Oroonoko: reception, ideology, and narrative strategy

Abstract

Oroonoko and its critical reception Recent criticism of Aphra Behn's Oroonoko has attempted to untangle its complex web of political and ideological investments, an approach encouraged by the novel's representation of the seventeenth-century English colonial project that in many significant ways has shaped the modern world. Set in Coramantien on the coast of Africa and in an English colony in Surinam, Oroonoko tells the story of an African prince captured into slavery by an unscrupulous English slave-ship captain. Prince Oroonoko had befriended the captain when selling slaves to him; the prince thought he was a guest on the ship, but the captain saw him as a potential commodity. When they arrive in the Caribbean, Oroonoko becomes a paradoxical 'royal slave': the other slaves bow down before him as their king (even though he may have traded some of them into their current slavery); the English, who also recognize his nobility, keep him in an elegant plantation house, guarded and entertained by the novel's narrator. The English promise, but never deliver, freedom for Oroonoko and his wife Imoinda. Oroonoko's royalty means that he does not suffer the usual hardships of slavery; still, he longs for release. Imoinda's pregnancy brings the narrative to a crisis over the fate of their child: Oroonoko leads a rebellion to secure their liberty, but it fails due to the lack of resolve among the other slaves. The wives beg their husbands to stop fighting; as in Oroonoko’s story, domestic interests compete with the defence of honour.)