesmen cannot understand. Their honorable culture lacks language to describe the results of a man breaking his promise. As the narrator states, the deputy-governor, “who was the most fawning fair-tongu’d Fellow in the World and one that pretended the most Friendship to Caesar, was now the only violent Man against him.”

Oroonoko desires revenge but understands he will be executed if he kills Byam. He also understands that once the men take possession of Imoinda, she will suffer an intolerable fate. She agrees to place her life in his hands, and he slits her throat as her eyes smiled “with Joy she should die by so noble a Hand.” When the murder is discovered, Oroonoko suffers execution by dismemberment for that crime, and his “quarters” are dispatched to “several of the Chief Plantations.”

The narrator idealizes Oroonoko, imbuing him with courage, honor, and intelligence. Behn’s clear message is that the imperialists are the savages, while members of the native tribes are not yet perverted by self-interest.

Bibliography
Metzger, Lore. Introduction to Oroonoko; or, The Royal Slave, by Aphra Behn. New York: W. W. Norton, 1973, ix–xv.
Todd, Janet. The Secret Life of Aphra Behn. New York: Pandora, 2000.

Categories: British Literature, Literature, Novel Analysis

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