Robinson Crusoe and Oroonoko

[alla*]

both novels discuss nearly same issues but in a different way

narration and lg. discourse

colonialism

capitalism

slavery

realism and versimilitude

religion

morals

and most importantly authors which for me hold the key to understand the 2 novels

brb for a discussion for each point

[Sameeha]

oroonoko

slavery

feminine discourse

nature vs nurture

a romance and a novel

[alla*]

mmmmm

nice points

[Sameeha]

Narrative Strategy and the Construction of "Otherness" in "Oroonoko" by Aphra Behn


Article by Nicole Smith ~ All Content Copyright 2009 Article Myriad. All Rights Reserved.

Amazing article that combines oroonoko, robinson crusoe and othello



One of the key themes present throughout Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko is “otherness” based solely on the concept of racial identity. In the course of presenting the tale of the “noble slave,” this theme is highlighted through distinct narrative techniques as opposed to making this sense of self versus other prominent in the story itself. Her style of narration is rather journalistic, which leads the reader, if unchecked, to be compelled to begin to think it as truth, but more importantly than that, the reader is unconsciously coerced into assuming her biases and thoughts since she makes personal interjections throughout the text. This aspect of the self versus other theme is also explored in the similarly journalistic and first person narrative of DeFoe’s "Robinson Crusoe", as the narrator details his experiences and encounters with the “other” (Africans or other races) and adds personal asides as well.


In addition to Oroonoko and Othello, the theme of self versus other is apparent in both of these texts along with the same style of narration. In many senses, since the same themes are being explored in Shakespeare’s Othello, this work must not be left out of the discussion since in many ways, it seems as though the format of a play is somewhat similar to first-person narrative since we are given the words of the characters with the biases inherent in them. Although the general style and representation of race in "Othello"is devoid of the journalistic style that sets Oroonoko and Crusoe apart, there is nevertheless the same theme of the self versus other paradigm being expressed through a first-person narration of some kind. Although Oroonoko stands as the focal point of this study, it should be noted that comparing it with the narratives presenting the same theme of “otherness”—particularly as far as race is concerned—of DeFoe and Shakespeare, the reader can be begin to understand how the sense of self and other are created and even consciously formed through the act of first-person narration.


The representation of “otherness” in Behn’s Oroonoko is achieved by her highly personal, journalistic, and first-person narrative of what she claims is the true account of the “noble savage,” Caesar. Before beginning with her tale, she assures the reader of her reliability and prefaces the novel with one of the important quotes from "Oroonoko" by Aphra Behn, “I was myself an eyewitness to this great part of what you’ll find here set down, and what I could not be witness of, I received from the mouth of the chief actor in this history, there hero himself” (1). This sets her apart from the very beginning, not simply as a mere narrator, but as the one whose viewpoints are likely to cloud the narrative. More importantly, this first person narration sets her apart as an individual and forms our (the narrator herself and our own) perspective, thus rendering the reader unable to view the subject of her story as anything but “other”. Thus in this paradigm of self versus other, we become this new self, this narrator, and take on not only her version and chronology of events, but also more importantly, her biases and weaknesses. Strangely, the reader could easily fall victim to the same racial biases she presents through her story is not kept on guard and there seems to be the need for a constant “checking” of one’s self to avoid falling into this habit.


The character of Oroonoko, from this point forward to be referred to as “Caesar” is always subject to the narrator’s visions of fancy and much like Desmonda in Othello, she is taken in by his exotic nature. While on the one hand, with a different style of less self-aware narration we might be able to gain a fuller picture of Caesar, we are only allowed to view him through the eyes of a woman that may, albeit it questionably, be sexually attracted to the prince. Instead of being permitted to view him as anything but novel, we are only told how he seems in terms of otherness, thus the emphasis is placed more on exoticism than an effort to portray him in a more subjective way. Even our female narrator’s descriptions themselves are places within the context of multiple layers of otherness (as opposed to just black versus white). For example, in the long series of introductions to Caesar, she states, almost in the form of an itemized list; ““His nose was rising and Roman instead of African and flat; his mouth the finest shape 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 color there could be nothing in nature more beautiful, agreeable, and handsome” (5). In this case, there is not just the level of simple white and black differences, but Oroonoko is now being compared and contrasted on more layers of blackness. His features would lead one to believe he was white and even more importantly, noble and white (as well as the connection to his later name, Caesar, and his “Roman” features).


In this and other passages in "Oroonoko" by Aphra Behn, he is already being set both within and outside of white society while being further alienated by the mere fact that he cannot be easily integrated into this narrator’s sense of self and other. At once, Behn’s narrator seems to think of him as one of her own “kind” yet on the other hand, it seems that once she gets too close to that notion, she pulls herself away from it (thus pulls us with her). Consider that she first begins to connect her with her version of self (white and noble) and then seems to fear danger and immediately discounts herself, by stating that he is beautiful, but that “bating his color” nothing else should prevent this man from becoming a part of her self as opposed to an oddity, a foreigner, and no matter how amusing or fascinating she might find him—an other.


The way exoticism functions in each text is also the result of narration. If the reader was given a less biased way viewing these characters (i.e. as not self or other, but rather in the objective, third-person sense) this aspect might be lost. In Oroonoko, there are very few descriptions of any of the physical characteristics of the whites that surround the narrator and there are none given of the narrator herself. Since the “others” in this text are all of a different race though, this capacity for integrating exoticism seems boundless. The whites are never given a purpose; they simply “exist” in the colonies (even though the narrator clearly assumes we know their purpose there). Conversely, the story of how Caesar came to be in the colonies and with Imoinda are of great interest and even more heavily described are their appearances, clothing, beliefs, thoughts, etc. They are taken completely out of the context of the familiar and are separated from all Anglo notions of race, religion, and society. “And these people represented to me an absolute idea of the firs 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” (2). Instead of being part of any society or religion, there are simply organic, as if the very product of nature itself, rather than in any way connected with the European idea of civilization. This same action of emphasizing the exotic and ignoring the “self” is apparent in Robinson Crusoe, when the narrator is prone to reciting the details of the foreigners he meets, while leaving out all the details about the Europeans. Still, in the company of these slaves, whom he treats as completely “other” he is wont to give far more description and even admission of feelings. He tells Xury that he loves him, yet strangely, even though he is married later in the text, we never hear the name of the woman nor do we know anything about her..
In Oroonoko by Aphra Behn, the setting apart of the self in order to view the action and otherness is also seen in Robinson Crusoe, in part because of the similarity of first-person narration, although with much less subtlety than Behn produces. This is mostly due to the fact that we are always aware that the narrator is telling his story and there are few chances to get into the perspectives of other characters (partly because there are few others and those that exist are “below” thought and serve only to highlight Robinson’s subjection of them). Still, it is useful to look at the way this narrator, much like Behn’s. tries to construct the same journalistic style, especially in his opening when he verifies that everything we will talk about occurred to him—even going so far as to say, in the first person when he says in one of the introductory important quotes in Robinson Crusoe, “I was born…” in the first sentence of the story. This lending of authenticity might go a little ways in constructing a sort of “narrative reality” for the reader, but it is much easier to overlook Robinson’s biases toward the young Friday, his “servant” with his more fictional narrative stance. There are certain instances, however, in which the line between fiction and reality in the construction of self and other becomes blurred.


To examine this aspect in Oroonoko, one must look at an instance that is similar in both Oroonoko and Robinson Crusoe. Since much of otherness was not only based on race, but on “heathen” versus Christian views, we should note that both narrators undertake “educating” their noble slaves in Christian ideology. Just as Crusoe’s efforts to break down the wall of otherness by being unable to teach Friday what the Devil was and how he functioned in Christianity, Behn’s narrator is equally unable to convince her charge of the importance of Christianity. She states, “But of all the discourses Caesar like the worst, and would never be reconciled with our notions of the Trinity, of which he ever made jest; it was a riddle, he said, would turn his brain to conceive, and one could not make his mind understand what faith was” (27). By making these similar statements through the process of first-person narrative, both narrators are claiming that there is some insurmountable difference in the minds of the whites versus the colored people. Certainly the time period in which these two writers were operating were coded for such beliefs and these same ideas appear in other works about African-Americans from the period, but it is interesting that we are given detailed first-person accounts of these unsuccessful attempts since it shows that each narrator, as heavily invested in Christine doctrine as they seem to be, can never accept these other characters as “self” but that there must be always be something condemning them to the category of other.



Although in Oroonoko, the construction of otherness is based on the lone narrator’s interpretation and recitation of events and perception, it is a different case in Othello. While it seems as though Oroonoko could be a retelling of Othello, in many respects, the main aspects that separate one from the other are the result of narration. On Oroonoko, we are given our accounts through the eyes of a narrator who is clearly enthralled with the exotic. All of her descriptions of the non-white characters are imbued with a sense of wonder and magic and most of the time, these black or Indian characters are never presented without the presence of romantic language. One might easily think that Caesar and his exotic tales have wooed Behn’s narrator and appearance and we find that this theme is repeated in Othello. While never seeming to be surprised by it, Othello recognizes the way his position as “other” offers him opportunities and although at times he may seem reluctant to admit it, he does obviously realize it. This is hinted at when he is states in an important quotation from "Othello" that, Desmonda’s “father loved me, oft invited me, / Still questioned me the story of my life / From year to year” (I.iii.127–129). Even the men, in either tale, are not immune to the power of the exotic story. For example, in response to Othello’s revelation about how he won Desdemona with his tales of adventure is: “I think this tale would win my daughter too” (I.iii.170). Although he couldn’t quite say (as a man) that we would fall in love as well, he puts the focus on his daughter, but nonetheless, it is clear that the power of the exotic in both texts in clear. There is a strange moment where Othello denies his exoticism, by saying, “Rude am I in my speech, / and little blessed with the soft phrase of peace” (I.iii.81–82) but this seems almost as though its an effort to live up to the expectations of those who accept him as an “other”. Even more oddly, and perhaps as a result of his otherness becoming more apparent to him at the end, he bemoans his fate and uses wording that is more simplified and self-consciously exotic when he says, “Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away/ Richer than all his tribe. It is hard to guess why Shakespeare put such language into the character if not to reinforce his status as an other.



What is perhaps most disturbing about this creation of otherness through narration is the way guilt, crime, and other negative actions are not dealt with in the level of “self” (in this case, in the terms of European ideology) but are handled in terms of otherness. To make this point a little clearer, we should note that in Oroonoko, Behn’s narrator, although constantly suspicious of Caesar, nonetheless feels a great deal of pity for him—even after his brutal murder of his beloved wife. Instead of feeling repulsion over his act, she dotes on him and attempts to justify his actions. While it is not explicitly stated, it seems as though she feels that he, being part of this otherness she’s created for the reader (and presumably herself) is not fit or qualified to be punished by the same standards as “self” or the white authority. Instead, she rationalizes his actions, thus even the reader becomes unconsciously implicit in forgiving him of the brutal slaying. One must wonder, “what if this had been a white character in the book that had committed such an act. Wouldn’t he be subject to white society’s punishments?” That said, throughout the whole of the tale, she often treats Caesar’s character as white—he is treated with respect for the most part and is not subject to the working life of his black counterparts. If this is true, why wasn’t he punished according to European codes (in her mind, anyway)? The only guess to posit is that perhaps his status as “other” coupled—and enhanced by—this biased narration, led to the reader also being able to forgive him. His portrayal is absolutely sympathetic, thus instead of seeing his act as thoroughly criminal, our perceptions are tinged by narration.


We see this same event described above occur in Othello, and although the narrative style is different, we are almost forced to choose the most reasonable character and take their side. Since all characters are essentially speaking in the first-person, we are witness to all parties’ biases and motivations. Although this complicates the analogy of race and Othello and Oroonoko, though the same basic effect is strikingly similar. Othello murders his wife just as Caesar does (although for different ends, of course). Even though the circumstances are different, the reader, due to narration, is inclined to forgive each character. Desmonda, who we are given to sympathize with, forgives Othello and thus the reader is able to as well since it seems much less terrible. Also, we are told by out female narrator in Oroonoko that Imoinda forgave Cesar and even welcomed death by such a “noble hand.” In both of these texts, the reader is forced to judge between the reliability and justification of the beliefs of the narrator(s) and in the case of Othello’s murder, we are compelled to “listen” to the characters that seem the most noble and worthy. In Shakespeare’s work, Desmonda seems to be the most sympathetic character, thus when she forgives Othello for his crime against her, so too does the reader—if only for a moment. Unlike in Oroonoko, we have the option of listening to other voices that call Othello a “Moor” and an “old black ram,” (I.i.88) thus offering the opinion that he is less than human as well as separated by his race. Still, even though these are characters that aren’t fond of Othello and call him names that direct the reader’s attention to his otherness, we are forced to determine which narrative voices to listen to and strangely, the only one that makes sense at the end is Desmonda’s, thus we are inclined to forgive Othello just as she did.
Throughout this construction of otherness through narrative strategies, it is important to point out that even though the exoticism exists, otherness creates a state of isolation, both in the real sense for the characters, but also in the narrative sense. Despite his acceptance, mostly based on the fact that he is “noble” in appearance and demeanor, Caesar is completely isolated. Through the distance of the first person narration—even though we have claims from the narrator that she has spoken directly with the man—Caesar remains completely apart from the reader. We can witness his actions, but there is a middleman and there’s no way to conceive of him completely. In many ways, Othello, despite his acceptance by his society (mostly based on his conformity to European standards thus similar to Caesar as well) is quite as isolated because he does not fit neatly into a category of “self” or other because the narration doesn’t allow for such distinctions. As a bit of a twist on this system outlined in this study, one can also see that because of narration, even though Robinson Crusoe is part of the authority (he is white and European) he has become other, he has, by staying on the island caused himself to fall outside of what his society deems as self, thus making his thought of “I am singled out and separated, as it were, from all the world, to be miserable” (88) just as meaningful as if it were on of his exotic counterpart’s thoughts.

[Big brotheR]

:(


i wish i had read this article before

[alla*]

http://books.google.com/books?id=6OprEqlliFQC&pg=PA34&lpg=PA34&dq=slavery+crusoe+oroonoko&source=bl&ots=4ELnqHqGi1&sig=llPtGa-sTRO-M8SbJ2g-5VrsxYQ&hl=ar&ei=fn07Sv-AN9WZjAe__N2BAg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7

[alla*]

Colonization in RC & Or

Colonization is a familiar word in modern times though its actual bulk lies in the past. Many cultures and traditions that are present today have many ties to this past. Many modern day novels now portray colonization in its actuality – harsh domination over the natural race of a particular land. However, it is important to note that during this period of colonization there were people writing of it and their opinion were quite different. Two such novels are Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe and Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko; both are considered to be eighteen century novels dealing with the issue of colonialism. This paper aims to show the aspects of both Oroonoko and Robinson Crusoe that make them colonial novels.
Colonialism is the major theme for both the novels, however, when dealing with colonialism a number of subthemes emerge: Adventure, domination (especially by slavery), subjugation, detachment, and finally profit. Though both authors leave us the impression that they both believe colonization and slavery are just facets of the natural world, Behn and Defoe do not completely follow the same methods of describing it. Defoe makes Robinson Crusoe, his fictional character; possess a calculative and stoic mind bent on enforcing the Protestant Work Ethic in every situation but Behn, with her character Oroonoko, show that despite slavery being a common practice in the world it is not just to be taken lightly. Defoe decides to make Crusoe a practical and rational ‘white’ human being while Behn, despite the popular belief of that time, attempts to ‘humanize’ Oroonoko in the context that he is just not another slave. Both novels are differentiated by this significance, Robinson Crusoe treats colonialism as an adventurous and necessary action for the progress of humanity while Oroonoko is about the one who is enslaved and implicitly questions the whole structure of slavery.
Adventure is one of the central themes of any colonial novel; as Professor Firdous Azim pointed out in a lecture concerning Oroonoko, the new lands to the white man are seemingly awaiting virgins to be ravaged and exploited. Robinson Crusoe, as a novel, embodies this concept; Crusoe’s eagerness to seek other lands and become an explorer is the ideology of the colonizers. As Edward Said expertly stated in the Introduction of his popular book, Orientalism, that the Other (meaning those who are not white) are the Exotic and it is their lands that must conquered along with them. Crusoe, as my friend Robina presented in her lecture about the novel, is a guide and his biography can be considered as a sort of a guidebook to other colonizers. This is quite true if the novel’s events are followed chronologically; despite Crusoe’s best efforts to abandon his ideas of being an explorer for the disasters that overtake him at sea, he always gets lucky enough to reap the benefits of his situation. The first time he is shipwrecked he managed to escape and start anew, the second time he ventures out to sea he is captured and enslaved yet eventually escapes to start life anew once more. It is important to note that when he escapes from slavery he enslaves the boy Xury, who was already the slave of his former master, and fares quite well in the boat that he escaped with. There is a sense of adventure in this despite his claims of being in a ‘dilemma’ in which ‘[he] was very pensive’ and feared ‘[he] must perish’. After he is rescued he is able to go to Brazil and make a fortune in being a plantation owner. Though he was marooned in the island afterwards he is seen to make fairly good progress in keeping himself alive and even those details are somewhat glorified with how he makes his home, his bower and establishes his faith once more. All these are explicit colonial techniques – firstly, one must be white to be a good colonizer and leader, secondly, one must accept Christianity to be successful and lastly, he must manipulate everything around him to gain supremacy. These, as Defoe implies, are the rites of passage that make a man fit for adventure. In my opinion they are elaborately fictitious accounts that only seem to elevate the white man. For Crusoe’s companionship with Lady Luck seems too exaggerated and only benefits him, not those around him.
Oroonoko is the different perspective; Oroonoko is the one enslaved, he had been colonized, and for him, unfortunately, it is not an adventure. To him the Other will most definitely be the colonizers and their way of life, and Behn sympathizes this account by saying “ he finds diversions for every minute, new and strange.’ He too is in a foreign land, that of Surinam in the West Indies, but despite his superior qualities at adaptability (which are strangely more realistic than Crusoe’s) he cannot ravage these virgin lands as an adventurer. Though Behn coins his life as ‘adventures’ it is obvious by his need to rebel and be free that he found all his exotic surroundings a constant reminder of his oppression. Even marriage to his beloved Imoinda does not soothe the aggression he feels for being a slave. He knows he is a slave and though he has learned new ways, they are not his own, naturally, this would frustrate anyone. His actions show that colonizers idea of a romantic adventure is horrendously flawed as one must become “Europeanized” to achieve it. This is both unjust and diabolical.
Domination and Subjugation work hand in hand in both the novels. With Crusoe’s voyage we see how white men are becoming ubiquitous; they can be found in various parts of the world in which they seek new lands to conquer and make their own. This is made evident by Crusoe himself for both the times he is cast out at sea he wishes to see a White trade ship in which he knows he will find safety. When he is finally marooned on the island he decides to colonize himself and does that easily as he is the only permanent inhabitant. The introduction of the cannibals and Friday does not really change that. He has taken the throne in this island and the Other are now the tribes that come occasionally to make sacrifices. It is his interaction with Friday that show how he has the upperhand in everything. Firstly, Friday is a willing prisoner for he is been abandoned by his own people thus it seems wiser to him to befriend the strange white man. Crusoe, from the very beginning, wants Friday as his slave as to him every coloured person is a creature who must become a slave (he seems to have forgotten the ‘friendly Negroes’ who had saved him when he was rebelling from his own slavery). He does not bother to learn Friday’s language, nor does he bother to learn of Friday’s real name. To him his only wish is to save:
The Soul of a poor Savage, and bring him to the true Knowledge of Religion, and of the Christian Doctrine, that he might know Jesus Christ, to know whom is Life Eternal. I say, when I reflected on all these Things, a secret Joy run through every Part of my Soul, and I frequently rejoyc’d that ever I was brought to this Place…
It is obvious by these statements that Crusoe from before wished to impose his beliefs on Friday, his noble ‘savage’. It is quite an colonial aspect from the start, Friday must call Crusoe Master and cater to his every need. To Defoe all is right in the world.
Behn is more of a teacher than an enslaver of Oroonoko; though she objectifies him as well with describing his physical beauty in a European manner, she actually still acknowledges that he is beautiful and highly intelligent. She goes even far on saying:
The perfections of his mind come short of those of his person, for his discourse was admirable upon almost any subject; and whoever heard him speak would have been convinced of their errors…and would have confessed that Oroonoko was as capable even of reigning well…
Though these attributes are considered common to a prince Behn acknowledges them which is far from what Defoe does. She even believes that the indigenous people of Surinam are morally superior than White people and thus implies that enslaving them would be a blatant sin. She only thinks Oroonoko people can be enslaved as they buy and sell their own people as a contract with the White merchants. Oroonoko treating her as his confidante and telling her about his wish to rebel actually makes her ponder on her own social beliefs. Crusoe, in isolation, despite his claims at Providence, remains the same.
Crusoe and Behn both, however, do follow the need to be detached. To Crusoe, anything can become a commodity – the slavery of himself to which he bore no real grudge (as my classmate Robina established in her lecture) proves that the making of profit (the Christian work Ethic) remains supreme thus he does things with a calculative mind. But Behn only stays detached when she describes Oroonoko’s death as it would be dangerous for her, she being a white and a woman, to explicitly state the injustice to the prince. To her Oroonoko is like the ‘mighty river Oroonoko’ (ironically this line is from Robinson Crusoe) who is supposed to be remembered and respected.
In conclusion, though both Behn and Defoe write on colonization their approaches are different. Defoe believes it is the natural state of things and a whole new adventure. To Behn, however, she makes us think both ways, sure, slaves are possibly a necessity but is it truly alright? I believe both books do an excellent job as colonial novels.
________________________________________

[Sameeha]

so, when we talk about colonization

we mention what is ment by colonization

Robinson Crusoe as a colonizer

his colonial discourse

the island with its objects as colonized

the relation between colonization, capitalism, and religion

[Sameeha]

Colonialism is the major theme for both the novels, however, when dealing with colonialism a number of subthemes emerge: Adventure, domination (especially by slavery), subjugation, detachment, and finally profit

...

[Sameeha]

Robinson Crusoe treats colonialism as an adventurous and necessary action for the progress of humanity while Oroonoko is about the one who is enslaved and implicitly questions the whole structure of slavery.
what does this mean..

isn't the whole novel an anti-slavery though it is pro-colonial

[Sameeha]

The White Mistress and the Black Slave:
Aphra Behn, Racism and the Beginnings of Novelistic Discourse



© 1995 by Ruth Nestvold

Aphra Behn's short novel Oroonoko (1688), one of the first realistic prose narratives in English literature, contains a number of elements that are new: the chatty narrative style; the narrative authority who is recognizably female; and a plot which takes place in the New World, a slave uprising in the British colony of Surinam. It should hardly be surprising that this accumulation of "novel" elements results in ideological contradictions in the work itself, contradictions that reflect the inconsistency produced by changing social structures in the seventeenth century. Particularly interesting in this respect is the relationship between the two members of disadvantaged groups: the hero of the story, the black male slave, and the white mistress who is his narrator. While this narrator is sympathetic to the plight of her hero, the novel cannot avoid participating in the discourse of racism.(1) Oroonoko is an example of racism in the sense of intrinsic social inequality rather than an individual racist document; in fact, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries Oroonoko was considered an anti-slavery novel: "The novella had been recognized as a seminal work in the tradition of antislavery writings from the time of its publication down to our own period."(2)


Despite the narrator's critical treatment of slavery, Oroonoko is an exemplary text for a study of racism at the beginning of novelistic discourse; it cannot easily be dismissed as merely the work of a racist indivual, and as such can be examined for more far-reaching effects of race within culture. The goal of the proposed paper will not be to prove whether Behn was racist or not (as numerous articles have already done on both sides(3)), but to examine the way in which the complex relationship of race and gender informs this early prose narrative, as well as the criticism surrounding it.


A number of the contradictions of Oroonoko are connected to the elements that make it a transitional work in the development of the novel: the combination of the courtly world of the romance (personified ironically in a black slave), and the new world of the contemporary reader--and the narrator. These elements cannot be separated from race. Oroonoko is the story of the royal slave from the point of view of the middle-class colonial mistress: the black male protagonist can only speak through the white female narrator. This situation points out the simplistic nature of the women=colonized metaphor which Laura Donaldson criticizes:


...the woman=colonized, man=colonizer metaphor lacks any awareness of gender--or colonialism for that matter--as a contested field, an overdetermined sociopolitical grid whose identity points are often contradictory. Historical colonialism demonstrates the political as well as theoretical necessity of abandoning the idea of women's (and men's) gender identity as fixed and coherent. Instead ... it makes it impossible to ignore the contradictory social positioning of white, middle-class women as both colonized patriarchal objects and colonizing race-privileged subjects.(4)
The attitude of the narrator in Oroonoko toward slavery is not easy to pinpoint. She never criticizes slavery directly, but the perspective of the victimized hero promotes a critique of slavery nonetheless. On the one hand, the narrator insists that she has a certain amount of authority in the colonial society of Surinam, which would seem to imply participation in the racist-colonialist ideology, but on the other hand, Oroonoko is portrayed more positively than most of the colonists. Despite her claims to social authority, it is precisely the marginal position of the narrator as a woman in patriarchal colonial society that lends her the authority to speak for the hero. And although she maintains that she has authority to save Oroonoko, she is unable to do so.


The paradoxical positioning of the narrator is reflected in the contradictory use of pronouns.(5) When the topic is the abuse of the slaves, the narrator refers to the colonists as "they"; when she is speaking of the peaceful coexistence with the Indians it is "we":
But before I give you the story of this gallant slave, it is fit I tell you the manner of bringing them to these new colonies; those they make use of there, not being natives of the place: for those we live with in perfect amity, without daring to command them...(6)

At times she even refers to "the Christians" as "they," implying that she does not belong in this category either. When there is a threat to the colony, however, then the narrator is part of the "we" of the colonists. This usage seems to imply a "we" that consists of women and children, those who flee when the situation gets dangerous. By allying herself with the powerless members of society, the narrator does not have to take on any responsibilty for the brutality of the colonial leaders. But this only makes her own powerlessnenss apparent, contadicting her statements about her influential position. The main criterium of oppression in Oroonoko is race and not gender, but the only actions open to the female narrator are flight and speech.

The relationship between the oppressed groups in Oroonoko is characterized by sympathy but complicated by the different hierarchies governing behavior. The narrator is a member of colonial society, and that is the side she takes when open conflict breaks out. Oroonoko belongs to the soldier class of a society in which women are little better than property. But within the framework of the novel it is the romantic hero, Oroonoko, who is little better than property, an aristocratic hero of epic proportions trapped in a capitalistic plot. The narrator mediates both world views in her text, but she does not acknowledge Oroonoko's place in the capitalist system. It is not only a "they" consiting of men from which the narrator excludes herself, it is a "they" of trade, specifically of trade with human beings.


It has been frequently noted that Oroonoko produces a much more realistic effect than earlier prose narratives.(7) It is not only the convincing details which contribute to achieving this effect; it is also the contradiction between the narrator's assumed social position and her actual powerlessness as a character within the framework of the plot. Oroonoko is the extraordianry hero of romance or tragedy, but the narrator's failure to save him, her struggle against the social apparatus, is a distinctly novelistic device. And this struggle is ultimately concerned with constraints of race and gender.
Oroonoko is replete with contradictions: perhaps true, perhaps not; perhaps travel account, perhaps novel; from an author who uses a narrator who claims to be the author--a fictionalized author, who claims to have authority which she obviously doesn't. The effect of these contradictions on the reader is to create the impression of a narrative voice deeply disturbed by the events related, and convincing us with the divided loyalty of a narrator who is affected and affecting. The inconsistencies in Behn's short novel are particularly interesting in the context of how literature participates in racist discourse; on the one hand, Oroonoko shows a resistence to facile racial categories, but at the same time it perpetuates categories it seems to reject. It is of particular interest to literary history that such contradictions as these are situated at the beginning of modern novelistic discourse, and that they find their expression in such a seminal work as Behn's Oroonoko.

[alla*]

The Presence of a Female Narrator in Behn's Oroonoko

Aphra Behn's most famous novella, Ornooko or The Royal Slave A True History, pairs romance with realism alongside Greco-Roman story elements that aid in expressing at least one of the work's overall messages. The catch, however, is that Ornooko's narrator is not male like Virgil or Homer's. She is a woman and almost stereotypically so. Despite Behn's adoption of a male epic story format for Ornooko, the apologetic introduction and the emasculation of Prince Oroonoko as the ideal lover obviously indicate that the narrator is female and overall conveys an empathetic tone that points to Behn's anti-slavery leaning.

Oroonoko's apologetic introduction follows an almost set formula for female writers of the Restoration, so that the narrator could not possibly be mistaken for male. The narrator does not claim to have authority on the subject of Ornooko's story because the Restoration was evidently a patriarchal society that expected women to be docile and submissive. The story starts with a self-incriminating:

"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; not in relating the truth, design to adorn it with any accidents, but such as arrived in earnest to him" (Behn 2279).

Behn undermines herself as a writer, a storyteller, and even as a witness of the events she describes in the story because she was not really allowed to sound too confident, given her time in history. Like famed diarist Cavendish, Behn assumes a lady-like ignorance that was a popular female stylistic tool during the era because it alluded to the virgin-like innocence that society during the era required women to at least feign, if not actually possess

Ornooko is too sensitive of a lover to be a male creation, which again indicates that Ornooko's narrator must be female. Behn describes Ornooko as "gallant" (Behn 2282), "great and just" (Behn 2283), of "quality" and "of delicate virtues" (Behn 2284), in addition to using many other flattering words that present him as a wonderful lover. The royal slave is too effeminate to be very close to the Restoration man's ideal of the perfect lover, who would have been closer to the subjects in Earl of Rochester John Wilmot's poems "The Imperfect Enjoyment" and "The Disabled Debauchee." These men are assertive with women, which means that they are used to taking charge in the bedroom, often over multiple women, rather than committing to just one during a lifetime. But Ornooko is obviously in love with and faithful to Imoinda. He is very charming when wooing her and wants to marry her, but is crushed when his grandfather, the king, steals her away from him and forces her to sleep with him. Even after the king has stolen Imoinda's virgin honor, Ornooko still loves her and returns to show and tell her how true his feelings are for her, whereas many men in that situation would have abandoned her and found another lover, or had a substitute lover before returning to her, but Ornooko is just the opposite because Behn wants him to appear as noble as possible in order to make his downfall to slave status more distressing and therefore elicit more pity from the reader.

The empathetic female narrator inexplicitly expresses the hope that slavery will end soon, which may have seemed unnatural for a male narrator of the time to do. The fact that Ornooko's narrator is so blatantly female automatically connotes the traits associated with the 'fairer sex'---the compassion, pity, and strong desire to help those in need---while a male narrator would have quickly shown a thirst for adventure and the need to tell an epically good story, rather than being so quick to tell a morally-erect tale about contemporary social issues. However, in her essay, "The Romance of Empire: Oroonoko and the Trade in Slaves", Laura Brown states that the story is an "interesting early example of the problematic stance of a self-consciously female narrator" because readers will always identify a female writer from patriarchal periods, such as the Restoration, as female first and look for some feminist position before seeking any other political message in the work (Brown 43). Brehn tries hard to emphasize her anti-slavery stand by repeatedly describing Oroonoko as a royal slave, implying his social and moral nobility, so that the focus is on Oroonoko's downfall and not her own femininity as a writer. The emphasis on Ornooko's nobility in both senses of the word underlines how wrong it is to enslave him and people like him. Brehn portrays Ornooko and Imoinda in Greco-Roman terms (mentioning, for instance, that they have 'Roman' noses instead of 'flat' ones) that make them so admirable that it is hard to find reason for them to have to suffer. Again, the narrator's characteristically feminine compassion gains sympathy for Ornooko, his lover Imoinda, and all slaves.

Behn's novella Ornooko or The Royal Slave A True History has a noticeable female narrator as shown through the story's opening and Ornooko's gentle character as a lover, whose compassion imparts an anti-slavery message. The anti-slavery message serves as an interesting precursor to later abolitionist work written by female authors, such as Harriet Beech Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, as it is still so much a product of its period and yet still revolutionary.

Works Cited:

Behn, Aphra. Ornooko or The Royal Slave A True History. Damrosch, David and Dettmar, Kevin J.H. The Longman Anthology of British Literature: The Restoration and the 18th Century, Volume 1C. New York: Pearson Education, 2006. (pgs. 2272-82)

Brown, Laura. "The Romance of Empire: Ornooko and the Trade in Slaves." Nussbaum, Felicity and Brown, Laura. The New Eighteenth Century: Theory, Politics, English Literature. New York: Methuen, Inc., 1987. (pg. 43)

[Sameeha]

Despite Behn's adoption of a male epic story format for Ornooko, the apologetic introduction and the emasculation of Prince Oroonoko as the ideal lover obviously indicate that the narrator is female and overall conveys an empathetic tone that points to Behn's anti-slavery leaning.

the female sympathetic narration parallels with the thematic point of anti-slavery.

[Sameeha]

The narrator does not claim to have authority on the subject of Ornooko's story because the Restoration was evidently a patriarchal society that expected women to be docile and submissive. The story starts with a self-incriminating

a feminine discourse in a patriarchal dominating society. A powerful colonial narrator and a powerless colonized participent of the actions

[Sameeha]

Behn assumes a lady-like ignorance that was a popular female stylistic tool during the era because it alluded to the virgin-like innocence that society during the era required women to at least feign, if not actually possess

how could she assume this position? and does this mean that her narration was artificial more than a real which contradicts what she previously states in the introduction that the events of the story are real.

[Mo7amed]

are these ur writings?

[Sameeha]

of course not

but we can write better than those :D:D right alla?

wanna make a challenge? In the summer i mean :cool::cool: