Oroonoko, or The Royal Slave by Aphra Behn, Part 3

This is the third and final post in a series on the novel, Oronooko or the Royal Slave  by Aphra Behn. 

You can find Part 1 here.  

Part 2 is here.  

Continuing with the various themes…

Kingship

The importance and nature of kingship is I think the central theme of the novel.  It is around this that Behn’s vision creates both character and plot.  The grand nature of Oronooko, his military prowess, his commanding presence, his exploits, his moral code, his intelligence and mien, and his reduction to a slave from which breaks free, if not in life than in death, shows a man with divine properties.  It is his innate, instinctive qualities that make him for Behn a natural born king.  He is a prince, so genetically he is endowed by Providence.  The narrator’s first reaction upon seeing him is one of encountering the sublime:

[Oronooko] was adorned with a native beauty so transcending all those of his gloomy race, that he struck an awe and reverence, even in those that not his quality; as he did in me, who beheld him with a surprise and wonder, when afterwards he arrived in our world.  (79)

And from his countenance, the narrator intuits:

He came into the room, and addressed himself to me, and some other women, with the best grace in the world. He was pretty tall, but of a shape the most exact that can be fancied; the most famous statuary could not form the figure of a man more admirably turned from head to foot… 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. There was no one grace wanting, that bears the standard of true beauty… 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; and would have confessed that Oroonoko was as capable even of reigning well, and of governing as wisely, had as great a soul, as politic maxims, and was as sensible of power as any prince civilized in the most refined schools of humanity and learning, or the most illustrious courts.  (80-81)

What we see here is that Oronooko is naturally aristocratic, divinely blessed with all the gifts of a great warrior and philosopher king. 

One should note the immediate history of Kingship in England as Behn, sympathetic to the monarchist, would have seen it.  Henry VIII by his succession of wives, infidelities, and dissolving of the bond with Rome and becoming the head of his own church was seen as a dissolute King.  It is quite possible that Oronooko’s grandfather, as King of the fictional African country, with his temper tantrums and concubines, was an allusion to Henry VIII.  England then passed through a national religious crises and a crises in succession, which culminated in the installment of Charles I as King.  Charles had a high monarchist view of the Kingship—that is as divine right—and conflicted terribly with Parliament.  That was the central question of 17^th century England, where do the powers of the King end and what should be the powers of the parliament.  In addition, the English cultural landscape was still undergoing a crises in religious constitution.  While Catholicism had been alienated and diminished, a struggle had ensued between the Puritans (named so because they wished to purify the English Church of Catholicism) and the High Anglicans who maintained liturgy and many Catholic practices.  The conflict between Parliament and the Monarchy was not on the surface a religious conflict, but religious conflicts of the day intertwined with the political.  Charles I was a High Anglican, but had married a Catholic.  Parliament, led by Oliver Cromwell, was Puritan.  In short, a civil war developed, Charles I was executed, Cromwell ruled until his death, upon which Charles II, son of Charles I, restored the monarchy.  Charles II was also High Anglican, but he too had married a Catholic, and his sympathies may have been with Catholicism even more so than his father.  Charles II died in 1685 (converting to Catholicism on his death bed, by the way), replaced his brother James II.  James II was an outright Catholic and within three years in 1688, the year Oronooko was written, was deposed for a Protestant King.

It is within this context that Behn writes of kingship in Oronooko or The Royal Slave.  That is the full title of the work.  Calling Oronooko “royal” is a loaded word in her historical context.  It certainly calls up a political position, and given Oronooko is a natural, divinely graced king, it is clear that Behn is supporting the royalist position.  If Oronooko’s grandfather alludes to Henry VIII, Orinooko, as gallant warrior king, philosopher, and gentleman courtier alludes to Henry V.  Undoubtedly, Behn had either read or seen Shakespeare’s play on the great monarch.  Recall that Henry V is valiant in battle, noble in spirit, and gentle with Catherine of Valois.  Oronooko is an African Henry V.

Christ-Figure

Behn uses several allusions to either move the plot and characterize Oronooko within the story.  I have mentioned Achilles and Henry V, and there is also Othello in the killing of his wife, but the last sections Oronooko clearly becomes a Christ-figure.  When he gathers the slaves into a group, we see them abandon him, betray, and once captured scourged by his own fellow slaves.

But they were no sooner arrived at the place, where all the slaves receive their punishments of whipping, but they laid hands on Caesar and Tuscan, faint with heat and toil; and, surprising them, bound them to two several stakes, and whipped them in a most deplorable and inhumane manner, rending the very flesh from their bones; especially Caesar, who was not perceived to make any moan, or to alter his face, only to roll his eyes on the faithless governor, and those he believed guilty, with fierceness and indignation. And, to complete his rage, he saw every one of those slaves, who, but a few days before, adored him as something more than mortal, now had a whip to give him some lashes, while he strove not to break his fetters, though, if he had, it were impossible. But he pronounced a woe and revenge from his eyes, that darted fire, that ’twas at once both awful and terrible to behold. (131)

Oronooko does survive this and once returned to the safety of Parham plantation, plots his revenge.  The Governor, not satisfied with Oronooko surviving that ordeal, demands he be handed over from Trefry.  One could see this as a sort of Pilate and the Sanhedrin haggling over Christ’s fate.  Once recovered, Oronooko kills Imoinda (with her consent) and decides to make a last stand to seek his vengeance.  At this last stand, cornered and angry, he cuts flesh from his neck and throws it at the band who are after him.  This is the scene where some have suggested an allusion to the Eucharist:

[Oronooko] held up his knife in a menacing posture, ‘Look ye, ye faithless crew,’ said he, ‘’ tis not life I seek, nor am I afraid of dying’, and, at that word, cut a piece of flesh from his own throat, and threw it at them, ‘yet still I would live if I could, till I had perfected my revenge. But oh! it cannot be. I feel life gliding from my eyes and heart, and, if I make not haste, I shall yet fall a victim to the shameful whip.’ At that, he ripped up his own belly, and took his bowels and pulled them out, with what strength he could, while some, on their knees imploring, besought him to hold his hand. (138)

Even this is not the end of incredible Oronooko.  He is taken back and surgically patched together.  While recovering, Major Bannister at the command of the governor forcibly took Oronooko, tied him to a stake to be burned.  Stoically he stood fixed at the stake. 

He had learned to take tobacco, and when he was assured he should die, he desired they would give him a pipe in his mouth, ready lighted, which they did, and 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. (139-140)

Subsequently his body is quartered and each quarter sent to a plantation for spectacle.  “Thus died this great man, worthy of a better fate,” concludes Aphra Behn.

Oronooko stoically smoking a pipe while tied to a stake, fire smoking around him, and being hacked body part by body part has to be one of the most incredible images in all of literature.  Oronooko or The Royal Slave may be early for Gothic fiction, but, my Lord, that has to be among the most imaginative gothic endings I can recall.  It’s either brilliant or absurd. 

Clearly we can see the rudiments of a Christ passion narrative in the elements of Oronooko’s demise.  Oroonoko is betrayed, abandoned, scourged, and affixed to a pole until dead.  While there are some intervening events in the Oronooko narrative that are not in the passion narrative, the association is clear.  But for what end?  Actually that Oronooko is framed as a Christ-figure makes sense.  If the central theme of the novel is the indignity of enslaving a divinely graced king, then what better to associate with him with the Kingly Servant of Jesus Christ?  I think Behn in the novel is upholding the sacred nature of kingship, which reflects on the political crises in her day. 

Behn creates Oronnoko as a natural king, and that implies a certain divine authority granted to him.  Think of it as Christ the King authorizes a representative on earth.  The Church is Christ's representative on the theological and moral realm; the monarchy is Christ's representative in the administrative realm.  While it not being a sacrament, the installation of a king did (it may even still) involve a religious ceremony.  Kings of England are usually installed by the Bishop of Canterbury, even under Anglicanism.  I don't know how far back it goes, but Charlemagne had the Pope crown him as Holy Roman Emperor.  This practice of anointing kings goes back to Kings Saul and David and the other Kings of the Old Testament.  Shakespeare in Richard II dramatizes the sin of regicide, even when the king is reprehensible.  Behn makes Oronooko out to be a Christ-figure because she sees him as a divine king. What about the suggestion of the Eucharistic parallel to Oronooko cutting his flesh off for others that my friend Mary Sue asked me to evaluate?  Frankly I don’t see it.  But I could be wrong but let me say why I could be wrong first and then get to why I don’t think so.  The reason I could be wrong—and wrong being that Behn meant it as a Eucharistic parallel—is that the words ceremony and sacrifice do run through the novel.  What is the relationship between ceremony and sacrifice in Oronooko’s experiences?  Frankly I can’t piece anything together.  I just don’t see any ceremonies and what are deemed sacrifices seem like mere deaths.  Either I’m missing the importance of ceremony in the novel, or Behn intended it and didn’t communicate it well or she didn’t intend it at all. 

As to why I don’t think there is a Eucharistic parallel, there are several reasons.  First, the bare descriptive facts don’t suggest it: “and, at that word, cut a piece of flesh from his own throat, and threw it at them.”  No one eats his flesh.  He doesn’t offer it to be eaten.  Christ offers His body and blood to His apostles and believers.  Oronooko is throwing it at the mob that wishes to kill him.  Second, Christ doesn’t cut flesh off His body.  He transforms bread and wine into His body and blood.  Even the blood spilled at the crucifixion, no one drinks it.  Oronooko is physically cutting flesh off his neck in what seems like a moment of frustration.  (And what an odd place to cut flesh off one’s body.)  If Behn is creating an analogue, it strikes me as a very poor one.  Third, the Eucharist is a spiritual union with Christ and therefore God.  Jesus establishes the theological grounds in the Gospel of John, chapter six.  He says:

“I am the bread of life.  Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died; this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die.  I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.” 

The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us [his] flesh to eat?”

Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.  Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day.  For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.  Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.  Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.  (John 6; 48-57)

There is no implication that feeding off of Oronooko’s flesh has any theological or spiritual implications.  There is nothing in Oronooko’s act, physically or spiritually, that would suggest an analogue to the Eucharist.

I may be off here, but I don’t see the differences between Christians as being an important theme in the novel.  Yes, the hypocrisy of Christians is dramatized, but it’s a general Christianity that is identified.  I don’t see anything that would distinguish between Puritan, High Anglican, or Roman Catholic.  I couldn’t find any citation to identify Behn’s Christian denomination.  My guess—pure speculation—is she’s High Anglican like Charles II, and perhaps she’s sympathetic to the Catholicism, like the King.  I don’t, however, see any Catholicism in the novel.

It’s also possible, perhaps even likely, that the ending is not meant to allude to a crucifixion at all.  England had developed a rather barbarous execution technique for the worst criminals, hanged, drawn, and quartered, going back from Behn’s day at least four hundred years.  Per the Wikipedia entry, the sufferer would be “hanged (almost to the point of death), emasculated, disembowelled, beheaded, and quartered (chopped into four pieces).”  Oronooko is not hanged and he only disembowels himself, but he is emasculated, hacked to pieces, and quartered for spectacle.  I think this cultural meme is on Behn’s mind, though hanged, drawn, and quartered is in itself a form of crucifixion.  The practice was famously used against hidden Roman Catholics in Elizabethan and Civil War times.  Perhaps some sort of allusion is meant. 

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Final Goodreads Review:

This fascinating little novel was written in 1688, a generation before Daniel DeFoe, who is typically considered the first modern novelist in English, and written by a woman no less.  The novel follows Oronooko, an African prince who is tricked into slavery by so called “Christians.”  At its core, the novel is about the nature of kingship, which was the big political issue of its day, the Restoration period of English history, but in doing so Aphra Behn creates a narrative of the indignities of slavery, a social position well ahead of her time.  Her woman’s voice and perspective—the tale is told in the first person of Behn as a character in the story—also gives dignity to the female characters.  The prose is dated to Behn’s time, but it is good and rhythmic prose, but some may not enjoy reading that.  Partly woman’s amatory novel, partly heroic action story, and partly slave narrative, the novel doesn’t always seem to know what it should be, but I do think the story holds together.  The story holds together because Behn creates an indelibly memorable character in Oroonoko, who at times recalls Henry V, at times recalls Othello, and other times a Christ-figure.  This novel should be more widely known than it is, at a minimum for its due placement in the history of the novel. 

I initially gave the novel three stars with a statement of three and a half stars if I could be more precise.  My mind still sees it as three and a half stars but I give it four stars as I lean to the higher side.  On reflection the novel has grown on me.

Oroonoko, or The Royal Slave by Aphra Behn, Part 2

This is the second in a series on the novel, Oronooko or the Royal Slave  by Aphra Behn. 

You can find Part 1 here.  

So what to make of this strange story?  There are several themes that have been proposed for the novel.  Let me give my opinion of each.

Anti-Colonialism

Well, certainly there is colonialism.  The English and the Dutch fight over this New World territory, set up plantations, and administer a ruling government.  The slaves however that work the plantations are imported from Africa, and the natives for the most part seem to be left alone.  At the beginning of the novel Behn sets up what projects to be a much more prominent theme when she characterizes the natives as innocent in a prelapsarian way. 

They are extreme modest and bashful, very shy, and nice of being touched. And though they are all thus naked, if one lives for ever among them, there is not to be seen an indecent action, or glance; and being continually used to see one another so unadorned, so like our first parents before the Fall, it seems as if they had no wishes; there being nothing to heighten curiosity, but all you can see, you see at once, and every moment see; and where there is no novelty, there can be no curiosity. (75)

But then later when Oronooko accompanies a group into the heart of the country, there is great fear of the Indians.

About this time we were in many mortal fears, about some disputes the English had with the Indians, so that we could scarce trust ourselves, without great numbers, to go to any Indian towns, or place, where they abode, for fear they should fall upon us, as they did immediately after my coming away, and that it was in the possession of the Dutch, who used them not so civilly as the English, so that they cut in pieces all they could take, getting into houses, and hanging up the mother, and all her children about her, and cut a footman, I left behind me, all in joints, and nailed him to trees. (120)

I guess one could say the natives were provoked but it certainly not the docile and innocent humanity of pre-fallen world.  But the natives are at least sincere and perhaps serve as a contrast to the white Christians who lie and cheat repeatedly.  I can’t quite tell if the author intended the theme of anti-colonialism.  It just isn’t developed.  I think the natives serve as a contrast to the Europeans.

Contemporary Politics of Behn’s England

I think we can all agree that Behn supports the monarchy, and I’ll develop that theme further down, but is there an intraparty political dynamic going on in the novel?  The two major characters who are in the power structure of the territory, Governor William Byam and the King’s plantation manager, John Treffry, are both Royalist.  One is Oronooko’s biggest supporter and the other is Oronooko’s biggest nemesis.  The only white character in the power structure who is not a Royalist is George Marten, a brother to a Cromwell supporter, and, though not a fully developed character, seems to be sympathetic to Oronooko.  If there is any political implication from the tension between Byam and Trefrey, it is lost on me.  There isn’t any outright hostility, just diverging interest in Oronooko. 

International Dynamics between England and Dutch

There is an English/Dutch rivalry that is undercurrent in the novel, but I can’t discern any noticeable bias.  It probably reflects the historical circumstances of her time, but I don’t see a theme.  Perhaps the fact that she, an English woman, doesn’t favor England by default is a statement in itself, but I don’t sense an international rivalry between the nations as a theme.  Christian Europeans are depicted as liars and cheats and brutal slave owners in contrast to the Surinamese and the Africans, but I think both were and are mentioned in the novel as slave owners too.  While the English and Dutch are rivals in both African and South American colonialism, this rivalry isn’t a developed theme.

Anti-Slavery

Slavery is definitely a theme of the novel, and Behn doesn’t lend any support to this heinous practice.  I don’t know if she stands out on this issue for her day, but she is certainly valiant.  I assume slavery was a commonly held notion in her day, but she seems to go against that trend.  Now that is not to say there aren’t complexities that complicate the theme.  Oronooko and his countrymen enslave, hold slaves, and sell slaves.  Oronooko himself participates in the practice.  But when Oronooko is enslaved he reaches what I think is an enlightenment on the practice.  First in being enslaved, he feels the degradation of what the practice entails.

First it is quite extraordinary that Behn creates such a noble and gallant character in Oronooko in contrast to the scheming and treacherous whites.  And Behn does this twice in that she creates an almost equally noble female in Imoinda to complement Oronooko. 

[Oronooko] became, at the age of seventeen, one of the most expert captains, and bravest soldiers, that ever saw the field of Mars; so that he was adored as the wonder of all that world, and the darling of the soldiers. Besides, he was adorned with a native beauty so transcending all those of his gloomy race, that he struck an awe and reverence, even in those that knew not his quality; as he did in me, who beheld him with surprise and wonder,when afterwards he arrived in our world. (79)

There are some I think that characterize Oronooko as a “noble savage,” but frankly I think that is a mischaracterization.  A noble savage implies a certain innocence that has been preserved from civilized corruption.  I think Behn characterizes the natives of Surinam as noble savages, but the Africans of Coramantien have a functioning government with rivalries, courts, wars, hereditary monarchies.  In addition, Oronooko is educated in European culture.

’Twas then, afflicted as Oroonoko was, that he was proclaimed general in the old man’s place; and then it was, at the finishing of that war, which had continued for two years, that the prince came to court; where he had hardly been a month together, from the time of his fifth year to that of seventeen; and ’twas amazing to imagine where it was he learned so much humanity; or, to give his accomplishments a juster name, where ’twas he got that real greatness of soul, those refined notions of true honour, that absolute generosity, and that softness that was capable of the highest passions of love and gallantry, whose objects were almost continually fighting men, or those mangled, or dead; who heard no sounds, but those of war and groans. Some part of it we may attribute to the care of a Frenchman of wit and learning, who finding it turn to very good account to be a sort of royal tutor to this young Black, and perceiving him very ready, apt, and quick of apprehension, took a great pleasure to teach him morals, language and science, and was for it extremely beloved and valued by him. Another reason was, he loved, when he came from war, to see all the English gentlemen that traded thither; and did not only learn their language, but that of the Spaniards also, with whom he traded afterwards for slaves. (79)

This is not a noble savage but a man larger than life.  The narrator goes on to speak from her firsthand experience with him.

I have often seen and conversed with this great man, and been a witness to many of his mighty actions; and do assure my reader, the most illustrious courts could not have produced a braver man, both for greatness of courage and mind, a judgment more solid, a wit more quick, and a conversation more sweet and diverting. He knew almost as much as if he had read much: he had heard of, and admired the Romans; he had heard of the late Civil Wars in England, and the deplorable death of our great monarch, and would discourse of it with all the sense, and abhorrence of the injustice imaginable. He had an extreme good and graceful mien, and all the civility of a well-bred great man. He had nothing of barbarity in his nature, but in all points addressed himself as if his education had been in some European court. (80)

Second, while experiencing the life of a slave, Oronooko grows, so that freedom is seen as part of the nobility of every man.  Here is his impassioned speech to his fellow slaves to stir them to rebellion.

Caesar, having singled out these men from the women and children, made a harangue to them of the miseries, and ignominies of slavery; counting up all their toils and sufferings, under such loads, burdens, and drudgeries, as were fitter for beasts than men; senseless brutes, than human souls. He told them it was not for days, months, or years, but for eternity; there was no end to be of their misfortunes. They suffered not like men who might find a glory, and fortitude in oppression, but like dogs that loved the whip and bell, 61 and fawned the more they were beaten. That they had lost the divine quality of men (126)

Though Oronooko is no Christian, he frames this in Christian terms, telling them “they had lost the divine quality of men.”  And further, he characterizes the brutality of enslaving as that of savages. 

‘And why,’ said he, ‘my dear friends and fellow sufferers, should we be slaves to an unknown people? Have they vanquished us nobly in fight? Have they won us in honourable battle? And are we, by the chance of war, become their slaves? This would not anger a noble heart, this would not animate a soldier’s soul. No, but we are bought and sold like apes, or monkeys, to be the sport of women, fools and cowards, and the support of rogues, runagades, 62 that have abandoned their own countries, for raping, murders, thefts and villainies. Do you not hear every day how they upbraid each other with infamy of life, below the wildest savages, and shall we render obedience to such a degenerate race, who have no one human virtue left, to distinguish them from the vilest creatures? Will you, I say, suffer the lash from such hands?’ (126)

Behn has turned the convention on its head.  The African is the noble and grand character, while the Europeans are the degenerate savages.

Feminism

The feminism theme is not as pronounced as one would expect if it were a dominant theme.  On the one hand, none of the female characters have any power or even rebel against male authority.  Yes, Imoinda is cast as a powerful woman, but even she is below in stature to Oronooko, who she complements, and she never displays any will to break free from the men who dominate her life.  She acquiesces to become the African King’s concubine, though her wishes are clearly against it.  She is sold off as a slave when the King no longer has use for her, and accepts her death at Oronooko’s hand for fear to be left alive without his protection.  As powerful a woman as she is cast, we never see her power in either rebellion or to work her way out of a situation.  In the end, she is a minor character.

In what way then is there a feminist theme?  Two thoughts.  I think the respect Oronooko pays to Imoinda is an honest respect paid to a woman without objectifying her in her gender.  Here’s how Behn describes Oronooko’s courtship:

She was touched with what he said, and returned it all in such answers as went to his very heart, all in such answers as went to his very heart, with a pleasure unknown before. Nor did he use those obligations ill that love had done him; but turned all his happy moments to the best advantage; and as he knew no vice, his flame aimed at nothing but honour, if such a distinction may be made in love; and especially in that country, where men take to themselves as many as they can maintain; and where the only crime and sin with woman is to turn her off, to abandon her to want, shame and misery. Such ill morals are only practised in Christian countries, where they prefer the bare name of religion; and, without virtue or morality, think that’s sufficient. But Oroonoko was none of those professors; but as he had right notions of honour, so he made her such propositions as were not only and barely such; but, contrary to the custom of his country… (82-83)

He was not only honorable by the standards of his country, but superior to those of “Christian countries.”  This is certainly an understanding of a woman’s needs that only a female writer can conceptualize. 

Also in support of a feminist theme is the strong voice of the female narrator.  It is the narrator who is Oronooko’s equal as he provides intimate details of his life.  Here is how she speaks of a moment after such a private conversation:

Before I parted that day with him, I got, with much ado, a promise from him to rest yet a little longer with patience, and wait the coming of the Lord Governor, who was every day expected on our shore. He assured me he would, and this promise he desired me to know was given perfectly in complaisance to me, in whom he had an entire confidence. (115)

Notice the language: “I got…a promise from him,” “he assured me,” “this promise he desired me to know.”  Despite her being a woman, she is at least an equal in the relationship.  And it is only in her, a woman, Oronooko places his confidence, not any of the men, not even Trefry.  It is the female narrator who is Trefry’s superior in obtaining Oronooko’s trust, as he tells her of his life story. 

While women’s issues are not part of the thematic structure, certainly through the narrator’s voice and through Oronooko’s respect for the women he encounters and develops a relationship with, the novel shows great dignity for women. 

Oroonoko, or The Royal Slave by Aphra Behn, Part 1

This is a novel and an author I had never heard of before and not something I would typically have picked up to read out of my own desire.  A friend of mine, Mary Sue, who is a graduate student in Literature at New York University, sent me an email asking me about the Eucharist because she thought it played a role in this novel.  Mary Sue is not Catholic, and apparently Aphra Behn may have been, or at least had Catholic sympathies during the English Restoration period.  The hero of the novel, Oroonoko, an enslaved African Prince, at his downfall starts cutting off his flesh to hand out, and this perhaps could be a literal allusion to the Christ’s exhortation to consume His body.

Well, I pointed Mary Sue to John Chapter 6 and a few books on the theology and history of the Eucharist, but the penetrating image of a man cutting off his flesh for others was so captivating that I had to read the novel for myself.  The novel is only around a hundred pages, so it wasn’t going to be a burden to find the time.  So I first read up on Aphra Behn and this novel and the time period.

Let me summarize it before getting to the novel.  

AphraBehn—born Aphra Johnson—lived from 1640 to 1689, which was at the beginning of the English Civil War and then lived through the reign of the restored Stuart monarchy in the persons of Kings Charles II and James II.  Behn died just after the deposition of James II and the installation of William and Mary of Orange in what has come to be known as the Glorious Revolution.  

It is surmised that Behn was Catholic, but I could not find anything definitive.  She certainly had royalist sympathies when it came to the monarchy versus parliamentary conflicts.  At this time, England had a solid Protestant majority, so Behn, if she were Catholic, she would have been in a minority.  It’s also in the realm of possibility (probably likely) that Behn was Protestant, and that in the political polarity of her day she sided with the monarchy.   

Pertinent also to understanding the novel I think is the fact that Behn is a woman.  Indeed, some of the fascination with her writing today seems to be that she is viewed as a proto-feminist.  Behn is attributed to be the first professional woman writer in England, and Virginia Woolf writes in A Room of One’s Own: “All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn, for it was she who earned the right to speak their minds.”  There are some strong female characters in Oroonoko, but it is still a male dominated story. 

It’s an interesting novel.  It’s only a hundred pages or so, and so the epic scale of the central character belies the brief narrative length.  It’s bi-furcated in that the African section seems somewhat dislocated from the Surinam section.  Still the central character holds the sections together credibly. 

Historically she’s a generation before Daniel Defoe.  I can’t place her literary models.  The early sections seem like a woman’s amatory novel, the African battle recalls The Iliad, and the Surinam section recalls a slave narrative.  The strength of the novel comes from Behn’s narrative voice, which makes the scenes credible and vivid, and on the character of Oronooko, who is grand, noble, and epic. 

Note.  All quotes are taken from Behn, Aphra. Oroonoko, the Rover and Other Works (Penguin Classics). Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.

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Summary

Part I:

Description of Surinam and its people, and a description of Oronooko when the narrator first meets him.

Part II

Oronooko falls in love with Imoinda, but the old king takes Imoinda for his concubine.

Part III

The old king tells Imoinda that Oroonoko no longer has interest in her; she resolves to settle as a concubine.  But when Oronooko visits the court and the two meet, their passion is resumed.  When the king finds the two in an embrace he explodes in anger and determines to send Oronnoko away to battle.  But Oronooko with the help of his aid Aboan and another of the king’s concubines, Onahal, is able to meet with Imoinda for an hour of love.

            -This becomes a woman’s amatory novel and one of court romance.

Part IV

Oronooko barely escapes Imoinda’s bedroom, and when the king discovers what has occurred sells Imoinda and Onahal into slavery.  With Oroonoko off to battle, the king sends a messenger to Oronooko to tell him Imoinda has been killed, though in reality she has been sold.  Oronooko refuses to fight but when his comrades are losing the battle, being pushed back to the camp, Oronoonko suits up and turns the tide to his side.  –Very much like Achilles in the Iliad.

Part V

With Oronooko victorius, he is held in high esteem again at court, and in selling the captured enemy over to some English ship Captain, he and his noble men are tricked onto the ship and captured as slaves themselves.  When the Captain gives his word as a “Christian” to let Oronooko free at first opportunity so that Oroonoko would not kill himself, Oronooko acknowledges and returns his sincerity on his honor.  The Captain’s “Christian” word turns out to be false, and on landing in Surinam Oronooko and his men are sold into slavery.

Part VI

The narrator from Part I resumes first person narration.  The owner who bought Oronooko was a man named Trefry, who acted in the region in lieu of the Governor.  Trefry, noticing the nobility, intelligence, and learning in Oronooko raised him to a level above a common slave, and named him Caesar.  Trefry told Oronooko of an equally noble female slave called Clemene, and when Oronooko met her he fell into her arms and it turned out to be Imoinda.  –Here we are told of Oronooko’s divine kingship. 

Part VII

We are told of several exploits Oronooko performs in Surinam, such as the killing of wild tigers and touching of electric eels. 

Part VIII

The narrator takes a trip into the Indian towns where despite the threat of violence from the Indians against the English, they interact and learn of their customs.  Caesar (Oronooko) served as a protector, and he was able to build a relationship with the Indian, even establishing trade.  Shortly after Oronooko, with Imoinda pregnant and the English diverted, gathered up the black slaves and made a passionate appeal to seek freedom.  They all agreed.  –This is where the plot turns toward the climax.

Part IX

Caesar (Oronooko) takes his band of slaves toward the coast but the owners pull together an army and confront them.  They tell the bulk of the slaves to abandon Caesar and no harm will come to them, and all do except his deputy, Tuscan, and Imoinda.  The three put up a gallant fight, but Byam, the Surinam Governor, pledges amnesty if they will cease, and Caesar concedes.  But this is just another lie, and so Oronooko is taken, shackled, and whipped.  –Here we see what can only be described as a parallel to Christ’s Passion: betrayal, imprisonment, and scourging. 

Part X

Trefry takes authority over Byam, citing the plantation as a sanctuary from the governor.  He gives aid to Caesar (Oronooko), allowing him to recover.  Once recovered, Caesar decides to take revenge against those who shamefully whipped him.  Realizing he will die from this exploit, and further realizing that it would leave Imoinda open to rape and disgrace, he comes to the conclusion he must kill her to save her from this ignominy.  He takes her into a wooded area, and tells her of his plan and she agrees that she too must die from his hand.  In tears he kills her with a knife and decapitates her.  He is taken ill from the grief but when he finally recovers escapes the plantation.  A search party confronts him and to show his lack of fear he cut a piece of his flesh off and threw it at them.  When he feels his body weaken, he realizes he could not win in a fight and so disembowels himself in a suicide attempt.  Tuscan rescues the dying Caesar, and taken back is sewed up by a surgeon.  While Caesar is recovering, Byam lured Trefry away so that a Major Bannister could forcibly take Caesar to the whipping post.  There, given a pipe to smoke, Caesar is hacked to pieces, cutting off his “members,” ears, nose, arms until he finally dies.  Afterward Caesar’s body is quartered and posted for spectacle.  –This dismembering and severing of Caesar is a sort of (1) crucifixion and (2) equating to the hung, drawn, and quartering of English practice.

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Historical Figures:

Frances Lord Willoughby – Granted propriety rights of the English colony in Surinam by King Charles II.

William Byam – Appointed Governor Surinam by Willoughby.

Major James Bannister – Underling to Governor Byam.

John Treffry – Willoughby’s appointed agent for managing his plantation on Surinam.

The above ae all in a chain of command linked to King Charles II, and therefore all Royalists.

George Marten – Plantation owner and brother to the Oliverian George Marten, presumably a Parlimentarian.

I'll start providing my thoughts on the various themes in my next post on Oronooko.