Heather Dunlop

Description:

This essay assesses the perceived radicalism of Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko as an anti-colonial text and questions the privileged position of both the author and speaker as Eurocentric in outlook. Dunlop argues that at heart of the text there is a fundamental radicalism but that by close analysis of race and gender, some more challenging elements surface for a modern reader.

Abstract:

Aphra Behn’s challenging engagement with Radicalism in Oroonoko measures the perceived radicalism of Behn’s novella by way of close analysis of race and gender. Oroonoko is celebrated as an anti-colonial text that represents non-white cultures as civilised and above all human. Behn’s radicalism lies in challenging the dominant arguments of the period that justified colonialism and in asserting a strong female narrative voice that exudes confidence in the fact that the experiences relayed are valid and accurate. Certainly for a reader in the early modern period these elements would have been starkly radical, it is therefore interesting for a modern reader to measure the radicalism of Oroonoko. Thus Dunlop argues, parts of the text are problematic with some challenging element rising to the surface; particularly in regard to the position of both author and narrator and the divergent experiences of the women in the text. The privileged position of the author is examined as euro-centric limiting the texts radicalism as this observational, anthropological viewpoint establishes an othering of the subjects which defines them by their difference to the European model. With a focus on the latter part of the novel and in particular Imoinda’s murder, Dunlop argues that despite Behn’s radicalism which is rooted in her autonomy as a writer, the fetishisation of Imoinda as a black woman limits this radicalism.

 

Aphra Behn’s challenging engagement with Radicalism in Oroonoko

Aphra Behn opens the short novella Oroonoko with an apologetic preface, a common feature in work written by women in the Early Modern period. This technique, also understood through the gendered phenomenon of ‘hedging’, employs cautious and tentative language to set a precedent to the reader that in spite of ones gender, or lack of artistic genius, the speaker will try to the best of their ability to relay the subject matter at hand. Behn postulates in her introduction:

I do not pretend, in giving you the history of this royal slave, to entertain my reader with the adventures of a feigned hero whose life and fortunes fancy may manage at the poet’s pleasure; nor in relating the truth, design to adorn it with any accidents but such as arrived in earnest to him. (Behn, 2016, p.9)

From the outset Behn establishes, to the reader, that she is not attempting to write a poetic or embellished piece of literature but is simply relaying the events that she witnessed. In spite of the precautious nature of this preface, Behn is establishing an autonomous sense of authority over the depiction of events. Behn further states of the novel, “it shall come simply to the world, recommended by its own proper merits and natural intrigues”. Although Behn as a narrator assumes the position of an anthropological wallflower, her preface asserts a confidence in the fact that her experiences relayed in earnest, do not require artistic embellishment because they are of merit in their own right. In addition to exploring Behn’s authorship and the extent to which this is radical, this chapter will explore the speaker’s position as a European woman on a plantation, how she interacts with Oroonoko and how the speaker’s experiences as a woman starkly contradict those of Imoinda; the wife of the royal slave Oroonoko. Through an exploration of the ways in which the depictions of race and gender intersect in Oroonoko, a substantial understanding of Behn’s engagement with the notion of radicalism will be exhibited.

Oroonoko is a short novel that accounts the life of its titular character, the royal slave brought to a plantation in the British colony of Suriname in South America, from a West African country as a result of the transatlantic slave-trade. Oroonoko is trained in war and is consistently depicted as noble and as devoted entirely to a fellow native woman; Imoinda. The couple experience a tragic separation, in which Imoinda is sold into slavery whilst pregnant with Oroonoko’s baby. Oroonoko plans to avenge this injustice and kill the Deputy Governor Byam, the leader of the sugar plantation. As Byam becomes aware of this, Oroonoko becomes the target amongst the colonisers, and agrees with Imoinda to murder her and their unborn child as a favourable sacrifice in comparison to how she would be treated if left in the hands of the plantation owners. In spite of Oroonoko being held in high esteem by the colonisers and the speaker, he too is ultimately murdered in a violent and humiliating fashion. The content of this first-hand account by Aphra Behn is inherently radical because of the climate of Imperialism during this period. In light of the discovery of America and the transatlantic slave-trade being in its early inception, almost all texts or accounts of colonisation were celebratory and advocated the expansion of British Imperialism. These texts were integral in strategizing Imperialism because they effectively justified the slave trade and the colonisation of native land, positioning the exploitative parties as explorers.

An example of this colonialist view-point can be found in the following extract written by Hans Sloane, ‘A Very Perverse Generation’ which declares, “many of the Negroes, being Slaves, and their Posterity after them in Guinea, they are more easily treated by the English here, then by their own Country-People, wherefore they would not often willingly challenge Masters.” (Sloane, 1997) Sloane continues by describing the punishments inflicted on slaves for rebelling, which include being burned at a stake, being whipped until bloody and having wax poured onto their feet. After listing these excruciatingly visceral ‘punishments’, Sloane states that “these Punishments are sometimes merited

by the Blacks, who are very perverse Generation of People, and though they appear harsh, yet are scarce equal to some of their Crimes.” In conjunction with the paradoxical argument given by Sloane, that those bought into slave trade come from grossly violent and barbaric countries, thus the sadistic and inhumane treatment inflicted by European colonisers is not only deserved but merciful by comparison. This extract demonstrates how Britain and other colonies justified slavery. In stark contrast to this, Aphra Behn’s depiction of Oroonoko transgresses this shared belief entirely. This is illuminated by one of Behn’s early depictions of Oroonoko:

His hair came down to his shoulders by the aids of art, which was by pulling it out with a quill and keeping it combed, of which he took particular care. Nor did the perfections of his mind come short of those of his person; for his discourse was admirable upon almost any subject, and whoever had heard him speak would have been convinced of their errors that all fine wit is confined to the white men, especially to those of Christendom. (Behn, 1997, p.19)

This statement made by Aphra Behn is extremely radical in challenging a widely accepted and naturalised view held by her British readership. In contrast to the precautious tone adopted by Behn in the novel’s introduction, exhibited out of fear of challenging this belief that literature belongs to men, Behn is contesting the predominant ideology that intelligence, artistry and even handsomeness was innately exclusive to white, Christian men.

However, in spite of this radical stance, as a narrator Behn still holds a Eurocentric viewpoint and thus dictates Oroonoko’s story through this lens. In examples where the speaker is praising Oroonoko, it is clear that he is viewed to be the exception and not the rule in regard to the positive attributes he holds as a black man. Before Behn’s speaker states Oroonoko’s intelligence and capabilities, she describes his physical appearance:

His face was not of that brown, rusty black which most of that nation are, but a perfect ebony or polished jet. His eyes were the most awful that could be seen, and very piercing; the white of them being like snow, as were his teeth. His nose was rising and Roman instead of African and flat. His mouth, the finest shaped that could be seen, far from those great turned lips which are so natural to the rest of the Negroes. The whole proportion and air of his face was so noble and exactly formed that bating his colour, there could be nothing in nature more beautiful, agreeable and handsome. (Behn, 1997, p.18)

This extract demonstrates the extensive depth in which the speaker describes Oroonoko’s handsomeness specifically in regard to how this contradicts the typical physical characteristics. As this quote shows, structurally when Behn describes his features positively it is then clarified that this is in stark contrast to the archetypal black man she holds in her mind. The final sentence of this extract encapsulates the stigma behind Behn’s words, “his face was so noble and exactly formed that bating his colour, there could be nothing in nature more beautiful, agreeable and handsome.” Through the speaker beauty can only be understood in relation to European features and this characterisation

can only be formed through deprecating the typical characteristics of African men. Milton Cantor explores the ways in which depictions of non-European features were used as justification of slavery in his essay ‘The Image of the Negro in Colonial Literature.’ “Samuel Sewall actually prefigured Edward Long’s line attack in his tract, The Selling of Joseph. He noted “such disparity in their Conditions, Colour & Hair, that they can never embody with us and grow into orderly Families, to Peopling of the Land.” Cantor further noted some of the depictions presented by colonialists as “frequent comments on the lips, noses, general features, and the “rank offensive smell” of Negroes.”(Cantor, 1963, p.452-477) This statement reflects the content of Behn’s description of the royal slave Oroonoko, focusing on his skin colour, hair, nose and lips. As Cantor illuminates, the imagery of Oroonoko as presented through the eyes of the speaker only further contributes to a collective justification of the treatment of slaves through exerting a social hierarchy that can be dictated by the contrasting features of European colonisers and Africans bought into slave trade. Thus contending the notion that Behn’s language in Oroonoko is that of an emerging ‘radical voice’ because of its occasional positive depictions of these slaves.

Through the character of Imoinda, Behn accounts the dismal conditions suffered by black women sold into the transatlantic slave-trade and their treatment on plantations. The intrinsically tragic nature of Imoinda’s character is demonstrated by her death; Oroonoko kills her and their unborn child out of mercy for the likely treatment she would experience under the plantation owner as a black, female slave. The violence directed toward women bought into the slave-trade extended beyond the instances of physical violence experienced by Oroonoko and other male slaves because of prevalent sexual exploitation and assault committed by plantation owners. Joyce Green MacDonald focuses on the sexualisation of black women in Oroonoko in her essay, ‘The Disappearing African Woman: Imoinda in “Oroonoko” after Behn’. MacDonald shapes her argument through this idea, as she expresses “I would like to sketch in some terms under which we can speak of an African woman’s presence in Behn’s text. Imoinda in fact appears there only flickeringly, and largely as a focus and a product of others’ sexuality.”(Macdonald, 1999, p.77-86) Much like Behn’s treatment of Oroonoko, Imoinda is only understood through this hypersexual lens. In regard to Imoinda, the speaker initially expresses that “to describe her truly, one need say only, she was the female to the noble male, the beautiful black Venus to our young Mars.” Through Behn’s descriptions, we are given a naturalised view that Imoinda exists as an extension of Oroonoko as the male figure and they are both reduced to the highly sexualised imagery of the Greek gods Mars and Venus.

This motif of the sexualised black woman is consistent in the story throughout, as is clear through the depiction of Oroonoko and Imoinda agreeing on her sacrificial murder. The speaker states,

He considered, if he should do this deed, and die either in the attempt or after it, he left his lovely Imoinda a prey, or at best a slave, to the enraged multitude; his great heart could not

endure that thought. Perhaps, said he, she may be first ravaged by every brute, exposed first to their nasty lusts, and then a shameful death.

…He told her his design first of killing her, and then his enemies, and next himself, and the impossibility of escaping, and therefore he told her the necessity of dying. He found the heroic wife faster pleading for death than he was propose it when she found his fixed resolution, and, on her knees, besought him not to leave her a prey to his enemies. (Behn, 2016, p.103-104)

Behn’s speaker states the extent to which Imoinda herself as an extension of her husband Oroonoko, consequently will be targeted for his rebellion against the plantation owners. The inherent sexual violence inflicted on black women bought into the slave-trade is epitomised by Behn stating “[if] he left his lovely Imoinda a prey, or at best a slave.” The irony behind the phrase “at best a slave”, after the extensive unpacking of Oroonoko’s persecution as a slave, definitively indicates the tragic nature of black women being subjected to rape as a result of their treatment as property in the eyes of slave-owner’s. Moira Ferguson illuminates this in her essay ‘Oroonoko: Birth of a Paradigm’, stating that “as an unmarried, sexually abused female, a disenfranchised slave or colonial object, a grieving, pregnant mother, a heroic rebel- warrior, and as a speaking individual within and despite a patriarchal colonial system, Imoinda cannot survive.” (Ferguson, 1992, p.339-359) However, in spite of this tragic position Imoinda faces in a system of patriarchal and colonial oppression, Imoinda achieves some sense of bodily autonomy through her suicide and ultimately assumes the role of tragic heroine through her death.

In contrast to Aphra Behn’s characterisation of Oroonoko and his lover Imoinda as noble and heroic, in spite of typical colonial depictions of slaves as barbaric and uncivilised, the Deputy Governor Byam and the other colonisers are depicted as cruel, sadistic and savage through their violent reign over these slaves. As is clear by Oroonoko’s previous reasoning behind killing Imoinda, asserting she would be “ravaged by every brute, exposed to their nasty lusts.” This expresses that the plantation owners are not only violent, but are sexually motivated and barbaric in their actions. This description entirely contradicts the justification behind colonialism: that those native to the colonies or bought into the slave trade are of cultures that are barbarically violent, sexually impure and ungodly. The savage imagery used by the speaker to describe the death of the royal slave further implicates those in colonial powers as villainous.

The executioner came and first cut off his members and threw them into the fire. After that, with an ill-favoured knife, they cut his ears and his nose, and burned them; he still smoked on, as if nothing had touched him. Then they hacked off one of his arms, and still he bore up, and held his pipe. But at the cutting off the other arm, his head sunk, and his pipe dropped, and he gave up the ghost without a groan or a reproach.(Behn, 2016, p.111)

The speaker continues to describe those involved in the murder of Oroonoko, “so inhuman were the justices who stood by to see the execution.” By enlisting the graphic details of the atrocities

committed by those in power, employing the language used by colonialists to defend the slave trade and to dehumanise those exploited, Behn’s speaker offers a very radical stance comparatively to the pro-colonial literature prevalent in the Early Modern period.

To conclude this chapter, I would like to focus on Behn’s closing paragraph in Oroonoko:

Thus died, this great man, worthy of a better fate and a more sublime wit than mine to write his praise. Yet, I hope, the reputation of my pen is considerable enough to make his glorious name to survive all ages, with that of the beautiful and the constant Imoinda. (Behn, 2016, p.112)

In vein of the novel’s apologetic preface, Behn closes Oroonoko on a note that undermines her abilities. In spite of this, Behn expresses a desire for this text to serve in making the lives of Oroonoko and Imoinda remembered throughout history and this consequently was achieved. Contrary to the held belief of the period that artistry was an inherently male characteristic, Aphra Behn radically asserted her authoritative voice. Furthermore, Behn utilises her voice to illuminate the tragic experiences of slaves whose story would otherwise be lost to colonial erasure. However, despite the aspects of Oroonoko that engage with radicalism, there are ostensibly aspects of the text and Behn’s position as speaker that do not challenge the oppressive structures at hand. In spite of Behn’s attempts to distance herself from Oroonoko’s oppressors, she herself is only in the Suriname because of her position as a British colonialist. Bill Overton confirms this in his essay ‘Countering “Crusoe”: Two Colonial Narratives’, in which he expresses, “it is a paradox that, although Oroonoko became a classic of the anti-slavery movement in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the text does not itself condemn slavery.”(Overton, 1992, p.302-310) Additionally, this is an apparent characteristic in the speaker’s treatment of Imoinda. In spite of Behn’s attempt to achieve autonomy as a woman writing, she further describes Imoinda through a hypersexual lens. Thus contributing to the fetishisation and debasement of Imoinda as a black woman. For these aforementioned reasons, it is reasonable to believe that Behn’s engagement with radicalism is conditional at best.

Word Count: 2705

Bibliography

Aphra Behn, Oroonoko, ed. by Janet Todd (Great Britain: Penguin Classics, 2016).

Bill Overton, ”Countering “Crusoe”: two colonial narratives”, Critical Survey, 4.3, (1992), 302-310.

Hans Sloane, ‘A Very Perverse Generation ‘, in Oroonoko: an authoritative text, historical backgrounds, criticism, ed. by Joanna Kipling (New York: Norton, 1997).

Joyce Green MacDonald, ”The Disappearing African Woman: Imoinda in “Oroonoko” after Behn”, ELH, 66.1, (1999), 71-86.

Milton Cantor, ”The Image of the Negro in Colonial Literature”, The New England Quarterly, 36.4, (1963), 452-477.

Moira Ferguson, ”Oroonoko: Birth of a Paradigm”, New Literary History, 23.2, (1992), 339-359