Oroonoko GradeSaver ClassicNote

ClassicNote on Oroonoko
Table of Contents
Biography of Behn, Aphra (1640-1689)................................................................................................................1
About Oroonoko.....................................................................................................................................................3
Character List.........................................................................................................................................................5
Aboan.........................................................................................................................................................5
Bannister....................................................................................................................................................5
Byam..........................................................................................................................................................5
Clemene.....................................................................................................................................................5
Caesar.........................................................................................................................................................5
Imoinda......................................................................................................................................................5
Jamoan.......................................................................................................................................................5
Narrator......................................................................................................................................................6
Onahal........................................................................................................................................................6
Oroonoko...................................................................................................................................................6
Trefry.........................................................................................................................................................6
Tuscan........................................................................................................................................................6
Willoughy..................................................................................................................................................6
Major Themes.........................................................................................................................................................7
European or Native Superiority.................................................................................................................7
Anti-colonialism........................................................................................................................................7
Slavery.......................................................................................................................................................8
The Female Narrative Voice......................................................................................................................8
Glossary of Terms................................................................................................................................................10
Attendant..................................................................................................................................................10
Baffled......................................................................................................................................................10
Bating.......................................................................................................................................................10
Cat with nine tails....................................................................................................................................10
Chiurgeons...............................................................................................................................................10
Complaisance...........................................................................................................................................10
Coramantien.............................................................................................................................................10
Cousheries................................................................................................................................................10
Ell.............................................................................................................................................................11
Flies..........................................................................................................................................................11
Gashly......................................................................................................................................................11
Table of Contents
Glossary of Terms
Governants...............................................................................................................................................11
Hamaca....................................................................................................................................................11
High point................................................................................................................................................11
Japanned...................................................................................................................................................11
Maugre.....................................................................................................................................................11
Mobile......................................................................................................................................................11
Newgate...................................................................................................................................................12
Nice..........................................................................................................................................................12
Novel........................................................................................................................................................12
Numb eel..................................................................................................................................................12
Oroonoko.................................................................................................................................................12
Parole.......................................................................................................................................................12
Politic.......................................................................................................................................................12
Runagades................................................................................................................................................12
Savannahs................................................................................................................................................12
Sensible....................................................................................................................................................13
Shock dog................................................................................................................................................13
Statuary....................................................................................................................................................13
Surinam....................................................................................................................................................13
Transportation..........................................................................................................................................13
Short Summary....................................................................................................................................................14
Summary and Analysis of Section One--Life in Surinam................................................................................16
Summary and Analysis of Section Two--Life in Coramantien........................................................................19
Summary and Analysis of Section Three--Oroonoko in Surinam...................................................................24
Summary and Analysis of Section Four--Revolt in Surinam...........................................................................29
Related Links........................................................................................................................................................34
Suggested Essay Questions..................................................................................................................................35
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Table of Contents
The Country of Surinam......................................................................................................................................36
Author of ClassicNote and Sources....................................................................................................................37
Essay: Rising and Roman, African and Flat: Aphra Behn's Oroonoko.........................................................38
Quiz 1.....................................................................................................................................................................41
Quiz 1 Answer Key...............................................................................................................................................46
Quiz 2.....................................................................................................................................................................47
Quiz 2 Answer Key...............................................................................................................................................52
Quiz 3.....................................................................................................................................................................53
Quiz 3 Answer Key...............................................................................................................................................58
Quiz 4.....................................................................................................................................................................59
Quiz 4 Answer Key...............................................................................................................................................64
Copyright Notice..................................................................................................................................................65
iii
Biography of Behn, Aphra (1640-1689)

In a time when very few writers could support themselves through writing, Aphra Behn was a well known and
highly regarded writer in London. She wrote many plays for the London stage, penned poetry, and wrote what
some consider the first English novel (though others consider it a novella, and it might even be considered a
longish short story). Much of her work cries out against the unequal treatment of women in her era, and she
suffered the consequences of these claims by enduring harsh criticism and even arrest.
Not much is known about the early life of Aphra Behn. During Behn's childhood, a civil war broke out in
England between the Parliament, led by Oliver Cromwell, and the British monarch, Charles I, and it ended with
the king's beheading in 1649. In 1658 the monarchy was restored (this time became known as the Restoration).
More than likely, she was born in 1640, possibly to wet nurse Eaffry Johnson, according to baptismal records in
Harbledown, a village near Canterbury. Her father was probably a barber. Because her mother cared for the
upper-class Colepepper children, chances are that she received some sort of education. More than likely, she left
England for Surinam in 1663 when her father was appointed to a military outpost in South America. One can
hardly imagine such a journey today, and it is possible that her father did not survive. The short time she spent
at the English settlement in the company of her mother and sister provided her with the material for Oroonoko;
or, The Royal Slave, which chronicles the story of an African prince who is brought to Surinam as a slave. After
England surrendered Surinam to Holland, she returned to England in 1664.
She probably married a Dutch merchant named Hans Behn. Some scholars speculate that this wedding might
not actually have occurred and that Behn invented it so as to be viewed as a respectable widow.
A favorite at the Court of Charles II, Behn was greatly admired by the King for her outgoing personality and
great wit, and she was perhaps employed by him as a spy in Antwerp during the war from 1665 to 1667. Here
she renewed her relationship with her former lover, the spy William Scot, an Englishman expatriate intent on
once again overthrowing the monarchy. Behn, whose secret name was Astrea, was to send reports back to
Charles II in invisible ink. Although she was enormously helpful in exposing the secret plans to exterminate the
English fleet in the River Thames in 1667, she was abandoned by the English in Holland with no money--a
highly dangerous situation for a woman alone at that time. Somehow she borrowed money but, despite many
letters, was still left unpaid by the King and consequently cast into debtor's prison in 1668. Thankfully, someone
paid her debt and she was allowed to leave.
At this point, Behn took up writing to support herself financially. It should be remembered how monumental a
move such as this was during a time when women could not even sign a contract and were completely reliant on
men for financial security. Her entry into a writing career coincided with the opening of the London theatres
which had been closed during the Interregnum. Behn began writing for Duke's Company at Dorset Garden. Her
1670 The Forc'd Marriage; or, The Jealous Bridegroom was her first play, a romantic comedy, which proved
successful. Most of her plays were romantic comedies, including The Amorous Prince; or, The Curious
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Husband, I{The Dutch Lover, and her most successful play, The Rover; or, the Banish'd Cavaliers, which dealt
with an exiled English regiment living in exile in Italy during the Puritan era.
Behn became notorious in 1682 when she was arrested for writing a polemic centering on the Duke of
Monmouth, Charles II's illegitimate son, who thought he had a claim to the throne since Charles II had failed to
produce a legitimate heir. At this point Behn began to write narrative fiction. Her first such work, the three
volume Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister (1684-1687) was successful, and The Lucky Chance;
or, An Alderman's Bargain, draws from the time she spent as a female spy in Holland. Her 1688 heroic love
story, Oroonoko, was very well received and became her most popular work.
Behn still suffered financially, however, and her health began to fail. She died in 1689, was buried in the
cloisters at Westminster Abbey, and for a while rested in obscurity. In the twentieth century, the novelist
Virginia Woolf wrote in A Room of One's Own that "all women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb
of Aphra Behn--for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds."
About Oroonoko
Although it was not popular duing Behn's lifetime, today Oroonoko (1688) is Aphra Behn's most widely read
and most highly regarded work. Oroonoko: or the Royal Slave remains important. It also influenced the
development of the English novel, developing the female narrative voice and treating anti-colonial and
abolitionist themes. It developed the figure of the noble savage that was later to be made famous by the French
philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
Scholars have debated which work should count as the first novel in English. The honor often has gone to
Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe (1719); Defoe is often referred to as "the father of the novel." Other scholars
insist that Oroonoko should have the honor in that it was written in a novelistic form and is not too short to be
disqualified. In any case, Behn receives credit for influencing the development of the British novel at or near its
origins.
Scholars also cannot determine with certainty whether the narrator of Oroonoko is intended to represent Aphra
Behn and whether the narrative is intended to be telling the truth. Behn began writing narrative fiction instead of
plays around 1682, when her reputation suffered after she was arrested for writing against the Duke of
Monmouth, Charles II's illegitimate son, who claimed the throne. Oroonoko evidently is drawn from Behn's
(likely) experiences as a young woman living in Surinam. It is written in a mixture of first and third person
narration, and it does not flow strictly in a chronological manner but begins with the narrator's first-person
account of Surinam as a British colony and with a description of its native people.
The narrator reports that the British cannot enslave the people because of their vast numbers; instead, to work
the land, the colony has to import African labor. After this, the narrative switches to third-person narration, and
the setting changes to Coramantien, today's Ghana, on the west coast of Africa, where we see local life and
finally meet the protagonist, the young prince Oroonoko, who is shortly enslaved and transported to the British
colony of Surinam. The story moves to Surinam and changes once again to first-person narration when
Oroonoko meets the narrator. It continues in first-person narration with the narrator, when not on the scene,
hearing firsthand accounts from those who are witnesses.
The final section of the story concerns Oroonoko's revolt and the horrible death of the hero, who is willing to die
rather than bear the name of slave. This is one of British literature's earliest depictions of the "noble savage"--a
person of innocence and true grace over against the contemporary city-dweller.
Oroonoko is notable for its groundbreaking depiction of the horrors of slavery, and it has come to be called one
of literature's first abolitionist tracts. After Oroonoko rouses the sugar plantaion slaves to revolt, they are hunted
down by the Island's Deputy-Governor and surrender. Despite the governor's promises, Oroonoko is whipped
brutally, his flesh shred and pepper poured into his wounds. In an effort to regain his lost honor, Oroonoko feels
compelled to take the life of his beloved wife Imoinda, who is carrying the child he would not have raised as a
About Oroonoko
slave. His own horrid death by dismemberment is beyond description, and it served the abolitionist movement
well. (Even so, readers should note that in the narrative, Oroonoko sells his own captives in war as slaves to the
British.)
About Oroonoko
Character List
Aboan
Oroonoko's true friend in Coramantien, who helps him enter the otan to visit Imoinda.
Bannister
Elected by Byam to round up, whip, and finally kill Oroonoko to dissuade the other slaves from revolting.
Byam
The historical deputy-governor of Surinam who betrays Oroonoko by having him whipped and put to death.
Clemene
The slave name given to Imoinda when she arrives in Surinam.
Caesar
The slave name given to Oroonoko by Trefry when he arrives in Surinam. The name is an allusion to Julius
Caesar, the Roman emperor who was murdered by his "friends."
Imoinda
The African beauty whom Oroonoko loves. She is sold into slavery after Oroonoko attempts to rescue her from
his grandfather the king's otan.
Jamoan
African warrior defeated by Oroonoko, whom he treats with great dignity and as a brother. He mirrors the
overseer Trefry, who similarly treats Oroonoko well.
Character List
Narrator
A young English woman, based on the author Aphra Behn, who visits Surinam and befriends Oroonoko.
Onahal
The senior wife of the king who helps Oroonoko meet his love Imoinda in the otan, the king's seraglio.
Oroonoko
The African prince who is captured and enslaved by a British slave trader and brought to Surinam, where in
time he leads a slave revolt and then dies.
Trefry
The overseer of Parham Plantation, he befriends Oroonoko and attempts to free him and return him to Africa.
Tuscan
The Surinam slave who helps Oroonoko organize the slave revolt but ultimately betrays him.
Willoughy
The lord governor of Surinam, who owns Perham plantation and never arrives to free Oroonoko.
Narrator
Major Themes
European or Native Superiority
Behn depicts the natives of Surinam, with whom the British live, as being in "perfect peace," as innocent as
Adam and Eve. Their native innocence is set against the corruption of civilization which is identified, in this
work, with Europeans (1). The native people are portrayed as having basic human virtues such as creative
artistry ("beads of all colors, knives, axes, pins and needles") and modesty ("very modest and shy and despite
living practically naked, there is never seen among them any improper or indecent behavior," 2). They have
basic survival skills which are lost by advanced technological societies; they can climb trees and fish for food.
Morally, they are far better than the European slave traders, who also lie (although the vast majority of
Europeans were not slave traders). The African prince Oroonoko is a model of nobility and honor, a magnificent
physical powerhouse capable of killing two tigers that the whites could not kill. Oroonoko also will die for his
belief in freedom.
Behn's presentation of the natives and cololonists is mixed, and despite the model of the noble savage, she fully
embraces the innate superiority of European people and European culture. The natives really are depicted as
savages: "they cut into pieces all they could take, getting into houses and hanging up the mother and all her
children about her" (54). When the narrator accompanies her social group of whites to the native village, the
natives practically fall down in adoration of their skin, clothes, shoes and hair. Also, Oroonoko is portrayed as
beautiful in terms of European physiognomy: "The most famous statuary cou'd not form the figure of a man
more admirably turned from head to foot...His nose was rising and Roman, instead of African and flat. His
mouth, the finest shap'd that could be seen...The whole proportion and air of his face was so noble, and exactly
formed, that, bating his colour, there cou'd be nothing in nature more beautiful, agreeable, and handsome" (8).
Oroonoko is exceptional even among his people because he was educated and taught manners by a French tutor.
His great virtue might be attributed to his nonnative education.
Anti-colonialism
Oroonoko is highly regarded as an anti-colonial text. It sheds light on the horrors of slavery and paints many of
the white colonists as brutal, greedy, and dishonest. Behn, like other writers from her era, felt greatly
disheartened that her countrymen could behead the late king Charles I (1649) and that countless assassination
attempts continued on his son, the restored Charles II. Such writers feared that the British possessed a general
predisposition towards violence, greed, and disobedience. For instance, the British slave trading captain first
befriends Oroonoko, but later betrays him and twice lies to him, and then sells him to Trefry. In addition, Byam,
the real-life historical deputy-governor of Surinam, also pretends friendship with Oroonoko and similarly
assures him over and over again of his eventual freedom. Later, however, Byam hunts him down, whips him,
and without a thought orders he be put to death. The author refers to Byam's greed ("he was one who loved to
Major Themes
live at others' expense" and illustrates how he acts with kindness and friendship to someone's face and then plots
behind his back (70).
The barbarism Behn fears is inherent in the British nature is particularly apparent in the character Bannister, "a
fellow of absolute barbarity," the member of Byam's elected council who condemns Oroonoko to death.
Bannister captures Oroonoko and tells him honestly that he will "die like a dog," to which the African prince
replies gratefully that he has finally heard a white man tell the truth (76-77). Even Trefry, who indeed is truthful
and kind though he is an overseer of slaves, remains blind to the plight of all the other slaves in his charge. And
while he defends Oroonoko, he never takes action on his and Imonida's behalf; he remains passive and helpless.
Finally, even the narrator, who means well and befriends Oroonoko, runs away at the first sign of trouble. Like
the other whites, she is two-faced. She assures him of her undying devotion, but shewarns immediately after that
she and the others do not "trust him much out of our view, nor did the country who feared him" (48).
If this pattern is common among British colonists, Behn suggests, the British are not suited to engage in
colonialism.
Slavery
Oroonoko is regarded by scholars as having advanced the cause of abolitionism. The colonists certainly appear
evil towards Oroonoko and others. The whites who whip Oroonoko act very cruelly in rending the flesh from
his bones: "when they thought they were sufficiently revenged on him, they untied him almost fainting with the
loss of blood, from a thousand wounds all over his body...and led him bleeding and naked as he was, and loaded
him all over with irons and then rubbed his wounds, to complete their cruelty, with Indian pepper which had like
to have made him raving mad" (67). These descriptions would have horrified seventeenth-century Europeans.
Even so, Behn fails to criticize colonialism's use of slaves altogether. It seems to be all right to treat slaves like
the overseer Trefry does--being nice to them rather than cruel. Behn does not signal discomfort that slaves
cannot retain their own names and are forced to leave their families and friends forever. Thus, though she writes
of the horrors of slavery, she never suggests that it should be outlawed as an institution. Although Oroonoko
suffers as a slave, he never regrets taking slaves himself. He merely justifies the practice of slavery in Africa as
the fate of men honorably taken in war (after all, it is better to be a slave than to be dead). Oroonoko never
seems troubled by the idea that the slaves he took honorably in war were then sold by him to the British for his
own profit. Although he suffers the brutalizing whip before his ultimate death, the hero never shows regret over
having been complicit in selling his own countrymen to the British.
The Female Narrative Voice

Behn's work is important for her innovations in developing the female narrative voice. In her case, this voice
invites readers into the plot with a familiar tone that bears a resemblance to an ongoing everyday conversation.
Anti-colonialism
The narrator's voice is suggestive of someone using the epistolary form, writing a letter. For instance, some lines
read, "I have already said..." or "I forgot to ask how..." In addition, the narrator's active and knowing
involvement in the plot, and her follow-up conversations with those who were present when important events
took place, provide a great sense of authority that makes the story believable and approachable. For instance, the
narrator might not have been on the scene when Oroonoko was killed, but her mother and sister--who are
eyewitnesses--inform her of the horrid happenings, which she can convey to her readers with immediacy and
authority.
This pattern becomes a central feature of the female narrative voice. The narrator is considered an "intrusive
narrator," someone who more or less interrupts the narrative when she deems fit to interject a personal aside on
the basis of additional knowledge or interest. On the journey to the native village, for instance, the narrator
makes a rather long digression by informing the reader how she came to be in Surinam: her father died on the
trip to his new post as lieutenant-general, and now she and her family must wait for transport back to England.
As a travel writer of sorts, she also provides her readers with a description of the local flora, fauna and cultural
customs of the natives. Behn's narrative strategy would influence such major novelists as Henry Fielding, Jane
Austen, and George Eliot.
The Female Narrative Voice
Glossary of Terms
Attendant
servant; assistant; helper
Baffled
deceived or confused
Bating
excepting
Cat with nine tails

whip with nine knotted lashes
Chiurgeons
surgeons
Complaisance
desire to please
Coramantien
Cormantine-settlement on the west coast of Africa, Ghana today
Cousheries
deer
Glossary of Terms
10
Ell
45 inches
Flies
butterflies
Gashly
ghastly
Governants
governess
Hamaca
hammock
High point
a type of lace
Japanned
varnished in black; lacquered
Maugre
in spite of
Mobile
mob
Ell
11
Newgate
notorious London prison
Nice
reluctant
Novel
new; different
Numb eel
electric eel
Oroonoko
a variant of the Orinoco River in South America
Parole
pledge; word
Politic
shrewd
Runagades
deserters
Savannahs
grasslands with scattered trees
Newgate
12
Sensible
sensitive
Shock dog
poodle
Statuary
sculptor
Surinam
Brtish colony founded in 1640, later Dutch Guiana
Transportation
transporting of prisoners and slaves to colonies
Sensible
13
Short Summary
Oroonoko chronicles the story of the African prince Oroonoko and his beloved wife Imoinda, who are captured
by the British and brought to Surinam as slaves. The tale is set primarily in this locale on the northern coast of
South America during the 1640s, just before the English surrendered the colony to the Dutch.
A young English woman, the nameless narrator, resides on Parham Plantation awaiting transportation back to
England. She is the daughter of the new deputy-governor, who unfortunately died during the family's voyage to
take up his new post. During her wait, she has the opportunity to meet and befriend prince Oroonoko and his
lovely wife, Imoinda. Before introducing the primary character, however, the narrator provides great detail
about the colony and the inhabitants, presenting first a list of multicolored birds, myriad insects, high-colored
flora and exotic fauna, and then an almost anthropological account of the natives with whom the British trade
and who seem to the narrator to be as innocent as Adam and Eve in "the first state of innocence, before man
knew how to sin." The British, she insists, live happily with the natives. Because of their vast numbers, the
colonists are unable to enslave them and so must look elsewhere for slaves to work on the sugar
plantations--that is, they look to Africa.
After her overview of Surinam, the narrator switches the setting to Coramantien (today Ghana) on the west
coast of Africa, where the protagonist Oroonoko is about to meet Imoinda, the daughter of the general who has
just died saving Oroonoko's life. The king of Coramantien, who is the 100-year-old grandfather of Oroonoko,
has also fallen in love with the young and beautiful girl and has beaten Oroonoko to the punch by sending her
the royal veil, a gift Imoinda cannot refuse, and which signifies that she is now the wife of the king. She will
spend the rest of her days locked within the otan, or the royal seraglio, which only the king can visit. Oroonoko,
however, breaks into the otan with the help of his good friend Aboan, who keeps one of the king's senior wives
named Onahal occupied with lovemaking. The king catches him, and Oroonoko flees. Although Imoinda is sold
into slavery, the king later informs Oroonoko that she has been honorably put to death.
Meanwhile, the British arrive in Coramantien to trade for the war captives whom Oroonoko sells as slaves. The
captain invites the prince and his friends to board his vessel as his guest, but then surprises them and takes them
captive. Soon after he promises Oroonoko his freedom, when he and his friends refuse to eat, but he fails to
keep this promise. Upon the ship's arrival at Surinam, Oroonoko is sold to the mild-mannered and witty overseer
of Parham Plantation who befiends him, Mr. Trefry. At this point, Oroonoko meets the narrator. She and Trefry
assure the prince that as soon as the lord-governor Willoughby arrives in Surinam he will be set free.
Because of his high social status, superior education, and spectacular physical appearance, Oroonoko is never
sent to work. He resides away from the other slaves in the plantation house. While walking with Trefry one day,
he sees Imoinda. The lovers fall happily into each other's arms and all but instantly marry. Soon Imoinda
becomes pregnant.
Short Summary
14
At this point Oroonoko, who desperately desires that his child not be born a slave, becomes even more
concerned about his enslaved status despite Trefry's and the narrator's renewed promises that all will be well
when the governor arrives. They attempt to divert him with hunting, fishing, and a trip to a native village.
Oroonoko is a champion hunter who kills two tigers singlehandedly in addition to managing to hold onto a
fishing rod even when an electric eel knocks him unconscious. Although the native village provides distraction
(and another means for Behn to provide cultural information about the natives in this region), Oroonoko incites
a slave revolt with the other plantation slaves. They escape on Sunday night when the whites are drunk, but they
leave a trail that is easy to follow because they have to burn the brush in front of them. The plan is to settle a
new community near the shore and find a ship on which to return to Africa. Meanwhile, the narrator flees to
safety, but later she gets a firsthand account of the events.
Deputy-governor Byam negotiates with Oroonoko to surrender and promises him amnesty. Once more he
assures Oroonoko that he and his family will be freed and returned to Africa. Hardly surprising, however, Byam
lies once more to Oroonoko and sees that he is whipped brutally, with pepper poured into his wounds, as soon
as he surrenders. The despondent Oroonoko realizes he now will never be free and that his child will be born in
captivity. He informs Imoinda that he has decided to kill her honorably, take revenge on Byam, and then kill
himself. She thanks her husband for allowing her to die with dignity, and he cuts her throat and removes her
face with his knife. But Oroonoko becomes prostrated with grief and can never generate enough energy to go
after Byam. Sinking ever deeper into depression, he waits for eight days next to the body of his dead wife until
the stench brings Byam's men to the site, where they immediately set about killing him. Finally, Oroonoko
stands stoically smoking his pipe while they chop off his nose, ears, and one leg. Then he falls down dead, and
they quarter his body before disposing of it.
Short Summary
15
Summary and Analysis of Section One--Life in

Surinam
The first word of Oronooko: or The History of the Royal Slave is "I"--the narrator--who claims to be "an
eyewitness" to the true history of an intriguing hero. Whatever she did not personally observe, she maintains,
was given to her as firsthand accounts by others who were there. While she will not bore her readers with all the
details concerning this amazing noble hero, she will nevertheless tell them everything about him that she, and
her group of curious European friends, found fascinating about this prince before and after he arrived in
Surinam ("in the West-Indies"). But, before she tells the story of how this "gallant slave" came to be in this
region of the world, she will provide an account of the people, the natives with whom the British live in "perfect
peace," and will give a highly detailed description of this wondrous place (1).
She describes a multitude of exotic tropical birds: "parakeets, great parrots, macaws, and a throusand other birds
and beasts of wonderful and surprising forms, shapes and colors," as well as a wide variety of insects (2). The
native people with whom the Europeans trade, she says, are creative: "we dealt with them with beads of all
colors, knives, axes, pins and needles." They wear beaded aprons "as Adam and Eve did the fig leaves." The
people, she continues, are beautiful, their skin color a reddish yellow. "They are very modest and shy and
despite living practically naked, there is never seen among them any improper or indecent behavior" (3). Of
course a man might be attracted to a woman, but he will only touch her with his eyes while his hands remain
folded. He sighs with love but never talks to her. The young woman, on the other hand, modestly guards her
eyes and keeps them lowered. In short, the narrator reiterates again, the native people are very like the first
biblical parents in the Garden of Eden living in "the first state of innocence, before man knew how to sin" (3).
Indeed, she insists they do not even understand the concept of sin. Once, they performed a mourning ceremony
for the English governor, whom they assumed to be dead because he failed to attend a meeting that he had
earlier with a handshake consented to attend. Nothing else but death, they believed, could have kept him from
attending the agreed meeting. Later on, when they ask the Governor the English word for a man who fails to
keep a promise, he responds "a liar," at which point they accuse the Governor himself of being just such a
character. They do not understand vice or cunning, the narrator further insists, except that which they have been
taught by the white man. The men take many wives, the younger of whom serve the older respectfully. Unless
they have slaves, they keep no servants.
The British live with the native population, the narrator continues, in the "greatest tranquility and good
understanding," an arrangement that works well because the natives know the location of all the food in the
forest and climb the trees to get delicious fruit. Also, they swim like fish and run as fast as deer when they hunt.
They supply great delicacies to the British that the colonists would not be able to get for themselves. They are
very useful to us, she insists, so the British treat the natives very well. The British see them as friends and do not
"treat them as slaves," and they could not do so even if they wanted to, because "their number[s] so far surpass
Summary and Analysis of Section One--Life in Surinam
16
... ours in that continent" (5). Instead, those who are made to work in "plantations of sugar are Negroes. Black
slaves all together, who are transported" (5). A plantation owner in need of slaves simply orders, like any
merchandise, the number of slaves required and pays for them when they are delivered to Surinam by ship.
Coramantien, a country on the west coast of Africa, in particular, was utilized because the country was always
engaged in wars that resulted in great numbers of captives. The general of the army makes a great profit selling
these captives as slaves, especially the poorer ones who cannot afford the ransom.
Analysis
In this era, drama and poetry were the predominant literary forms. For instance, Shakespeare (1564-1616)
became famous for writing poetry and drama, but he never wrote a novel. Oroonoko influenced the origin of the
British novel. Readers will notice that common features of novels such as chapters or other breaks are in short
supply, which points up the newness of the form. If we consider the work a novella, we might be less surprised
by the lack of chapter breaks (short stories, which are even shorter, frequently have no chapter breaks). This
ClassicNote is broken into four sections centered on different locales or events.
Behn herself spent time in Surinam, a British colony founded in 1640, as a young woman. The narrator, who
seems to have much in common with Aphra Behn, is a reporter, most of the time as an eye-witness herself. Thus
Behn adds verisimilitude, or the approximation of truth, to the narrative. First she describes the Surinam
setting--given as located in the West Indies, the group of islands discovered by Columbus in 1492. Today, what
we call Surinam is located on the north coast of South America, bordering Brazil on the south, Guiana on the
west, and French Guiana to the east. The focus on details-the kinds of birds and insects, for instance-contributes
to the idea that we are dealing with a true story. The vivid descriptions help us trust the narrator when she goes
on to present the story of the African prince.
Readers of this early modern literature should remember that some of the terms Behn uses are particular to her
era. For instance, she uses the term "tyger" for a small cat, but we should not think she is referring to a tiger.
Behn refers to three different types of people who live in Surinam. The narrator is a European, a young white
British woman visiting the British colony. She uses the pronouns "we" and "us" to differentiate Europeans from
the two other groups of people, generally "them." One group consists of what some today call Native
Americans, the natives, people who are indigenous to that region of South America. She insists that both groups
tend to live peacefully together and that the natives are as innocent as Adam and Eve before the fall. With these
people in mind, Behn considers the philosophical antithesis of nature versus civilization. She tends to idealize
the natives and imbue them with a kind of natural nobility. Indeed, she refers to them as living as early man did
during the "Golden Age," before the corruptions of civilization. For this reason, Behn's work might be
considered a philosophical one, despite its non-philosophical features. Furthermore, the Noble Savage trope
might have later influenced the French philosopher Rousseau (1712-1778). Nevertheless, tensions remain
between the Europeans and the natives, beyond the simple identification of the former with culture and the latter
with nature. These tensions will become clearer as the novel progresses. In this section, it is enough to note that
17
the British are forced, more or less, to be good to these people and not "treat them as slaves," because they "so
far surpass" the British in numbers and in ability to supply natural resources.
Thus, if the British are to make money from their Caribbean colonies, who is going to cut and refine the sugar,
harvest the cotton and tobacco, and so on? This issue gave rise to African slavery in all of the Americas. African
slaves, the third group of residents in Surinam, were first introduced into Surinam in 1650 by Lord Willoughby,
the governor mentioned in Oroonoko who never arrives. Soon the slaves vastly outnumered whites, and fears of
rebellion increased.
The fictive story of the African prince Oroonoko emerges from this historical, economic, social and cultural
background. European plantation owners in need of slave labor contracted for a number of African slaves to be
transported. Coramantien, today Ghana on the west coast of Africa, was in particular very lucrative because it
seemed to be always at war and able to produce prisoners for slave traders. It is important to point out that
according to Behn, "of these slaves so taken, the general only has all the profit," and Oroonoko is the African
general in question who profits from the sale of African slaves (6).
18
Summary and Analysis of Section Two--Life in

Coramantien
The king of Coramantien is over one hundred years old and has fathered thirteen sons, all of whom were killed
in battle. Consequently, the heir to the throne is his valiant adolescent grandson, Oroonoko, who has spent the
last two years of his life at war. He is beautiful in stature and smart. He has learned English and Spanish from
the traders to whom he sells slaves. Also, his royal tutor is a Frenchman who educates him in the European
fashion. The narrator has often seen and conversed with this great man "and been a witness to many of his
mighty actions...the most illustrious of courts could not have produced a a braver man...[who] in all points
addressed himself as if his education had been in some European court" (7).
During one battle, Oroonoko's mentor and general of the army was killed by an arrow in the eye, an arrow
meant for the extremely popular young prince. Oroonoko has been promoted to the position and has just come
to his grandfather's court. Here for the first time he sees his mentor's daughter, the beautiful and modest young
Imoinda: "a beauty, that to describe her truly she was female to the noble male, the beautiful black Venus to our
young Mars, as charming in her person as he, and of delicate virtues" (9). They fall instantly in love. Oroonoko
asks Imoinda to marry him, and she quickly agrees. He promises her that despite the fact that his countrymen
take as many wives as they can maintain, he will never take another wife, even after Imoinda is old and her
beauty has fled. He will remember that her soul is young. (In this culture, their promises constitute a wedding of
sorts, but they do not yet consummate their love.)
The king, Oroonoko's grandfather, hears rumors of Imoinda's beauty. He has become increasingly feeble and
yearns for his physical prowess to be rekindled. Although he knows of his grandson's attachment, he finds an
opportunity to clandestinely view Imoinda. The old man cannot help himself, falls instantly in love, and sends
Imoinda the royal veil which marks her as one of the king's women. It is the highest of honors, which no girl is
allowed to refuse. Upon her arrival in the otan, the royal seraglio (which houses the king's women and where no
man but the king is allowed to visit), Imoinda pleads and tells him of her binding promise to wed Oroonoko:
"she was another's and could not be so happy his." But the king is absolutely enamored and puts aside his
feelings for his grandson: "what love could not oblige Imoinda to do, duty would compel her to" (12).
When Oroonoko goes to visit Imoinda, he brings her a gift of 150 slaves whom he has captured in battle. But he
is shortly cast into depression when he finds her gone. He would have felt better, he tells his friends, if Imoinda
had been kidnapped, because then he could rescue her instead of sitting by helplessly while the king holds the
girl he considers his wife in his enfeebled arms: "Oh my friends, were she in walled cities or confined from me
in fortifications of the greatest strength...I would venture through any hazard to free her, but here in arms of an
old man, my youth, my violent love...avail me nothing" (14).
In time Oroonoko reckons that his premarital promise to Imoinda supersedes the king's claim. He plots to enter
Summary and Analysis of Section Two--Life in Coramantien
19
the otan to "learn from Imonda's own mouth" whether she still loves him (15). And the king, who has been
suffering pangs of guilt over the cruel treatment of his grandson, comes to believe that the feelings between the
prince and Imoinda have passed. He invites Oroonoko and his friend Aboan to dinner inside the otan. Imoinda,
who has been living in misery, has been led to believe that Oroonoko has forgotten her--but when the lovers lay
eyes upon each other, they realize their love is as strong as ever.
When Oroonoko views the bed where Imoinda must lie with the enfeebled king, he almost falls apart. Another
senior wife of the king named Onahal, who resents being discarded, comforts Oroonoko and tells him she will
tell Imoinda of his undying love.
Meanwhile, Onahal's flirting with the handsome Aboan has taken a more serious turn. Later Aboan tells
Oroonoko that he believes in time she will allow both men entrance to the otan. Oroonoko is overwhelmed with
joy and gratitude. His inquiry whether Aboan will be able to "caress her so, as to engage her entirely," suggests
sexual activity with Ohahal. When the king invites both men again to the otan to watch his wives dance, an
accident occurs and Imoinda trips into Oroonoko's arms. There can be no doubt about his feelings from his
happy response, so the infuriated king, who thinks Imoinda took a false step on purpose, orders him to leave the
court. Meanwhile, Onahal has aranged for them to return that evening to the otan.
While Aboan makes love with Onahal, Oroonoko wakens Imoinda, who is "surprised with joy." The couple
finally consummate their relationship. Hardly surprising, Oroonoko finds that Imoinda is still a virgin: "he soon
prevailed and ravished in a moment what his old grandfather had been endeavouring for many months" (23).
Meanwhile, the jealous king sends his guards to check on Oroonoko and to come himself to the otan when he
finds he is missing. The guards, however, allow Oroonoko to escape. He rejoins his army and, in an effort to
save her life, the terrified Imoinda assures the king that she has been taken against her will. Somewhat mollified,
the king spares their lives but orders Imoinda and Onahal to be secretly "sold off instead as slaves to another
country, either christian or heathen, 'twas no matter where" (26).
A short while later the king begins to feel chagrin over his decision to sell Imoinda, because being sold as a
slave is the greatest dishonor. He believes that he should have put her honorably to death instead. He is
concerned that he will lose Oroonoko entirely if he finds out his lover was enslaved instead of being put to death
with honor. The king sends a messanger to Oroonoko's camp to tell Oroonoko that Imoinda has been secretly
put to death: "for he knew he should never obtain his pardon for the other" (27).
Oroonoko decides to turn over his military exploits to other men and spend the rest of his days in grieving for
the woman he believes has died. He takes to his pavilion, where he sinks deeper and deeper into depression and
tells his army to select another general. Oroonoko remains depressed, hoping to die, until he hears the army is
actually in danger of losing a battle to Jamoan, the leader of the the opposition. This rouses him from his langor,
and he dresses for battle.
20
When his men see him, they treat him like a deity, yet while hoping to die, Oroonoko enters the battle, takes
many lives and wins the day. He captures Jamoan and does not sell him into slavery like the other captives. In
fact, he treats him so well that he "retained nothing of the prisoner but the name." In time the two become such
close friends that this friendship, with that of Aboan and his French tutor, saves him from sinking into "the
disease of melancholy and languishment," which certainly would have killed him" (31).
Just as Oroonoko is received at court with all the joy and magnificence that could be expressed for a young
victor, there arrives in Coramantien an English ship (32). Oroonoko recognizes the captain, because he has sold
him many slaves before. He invites him to his home, and the captain entertains him with globes and maps. So
delighted is the captain with his good treatment that he invites Oroonoko and about one hundred others to his
ship, where he treats them to a banquet replete with wine in which they overindulge. Soon, to their great
surprise, the treacherous captain "gave the word and seized on all his guests," including Oroonoko--"locking
him down fast, secured him...[and] betrayed [him] to slavery (33). He rages in vain against the betrayal, and
when he realizes he is helpless, he decides not to eat.
All the others follow suit, and the captain becomes agitated that all his cargo will starve themselves to death. For
this reason, he sends word to Oroonoko that he is very sorry for his actions, that he made a great mistake, and
that he will set Oroonoko and his people free when they come to land. Oroonoko asks to be unshackled, and the
captain must comply so that Oroonoko will entreat his people to eat. He is treated well for the rest of the voyage
but sinks once again into melancholy over his loss of Imoinda, who he still believes is dead.
The ship arrives at Surinam, where the plantation owners await their lots of slaves and where, the narrator
interjects, "I chanced to be" (37).
Analysis
Behn's initial endeavor upon introducing her British readers to Oroonoko is to enable them to accept him as a
royal personage and a hero. With this in mind, she describes Oroonoko in European terms. For instance, he has
a French tutor to educate him and teach him French manners, which were highly regarded in Restoration
England ever since the British king Charles II had been restored in 1663 to the British throne after years spent in
exile at the very exclusive French court. Thus, Oroonoko "in all points addressed himself as if his education had
been in some European court" (7). The author associates her dark prince with the British monarch Charles I,
who was beheaded in 1649 when the Parliament took over the government--an analogy that she will pick up
again in the last part of the book, when Oroonoko dies through the treachery of those he trusts.
Behn also gives the African prince European physical characteristics in distinction to the characteristics of
others of his race: "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." In addition,
Oroonoko has a superior physical body: "the most famous statuary could not form the figure of a man more
admirably turned from head to foot." Overall, there "was nothing in nature more beautiful, agreeable and
21
handsome" (8). The narrator here views Oroonoko as an object not only beautiful and "exactly formed," but as
an object of art that could reasonably inspire an erotic gaze.
Moreover, the narrator, "who has often seen and conversed with this great man," points out, "the most illustrious
of courts could not have produced a braver man" (7). In time, we will see him in superhero mode killing tigers
after seven others fail. Behn paints the prince as a hero in order to inspire her readers' imagination. Indeed, this
composite of an enslaved African prince became a very popular story.
Behn also adds an aristocratic touch to Oroonoko in that he is prone to melancholy, or depression. In this era,
melancholy was characterized as a disease of the wealthy, the aristocracy, or simply those who could refrain
from labor. Those unlucky enough to suffer from melancholia, as it was known, were viewed as highly sensitive
and intelligent people, more highly evolved, as it were, than their lesser, more physically healthy and mentally
simple brethren. Indeed, in this era, a man with tears in his eyes was throught of as highly refined and thus
admirable. When Oroonoko hears of Imoinda's fate, he is shortly cast into a deep depression: "he would never
lift a weapon, or draw a bow but abandon the small remains of his life to sighs and tears...and continual thoughts
of that innocence, that innocence and beauty" (28). While it might be thought that this depression was only
natural, throughout the narrative, Behn continues to use this particular characteristic to lock in the aristocratic
nature of her African hero. He sinks deeper and deeper into despair after the death of Imoinda, even coming to
lose interest in his position as general: "believe this when you behold Oroonoko, the most wretched and
abandoned by fortune of all creation" (29). He will return again and again to this melancholic temperament
thoughout the work especially after he is enslaved. After raging in vain against the betrayal of the English
captain, he expereinces a fit of depression and decides not to eat. Later, a similar episode occurs when he comes
to realize he has been deceived once more by the whites and that they have no intention of granting him his
freedom.
Behn later will imbue Oroonoko with many more characteristics of a truly noble hero who lives by a code of
honor, in opposition to the British slave traders and plantation owners, who are highly immoral and consistently
break their words of honor.
Nevertheless, Oroonoko is no pacifist. He makes war on his neighbors for whatever reason and takes captives
from among the losers. He sells them to the European slave traders for profit. Indeed, he brings Imoinda not
gold or diamonds but a gift of 150 slaves whom he has captured in battle. This exchange of slaves exemplifies
with great historical accuracy the mercantile system of slave buying and selling on the west coast of Africa
during the seventeenth century. Although later Oroonoko, when he is himself enslaved, will throw off his
shackles and lead a slave revolt, it is necessary to keep in mind that while he might be viewed then as heroic, he
still can justify the practice of selling humans by explaining that they are taken honorably in war. At this point
in the story he is complicit in the slave trade.
Two additional characters, Aboan and Onahal, are introduced in this section. Aboan exemplifies how friendship
functions in this African society. He will go to any lengths to help his friend Oroonoko recover his lost love
22
Imoinda, even if it means making love with one of the older women whom the king has discarded from his bed.
Aboan acts as a foil for the white friends Oroonoko will make later on--friends who will deceive him after he
arrives as a slave in Surinam.
Onahal is a "decayed beauty," one of the "cast-off mistresses of the king," and now the caretaker of his newer
and younger wives, whose job is to "teach them all the wanton arts of love" (18). Although she has been cast
aside, she still smolders with passion, especially for Oroonoko's friend Aboan. There is perhaps an
autobiographical element surrounding the character of Onahal, who helps the young lovers, Oroonoko and
Imoinda, unite in the otan (the king's seraglio--forbidden to other men) while she makes love with the handsome
Aboan. When Behn wrote Oroonoko, two years before her death in 1690, she also was whispered about as a
fading beauty who was practically destitute.
In this regard Oroonoko can be viewed as particularly heroic; he swears to the young Imoinda that despite the
fact that men in his country take as a many wives "as they can maintain," he will never marry another woman.
Even after she is old and "her beauty has fled," he will remember that her soul is eternally beautiful. In the
minds of Restoration England's readers, who were well familiar with the numerous extramarital dalliances of
Charles II, Oroonoko's assertion reveals that he is a man of honor.
23
Summary and Analysis of Section Three--Oroonoko in

Surinam
When the ship arrives in Surinam, the captain orders the slaves to be put into groups or lots for the merchants
and gentlemen who had purchased them, taking care to separate families and acquaintances in case "rage and
courage should put them upon contriving some great action, to the ruin of the colony" (37). Despite the captain's
promise to free him, Oroonoko is also seized and sold to the overseer of the plantation, whom the narrator
happens to be visiting. His look of hatred directed at the captain causes the slave trader to blush: "farewell sir, it
is worth my sufferings to gain so true knowledge both of you and of your gods to whom you swear" (37). He
jumps into the boat and sets off with his new master, Trefry, "a man of great wit and fine learning," for the
three-day journey to his new home at the Parham-hill plantation.
Trefry, the overseer of Lord Governor Willoughby's plantation, is enormously surprised by the superior physical
appearance of the new slave who, he happily finds, can speak English. Although Oroonoko attempts to be
humble, in time Trefry realizes he has a great mind and a superior education. The men become such good
friends that Trefry "ever after loved him as his dearest brother and showed him all the civilities due so great a
man." Oroonoko has had good fortune: "he had a man of so excellent parts and wit for a master" (38). In time he
informs Trefry of his background, and Trefry promises upon his word of honor that he will find a way to return
Oroonoko to his own country and that he will find out what happened to Oroonoko's enslaved friends.
Oroonoko believes Trefry is sincere. The fame of Oroonoko precedes their journey upriver to the plantation.
Wherever they stop they are met with crowds of people eager to view the richly robed African prince. So much
fuss is made that Oroonoko asks for plain clothes, but even the plain brown suit he is given cannot "conceal the
graces of his looks and mien," because his nobility shines through (39). There can be no doubt he is a prince,
and admirers continue to congregate at every stop.
At this point the narrator points out that it was the common practice for Christians to rename their newly
acquired slaves, "their native ones being likely very barbarous and hard to pronounce" (40). She explains that
Trefry gave the name of Caesar to Oroonoko for this reason and that from now on she must refer to him as such.
Upon his arrival at the plantation, Caesar is received "more like a governor than a slave." Indeed, if the King of
England himself showed up he could not have claimed so much attention. Caesar is given a small house and a
piece of land apart from the other slaves. When he does visit them, they all fall down and adore him. They
recognize the prince who took most of them in battle and sold them into slavery, and now they kiss his feet and
call him "king."
Later Trefry tells Oroonoko of a wondrous female slave who came to the plantation about six months earlier.
Every man, including himself, he confesses, "is undone in love" with her, but she is too modest and cold and
will have no part of any of them (42). When Caesar asks Trefry why he does not take advantage of his position
as master, Trefry admits even he is far too intimidated. The next day Trefry walks with Caesar past the cabin of
Summary and Analysis of Section Three--Oroonoko in Surinam
24
the pretty young slave. Suddenly, a young woman of wondrous beauty darts out of the door chasing a small dog.
Caesar finds himself beyond joy, and his heart almost bursts when he beholds his beloved Imoinda come back to
life. Imoinda, who is now called Clemene, faints into Caesar's arms, and when she revives the lovers are
reunited, swearing that all their terrible troubles have been worth the price now that they are reunited: "what
ecstasies of joy they both withheld each other, without speaking, then snatched each other to their arms" (44).
The narrator, meanwhile, has been staying on the same plantation. Having heard of the lovers' reconciliation
from Trefry and Caesar's French tutor, she now looks forward to visiting the couple. The whole colony waits for
the lord-governor to arrive from England so Caesar can be freed as Trefry has promised. The narrator visits
Caesar and Clemene, where she finds that although the former Imonida is covered with carved "fine flowers and
birds all over her body," she treats the girl with great respect and is delighted that Caesar has found his lost love.
And, "from that happy day, Caesar took Clemene for his wife, to the general joy of all the people...and in a very
short time after she conceived a child" (45).
All these happy events make Caesar even more desirous of liberty. He bargains with Trefry to provide some sort
of ransom for himself and his new family. They "fed him from day to day on promises" and delayed him until
the governor returned. At this point, Caesar begins to distrust Trefry and the others in charge, and he becomes
worried that Clemene will give birth before he is set free so that his child will be born a slave, "for all the breed
is theirs to whom the parents belong" (45). Caesar becomes increasingly upset, and those in charge fear a slave
revolt. The narrator is asked to visit him to calm him and to pass the time.
She entertains him with tales of the Romans and shows Clemene "all the pretty works that [she] was mystery
of"--in other words, feminine arts such as embroidery and perhaps painting. She also attempts to convert the
couple to a "knowledge of the true god," but Caesar cannot reconcile himself to the idea of the trinity and calls it
"a riddle" (46). Nevertheless, the couple finds the encounters with the narrator entertaining and diverting, and
Caesar enjoys her, his "great mistress," better company than the men because "he could not drink" (46). He
confesses to her that although he had "only the name of a slave and nothing of the toil and labor of one," he has
doubts that he will ever be set free. Once again she reassures him that he and Clemene will indeed be freed as
soon as the lord-governor arrives. Caesar promises the narrator that he will attempt to be patient and that no
matter what happens, he will never doubt her sincerity.
The whites begin to feel increasingly uncomfortable that Caesar might start a slave revolt. For this reason they
decide to keep an eye on him and continue to divert him so he does not become too friendly with the other
slaves. All the white men in the country come to visit him and reassure him that the lord-governor will free him.
Before describing the diversions set up for Caesar, the narrator digresses by explaining that she and her brother
are only in Surinam for a short while because their father, who was named to the position of lieutenant-general,
died at sea. Also she states that if the King of England had known what a "vast and charming world" he could
have been master of, "he never would have parted with it so easily to the Dutch" (48). Next she provides a sort
of catalog of the wonders of this vast continent: the overgrowing, ever-blooming flowers; the miles of
25
bloom-covered trees as big as "English oaks" surrounding St. John's Hill, her house; the fragrant wood; the
oranges, lemons, figs, and so on; the perfumed air and the exotic animals that include armadillos; and "all the
diverse things this wondrous country affords (49). The group, which includes the narrator and her brother, her
servant, Imoinda, and Trefry, search daily for more natural wonders to behold. With Caesar as their guard, they
show no fear. For even more exciting diversion, they look for tiger cubs. One day when they remove a cub from
its den, the angry mother returns and attacks, but Caesar "ran his sword quite through her breast down to her
very heart, home to the hilt of the sword," and he then presents the narrator with the cub.
Another time, we learn, Caesar kills a tiger that was impossible to kill even with guns and poisoned arrows.
Caesar shoots an arrow directly into its eye, and later the tiger is found to have seven bullets in its heart. One
time he goes fishing upon hearing of a creature called a numb-eel (an electric eel). Anyone in the past who
caught the eel ended up dropping the rod because of the shock. But Oroonoko catches the eel and never lets go
of the rod although he almost drowns. He eats the eel for supper (53).
Next, the group decides to visit a native village to pass the time. Here, the narrator discusses the "disputes the
English are having with the Indians" and explains that they could not travel without going in a group to any of
the native towns "for fear they would fall upon us as they did immediately after [her] coming away" (54).
Caesar, the narrator, her brother, and her maid set out. They are joined by a native fisherman as a guide familiar
with the village inhabitants. The guide remains hidden with Caesar while the others approach the village to
surprise the natives. The naked natives welcome them with cries of "wonder and amazement," especially over
their clothes, shoes and hair, touching them all over and calling out "amora tiguamy," which means "welcome
friend" (55). The natives place leaves the size of tablecloths in front of the group, cut others to form plates, and
feed them a wonderful meal of meat which the narrator observes is good but too spicy. After the narrator and
her brother play their flutes, the visitors are taken to observe the native healer, who cures "more by fancy than
through medicine"--through the power of suggestion--although he also has some effective remedies. Then they
visit the captains or leaders of the army, and the narrator is chagrined to find that the men have disfigured
themselves to demonstrate their bravery, some by cutting off their nose or ears and such: "they had formidable
wounds and scars or rather dismembering" (57). The natives, who wear aprons of leaves and carry bows and
arrows, are so innocent and simple that they "adored as a god" an earlier white visitor who showed them fire
made from a magnifying glass. After they leave the village, the group meets people from another native tribe
carrying bags of gold dust, which they say comes streaming down the mountains after the rains. They bring
these men back to the plantation, inform the lord-governor, and send him some of the gold.
Although the lord-governor is later killed in a hurricane after the narrator leaves for London, he commands at
this point that a guard be put at the mouth of the Amazon River which leads to this gold region to keep others
out. The Dutch, the narrator insists, instead of the King of England will have the advantage of the gold--"it is to
be bemoaned what his majesty lost by losing that part of America."
Analysis
26
In this section, the horrors of slavery and the harsh attitudes and blindness of the European colonists become
increasingly apparent. Slaves were given new names by the plantation owners, separated from their families and
friends and given no hope whatsoever of seeing them again. They were forced to do menial jobs and to live in
the direst of circumstances without any hope of freedom. Attempting to escape, the narrative suggests, resulted
in severe punishment including whipping, and sometimes slaves who made more than one escape attempt were
put to death as an example to the other slaves who might be nurturing the same ideas. Because of her cruel
depiction of slavery in the Americas, Behn has been given credit for writing an anti-colonial, abolitionist tract
(though many parts of the narrative suggest different motivations).
As soon as they arrived in the Americas, captive slaves were renamed, partly because it hurt them
psychologically by severing them from a primary source of personal identification. Being denied their original
name signified that they did not belong to themselves anymore but to their masters. Their families and homes
faded into memory. In addition, it was far more comfortable for masters to pronounce names of their own
choosing.
The slave name chosen for Oroonoko is Caesar, the name of the Roman emperor ruler who was betrayed by his
friends when he was stabbed on the steps of the Roman Senate. At the end of the work, the allusion to Julius
Caesar will become clearer when Oroonoko is literally cut to death by those who promised to free him. Behn
utilizes this name also to further embed the idea of Oroonoko as a royal and mighty leader. Furthermore, upon
his arrival in Surinam, Oroonoko finds himself separated from the African friends he was taken hostage with on
the slave ship. Now he finds himself alienated from all that is familiar. It is a stroke of luck that he encounters
the goodhearted overseer Trefry who, upon viewing his superior physical prowess and mental skill, takes to him
and treats him like a brother, and it is further good fortune that he encounters the narrator, who becomes his
advocate and friend.
Yet, Trefry and the narrator never question the institution of slavery as a whole. Indeed, Trefry is an overseer in
charge of hundreds of slaves who labor daily on the sugar plantation. The narrator, while she effectively records
the horrors of slavery, never takes action or cries out against it during the events of the narrative. Indeed, she is
missing when Oroonoko needs her most.
Moreover, there is no sense of outrage on the author's part or on the part of any other characters when Trefry
confesses his infatuation with the beautiful but haughty slave Clemene (the slave name given Imoinda). Even
Oroonoko, by now Caesar, says to Trefry that while he can understand why Clemene will not have anything to
do with the other male slaves, he does not understand why she "escapes those who can entertain her as you can
do, or why, being your slave you do not oblige her to yield" (42). Oroonoko here suggests that Clemene should
give herself to Trefry because he is the master and could treat her well--and that if she will not submit sexually
then Trefry would be right to force her "with the advantages of strength." When Trefry insists he would be too
intimidated to do so, the company "laughed as his civility to a slave" (42).
27
Overall, the focus remains on the gorgeous young prince Oroonoko, whom Behn highly eroticizes in her
descriptions of his physical body. There is no further mention of the other "seventeen more of all sorts and
sizes," who are also sold as slaves with Oroonoko (37). And the other slaves on the Parham plantation are
marginalized to a nearby slave village, while Oroonoko is kept apart from them and is welcomed to reside in the
plantation house. Neither he nor Imoinda are portrayed as performing work of any sort.
As she did earlier when she first introduced her readers to Oroonoko as a royal, cultured person of quality, Behn
similarly imbues his wife Imoinda with genteel qualities. Imoinda in Africa is the most fair but also the most
modest maiden in all of Coramantien. She keeps her eyes cast down and never speaks out of turn. When her
long-lost love Oroonoko encounters her once more in Surinam, she is chasing a small dog out the door to her
cabin, and she faints into his arms when she sees her African prince. To seventeenth-century readers, Imoninda
would from these actions be perceived as a lady. Little lap dogs were carried with pride and joy by ladies of this
era, very much like Hollywood starlets today. Also, ladies were notorious in this era for fainting, especially
when there was an attractive gentleman around who could catch them. A lady who was so overwhelmed by the
world that she actually passed out came to be viewed as especially delicate, sensitive and high-class in the same
vein as a sensitive gentleman suffering from a bout of melancholia. Furthermore, we see the narrator "call" on
Imoinda as she properly would call upon a British lady, teaching her fine arts such as embroidery.
The narrator here serves more strongly as a character herself, introducing what later becomes identified as the
female narrative voice. The narrator is considered in literary terms as an "intrusive narrator" who generally
interrupts the narrative when she deems fit in order to interject a personal aside. On the journey to the native
village, for instance, she takes a rather long digression by informing the reader how she came to be in Surinam:
her father died on the trip to his new post as lieutenant-general, and now she and her family must wait for
transport back to England. Also, she provides her readers with a description of the local flora, fauna and cultural
customs of the local Native Americans. Like all human beings, the narrator, despite being authoritative in some
ways, is not altogether trustworthy. She says one thing and does another. She claims to love Oroonoko and begs
him to trust her, but then writes: "after this I neither thought it convenient to trust him much out of our view"
(48). By using an intrusive first-person narrator, Behn offers an account worthy of some trust--until close
readers start to find contradictions.
Early on, Behn painted Surinam as a paradise like the Garden of Eden, and the native people who are
uncorrupted by civilization were thus 'noble savages,' as innocent as Adam and Eve before the Fall. But later,
because her social group needs protection to go the native village, the narrator claims to be "in many mortal
fears...they should fall upon us" because of disputes the English have had with the natives: "they cut into pieces
all they could take, getting into houses and hanging up the mother and all her children about her"-hardly, we
could say, a picture of innocents frolicking in paradise (54). Perhaps this change is less of a contradiction than a
demystification of a people with whom the narrator is becoming more familiar.
28
Summary and Analysis of Section Four--Revolt in

Surinam
The diversions appease and entertain Caesar for a while, but he becomes increasingly despondent. So does
Clemene as the pregnancy progresses. He realizes that while it is difficult to free two slaves, it will become even
more so after the baby is born. He decides he has had enough waiting and chooses to take action. One Sunday,
while the whites who watch Caesar are "overtaken in drink"--they are dead drunk--he visits the slave village
where he gives a rousing speech to the people. About 150 can fight. The rest are women and children who will
need protection. He tells them he has observed that the English have only rusty knives and guns because they
fail to clean them. They are ill-prepared to fight. Then, to incite the slaves, he summarizes their miserable life.
Such "miseries and ignominies of slavery...under such loads, burdens and drudgeries as were fitter for beasts
than men" (60). They have lost the "divine quality of men" and have become fit only to work like animals and
suffer the whip. They are whipped even when they do not deserve it "till their blood trickled from all parts of
their body," blood "whose every drop ought to be revenged with the life of some of those tyrants that impose it"
(61). In the same speech, he asks if the whites have taken them as slaves in "honorable battle," whether they are
to be "bought and sold like apes and monkeys," and then questions if they should take orders "from such a
degenerate race." Finally he asks if they will "suffer the lash from such hands," to which they reply in unison,
"no, no, no." In short, "Caesar has spoken like a true king" (61).
Caesar is then interrupted by another slave, Tuscan, who bows before him and asks him how they can escape
and travel through the jungle, mountains and rivers when they have women and children to protect--to which
Caesar replies, "honor is the first principle in nature," and if there were a woman among them who would
choose slavery over the "pursuit of her husband...to share with him in his fortunes...such a one ought to be
abandoned, and left as a prey to the common enemy" (62). To this they all rapturously agree and bow, and he
continues to motivate them by telling them of the exploits of Hannibal, the general who cut his way through
mountains of rock. Their plan of escape involves cutting or burning through the brush to the sea and then to
"plant a new colony," find a ship, seize it if need be, and transport themselves back to Africa where they will
once more be free. Dying, Caesar insists, is better than living in "perpetual slavery." And at this "they bowed
and kissed his feet" and swear to follow him even if it means their death (62). They set that evening for their
departure.
When the overseers come to call the slaves to work on Monday morning, they find them all missing and in
response muster up whatever weapons they have and call out the so-called militia of about 600 men from
neighboring plantations. But never was there a "more comical army that marched off to war" (63). Besides, the
plantation owners have great respect for Caesar and understand that he has been ill-treated; they do not want to
hunt him down. Indeed, the only one who does is the deputy governor, Byam, who once pretended friendship
toward Caesar: "he was a fellow, whose character was not fit to be mentioned" (64). Trefry goes along as a
mediator, apparently, realizing that "if they put the Negroes into despair...they would drown or kill themselves
Summary and Analysis of Section Four--Revolt in Surinam
29
before they would yield" (64). The fugitive slaves are not difficult to find, because all their pursuers have to do
is follow the burning brush or their cut path. When Caesar realizes the danger, he takes up a defensive posture,
placing women and children to the rear, and stands with Tuscan to fight to the death. The English pounce on
them, kill some, and wound others, and at this point the women and children jump into the melee yelling "yield,
yield," to their men--who eventually submit to the English.
Meanwhile, the nearly full-term pregnant Imoinda takes up a bow and wounds deputy-governor Byam in the
shoulder. Quickly, his native woman sucks out the venom and saves his life. When Byam learns that Caesar,
along with Imoinda and Tuscan, plan to fight to the death, he attempts to persuade him to surrender by
promising him once again that he will be paid the greatest respect-after all, his attempt at revolt could be seen as
a rash and youthful but noble deed-and that he will be set free with his wife and child. Caesar responds that he
has no faith in the words of the white man. He adds that his actions were hardly rash, and he feels no shame.
With tears in his eyes, Trefry pleads with Caesar to name his conditions of surrender, and Caesar demands that
Byam put his promises in writing, to which the deputy general acquiesces. But almost immediately, Caesar and
Tuscan are captured and bound to two whipping stakes. Imoninda is taken away so as not to view the spectacle
and miscarry. The young prince is beyond indignation, and he makes every attempt to free himself from his
fetters: "revenge from his eyes that darted fire...was once both terrible and awful to behold." In time they free
him, totally brutalized and weak from "the loss of blood from a thousand wounds all over his body" (67).
The narrator interjects that when she had heard of the uprising she had immediately left Parham plantation for
the safety of Colonel Martin's plantation, three days upriver. Martin, she insists, is a good man and true friend of
Caesar's. When she returns to Parham she finds Caesar "in a very miserable condition." She begged and pleaded
until he understood she had no part in his "ill-treatment" (68). Trefry also, Oroonoko tells her, felt deep regret.
But Byam was the one he could never forgive, and upon this man he will one day seek revenge.
When Byam recovers from his shoulder wound, he calls together a group of plantation owners and other whites
who conclude that "Caesar should be hanged" as an example to intimidate other slaves against revolt. Trefry,
however, tells Byam that he has no such jurisdiction at Parham plantation and that they must continue to wait
for the Lord-governor, who acts under the auspices of the King of England. Meanwhile, the deeply depressed
Caesar plots revenge on "Byam and all those who had sought to enrage him" even though he knows such an act
will surely mean death (71). Then he realizes that if he dies, Imoinda "may be ravished first by every brute,
exposed to their nasty lusts, and then a shameful death." (He apparently does not remember that she had done
well on her own before his arrival.) He devises a plan to kill her first, take his revenge on Byam, and then kill
himself. Taking Imoinda with him into the woods, he tells her "of the necessity of dying," explains the
impossibility of escape, and then reveals his plan. Being a dutiful, loving wife, she falls at his feet in gratitude
for arranging such an honorable way for her spirit to return home. He draws his knife while "tears trickle down
his cheeks," and he gives to her the "fatal stroke, first cutting her throat, and then severing her smiling face from
that delicate body" (72).
30
But after tragically killing Imoinda, Caesar finds himself paralyzed by grief and cannot carry out the second part
of his plan to take revenge by killing Byam. Two days pass, and he is still in the woods deeply mourning his
beloved Imoinda, "the idol of his heart," whom he has buried under some leaves (72). Six more days pass, and
despite his repeated attempts to rise and go after Byam, he becomes increasingly lethargic from lack of food. On
the eighth day, a search party drawn by the stench finds the couple. Caesar is greatly weakened. "Oh monster,
thou hast murdered thy wife," the shocked group cries out. Seeking to avoid the shameful whip at all costs,
Caesar takes out his knife and "rips up his own belly," after which his intestines fall out (75). Tuscan, who runs
up to him and takes a blow from Caesar's knife in his arm, vows to help him.
They take him to Parham plantation and call in a doctor who sews up and dresses his wounds, and he continues
to live, in deep melancholy, for another week. The narrator stays with him throughout, trying to comfort him
and talking to him about Imoinda. Finally a man named Bannister, one of Byam's cohorts, who has no
comprehension of the "laws of God or man," arrives and forcibly takes Caesar to the same post where he was
whipped. Bannister tells him he will "die like a dog," to which Caesar replies that he finally has met a white
man who tells the truth. When Caesar realizes he is about to die, he asks for a pipe of tobacco.
First the executioner cuts off his genitals and throws them into the fire, and then they cut off his ears and his
nose and throw them likewise into the fire. All the while, he continues to smoke his pipe, even when they cut off
one of his arms. After they cut off his second arm, his head sinks, his pipe drops, "and he gave up the ghost with
a groan" (77).
The narrator, meanwhile, is missing. She explains that her mother and sister were by his side when Caesar died
but that they could not save him from the rabble, who finally cut Caesar's body into quarters and offered pieces
to the owners of the nearby plantations so that they might horrify and intimidate their slaves. Finally, the
narrator says, "thus died this great man, worthy of a better fate and a more sublime wit than mine to write his
praise." She hopes she has been a good enough writer to help his name survive, as well as that of the brave,
beautiful, and faithful Imoinda, for all the ages (77).
Analysis
Oroonoko's speech to his enslaved people is worthy of a king. His rhetoric is inspiring in its proposal of a
solution to the evils facing the people. Furthermore, he speaks the political truth that slavery is a feature of
tyranny and adds that slavery is such an affront to liberty that people should risk their own lives to escape from
it when the time is right.
Behn, like other Restoration writers, saw barbarism as an evil lurking in the hearts of the English people. She
was outranged by England's inability to tolerate the late king Charles I, who was beheaded on the order of
Parliament after it took over the government in 1649. She also looked upon with horror the recent countless
assassination attempts on his son, the restored king Charles II. In this context, Behn saw the British (if not all
humanity) as possessing a collective predisposition towards violence, greed, and restless disobedience.
31
Thus, almost every white character in the text is either positively evil or, at least, weak-willed and passive. (It
should be noted that Willoughby, Byam, Trefry and Colonel Martin were real people.) For instance, at the
beginning, the British slave-trading captain first befriends and then betrays Oroonoko by asking him to be his
guest on his ship--but after getting him drunk, he shackles him into irons. The captain lies to the prince again
and assures him he will set him free upon their first sight of land. But he does this only to ensure that his cargo
of slaves will arrive in a somewhat healthy condition after they refuse to eat. Hardly surprising, the captain
betrays Oroonoko once more when he sells him to Trefry, overseer for Lord Willoughby, the lord-governor of
Surinam and the owner of Parham Plantation--who never arrives. Byam, the deputy-governor, also pretends
friendship with the African prince and similarly assures him of his freedom. But later he hunts him down, whips
him, and orders him killed. Behn scathingly refers to Byam's greed--"he was one who loved to live at others'
expense"--and illustrates how to Oroonoko's face he was kind and friendly even while, behind Oroonoko's back,
he nefariously plotted the man's death (70).
The barbarism Behn illustrates is particularly apparent in Bannister's elected council, which condemns
Oroonoko to death. Bannister captures Oroonoko and tells him honestly that he will "die like a dog"--to which
the condemned man replies that he has finally heard a white man tell the truth (76-77). Others are less brutal but
lack in their care for him. Trefry, who has been a true friend to Oroonoko, remains blind to the plight of all the
other slaves in his charge, and although he attempts to contain the situation until the arrival of the lord-governor
Willoughby, he never takes action to protect Oroonoko's or Imoinda's life. Furthermore, even the British
narrator, who voiced her friendship and love of Oroonoko, runs away at the first sign of trouble. Recall that,
after assuring him of her undying devotion, she reflected that she "neither thought it convenient to trust him
much out of our view, nor did the country who feared him" (48).
The awful scene of punishment, though, makes the white barbarism stand out most: "when they thought they
were sufficiently revenged on him, they untied him almost fainting with the loss of blood, from a thousand
wounds all over his body...and led him bleeding and naked as he was, and loaded him all over with irons and
then rubbed his wounds, to complete their cruelty, with Indian pepper which had like to have made him raving
mad" (67). Oroonoko is set up as a Christlike patient sufferer, the alternative King whom the reigning polity
cannot accept.
Thus, Behn displays Oroonoko as a truly noble and honorable leader. This hero can hardly be compared with
the rapacious British colonists and the monstrous mercantile slave traders who barter in human lives. In
Oroonoko, then, Behn on the one hand seems to be a royalist who completely supports the ideal of a strong,
stable monarchy, while on the other hand she attempts to educate her readers about the realities of the slave
system, the barbarism of those involved in the trade, and the need for a more noble system, a heroic absolute
monarch who will withstand the British urge toward violence and chaos.
Oroonoko figures as the royal hero who, despite everything, revolts against his life as a slave even if it means
losing his beloved wife and child and his own death. Heroic to a fault--his story becomes tragic when he makes
himself believe that he should kill his own wife--he would rather die and kill the one he most loves than be
32
enslaved and give her up to others.

In contrast to most of the white characters, the African characters Aboan (Oroonoko's true friend) and Imoinda
remain heroic throughout. Behn valorizes Imoinda as a warrior in her own right; the heavily pregnant heroine
picks up a bow and shoots her husband's arch enemy with a poisoned arrow. She has the virtue, perhaps, of the
mythological Amazon women, who were experts with the bow.
Readers should not make too much of the characterization of most of the whites as barbaric and most of the
blacks and natives as noble savages. Behn is not trying to upend the social system of her time. It is important to
remember that the social order is restored by the end of the story; the alternative King is put down. Behn never
fully repudiates slavery--it seems to be acceptable to treat slaves like the overseer Trefry does--and while she
writes of the horrors inherent in slavery, she never suggests that it should be outlawed as an institution.
Although Oroonoko suffers as a slave, he never regrets taking slaves himself. He merely justifies the practice of
slavery in Africa as men honorably taken in war. Indeed, this view seems to valorize slavery as honorable; after
all, to be enslaved is not worse than to be killed, one may think.
Thus Oroonoko receives poetic justice, becoming a slave himself after selling slaves of war to the British for his
own profit. But Oroonoko does not seem to make the connection; he never shows regret over having been
complicit in selling slaves to the British.
The slaves' plan to start a colony on a beach, where they will seize a ship and return to Africa, seems all but
impossible to achieve. They cut a path that anyone could follow. Perhaps it is like Moses leading his enslaved
people out of Egypt toward the Promised Land, but where is the miracle that will stop the pursuers? What ship
will appear, and who will navigate it? And despite the real chance of winning in the battle, the slaves (even the
warrior Tuscan) desert Oroonoko almost at the first moment. The lesson seems to be that an idealistic plan for
escape and revolution must be tempered by prudence and courage.
Oroonoko's last days and death are grotesquely tragic. It would be to mistake the point to historicize the
details--to say merely that in Behn's era, wild tobacco was much stronger than it is today, and it was used as a
soothing narcotic; that the mutilations remind us of the native generals in the village visited by Oroonoko and
the narrator, a savage group who cut off parts of their body to demonstrate their heroism; and that quartering a
body was a well-known form of torture used in British prisons. These points may be true, but they distract from
the literary tragedy of Oroonoko's awful end. His wife has almost no choice but to accept his reasoning that he
should kill her in order to save her--could she really survive safely on her own, now that Oroonoko has caused
so much trouble? Oroonoko has forced himself into a position where killing his wife seems like the best choice.
But he cannot follow through with the rest of the plan, and the tragedy is so severe that he cannot leave her
rotten corpse for days. His sorrow foils his own plan for revenge. Readers might like to see the final killing off
of Oroonoko as a story of the noble spirit surviving the dismembering of the body, but Oroonoko has broken his
own spirit as an unintended consequence of his earlier noble actions.
33
Related Links
http://www.lit-arts.net/Behn/
The Aphra Behn Page A chronology of the artist's life and works and many additional links to materials
regarding Aphra Behn.
http://www.bucks.edu/~darrahs/alphra.htm
Aphra Behn in Cyberspace Questions designed for college students regarding the "novel" and its relation to the
history of the novel and some specific issues.
http://www.mnh.si.edu/africanvoices/
African Voices Broad context from the Smithsonian on Africa and African history.
http://prometheus.cc.emory.edu/behn/index.html
Aphra Behn Society An organization that focuses on women's roles in the arts of early modern culture.
Related Links
34
Suggested Essay Questions

The narrator describes the native people in Oroonoko differently toward the end of the narrative compared to the
way she describes them earlier. How might we account for this change?
If Surinam was already inhabited by natives, why then the need to import African labor? What is the narrator's
explanation for doing so? What are the intended and unintended consequences of doing so?
How does the female narrative voice operate in Oroonoko?
To what extent is Oroonoko an abolitionist tract?
Does the narrator (or does Behn) ultimately favor or disfavor colonialism? What evidence may be brought to
bear on each side of the question?
In Oroonoko Behn refers to earlier rulers as exemplary models to which the African prince compares favorably.
Name one or two such leaders and how their virtues or their legacy functions in the text.
How does Behn characterize the African prince in order to appeal to seventeenth-century readers? Consider
narration, imagery, comparisons, incidents, and other kinds of evidence and examples.
What does Imoinda contribute to the narrative? Does she change throughout the story?
Describe the Coramantien culture. Is it more virtuous than European society? What standards of virtue can be
relied upon to compare one culture with another?
Using Oroonoko's character and speeches as a guide, how does he view the values of life and liberty, and what
does he do when going after liberty might finally cost him his life?
Suggested Essay Questions
35
The Country of Surinam

Surinam is the primary setting for Oroonoko. It is the smallest independent country in South America, located
on the northeast coast. It now has about half a million people of the various ethnic groups in the narrative.
Arawak and Carib tribes lived in the region before Columbus located the coast in 1498. The area was thought to
be rich in gold. It was colonized by Dutch traders around 1600, but because of continued fighting (especially
with the British), Holland did not gain full control of the region until the signing of the Treaty of Breda in the
1660s. Thus, we see a great deal of political uncertainly and upheaval in the work--just who is in charge? The
narrator remarks that Willoughby the lord-governor is killed in a hurricane after she has left for London because
of the Dutch takeover, but prior to that, he commands that a guard be put at the mouth of the Amazon River
which leads to the gold region, in order to keep others out. The Dutch, the narrator insists, instead of the King of
England will now have the advantage of the gold, and "it is to be bemoaned what his majesty lost by losing that
part of America." Incredibly, the Netherlands traded the island of Manhattan to the British for Surinam in 1667.
The Dutch colony, named Dutch Guiana, did not flourish primarily because Holland remained occupied with its
larger territories and because of continued violence between the whites and the native tribes as well as numerous
slave uprisings, like the one led by Oroonoko, among the imported slave population. Many slaves fled to the
interior of the country, where they maintained their original West African culture--which remains in existence
today.
Surinam became an autonomous part of the Netherlands in 1954 and gained full independence in 1975.
The Country of Surinam
36
Author of ClassicNote and Sources

Casey Diana, author of ClassicNote. Completed on May 25, 2006, copyright held by GradeSaver.
Updated and revised Adam Kissel July 08, 2006. Copyright held by GradeSaver.
Duffy, Maureen. The Passionate Shepherdess: Aphra Behn, 1640-89. New York: Jonathan Cape, 1977.
Todd, Janet. The Secret Life of Aphra Behn. Rutgers, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1996.
Goreau, Angeline. Reconstructing Aphra: A Social Biography of Aphra Behn. New York: Dial, 1980.
Visconsi, Elliott. "A Degenerate Race: English Barbarism in Aphra Behn's 'Oroonoko' and 'The Widow
Ranter'." ELH 69.3. 2002-01-01. 2006-05-24.
<http://muse.jhu.edu/cgi-bin/access.cgi?uri=/journals/elh/v069/69.3visconsi.html>.
Oddvar Holmesland. "Aphra Behn's Oroonoko: Cultural Dialectics and the Novel." ELH 68.1. 2001-01-01.
2006-05-24. <http://muse.jhu.edu/cgi-bin/access.cgi?uri=/journals/elh/v068/68.1holmesland.html>.
Brown, Laura. "The Romance of Empire: Oroonoko and the Trade in Slaves," in Oroonoko. New York: W. W.
Norton, 1997.
Chibka, Robert L. "Truth, Falsehood, and Fiction in Oroonoko," in Oroonoko. New York: W. W. Norton, 1997.
Ferguson, Margaret. "Juggling the Categories of Race, Class and Gender: Aphra Behn's Oroonoko." Women's
Studies 19 (1991), 159-81.
Author of ClassicNote and Sources
37
Essay: Rising and Roman, African and Flat: Aphra

Behn's Oroonoko
by Anonymous
January 19, 2001
In the 19th century novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe portrays Uncle Tom, a black slave, as an
heroic figure. Written shortly before the American Civil War, the novel attempts to change negative moral
attitudes towards blacks. However, in order to accomplish this, Stowe makes Uncle Tom appeal to Southern
Plantation owners, who would otherwise dismiss the book as abolitionist nonsense. Stowe makes Uncle Tom
appeal to Northerners and Southerners alike by depicting him not as a typical slave, but rather as a devout
Christian with a "white moral code." Similarly, Aphra Behn's 17th century composition Oroonoko was written
in response to the growing African slave trade. Like Stowe, Behn makes her black hero appeal to a greater
audience, which she accomplishes by describing Oroonoko as having European and royal attributes. One of
Behn's primary objectives is to make Oroonoko clearly distinguished from the rest of his race, as in: "a beauty
so transcending all those of his gloomy race" (2174).
She can do this with relative ease for two reasons: 1) she writes a reportage, in the first person narrative, and 2)
she is conscious of herself as a writer (i.e. "This prince, as I have described him" (2175)). Oroonoko's physical
description is the easiest and most effective mode for underscoring the way in which he is superior to the rest of
his race. Behn writes:
The most famous statuary could not form the figure of a man more admirably turned from head to foot. 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 whit of 'em being like snow, as were his teeth.
His nose was rising and Roman, instead of African and flat (2175)
The juxtaposition of the phrases "rising and Roman" and "African and flat" illustrates the distinction that Behn
is trying to make. The alliteration of "rising and Roman" suggests nobility, while the assonance of "African and
flat" suggests plebeian and even inferior descent. This contrast nicely parallels the oxymoron that is used to
describe Oroonoko: the "Royal Slave." Oroonoko is royal in his country, as well as in his character. At the same
time, however, as a result of social and historical conditions (namely European colonization and trade) he is
bound in slavery2E Behn uses the shocking incongruity of "royal" and "slave" to advance her moral purpose.
In the same way that Stowe gives Uncle Tom a "white moral code," Behn must describe Oroonoko so that the
British audience will not dismiss him on account of his color. While, as I have mentioned, Behn is conscious of
herself in her writing, she is also conscious of her reader. This is evident in her description of Oroonoko (here
Caesar) and his people as resembling "our ancient Picts" (2196), which the Norton glosses as "A North British
Essay: Rising and Roman, African and Flat: Aphra Behn's Oroonoko
38
people appearing in histories of England and Scotland." It is also apparent in her describing the geography of the
country by saying "about half the length of the Mall here" (2199), the "Mall" being a "Fashionable walk in St.
James's Park in London" (Norton). Indeed, Behn uses phrases that are sympathetic to a noble British audience,
such as "refined notions" of "true honor," "absolute generosity," "softness," and "gallantry" (2174) to paint
Oroonoko's character. Throughout the story, the trait upon which Behn focuses most is honor, because her main
accusation of the slave traders is that they are utterly devoid of this quality. She is quite careful not to attack the
traders directly, however, for all of the aforementioned reasons regarding her audience. For example, she does
not say outright that the slave ship's commander is an immoral person. Rather, she says that he was "a man of a
finer sort of address and conversation, better bred and more engaging than most of that sort of men are" (2189),
thus implying that the commander's royal qualities make him an exception to the rest of his kind. Later, the
"good" commander's betrayal and cruel treatment of Oroonoko serves to reinforce her moral judgement.
Although Behn conveys her opinions about the weaknesses of Christianity through Oroonoko, she checks these
statements by mentioning religion in a manner that would be favorable to her audience. Throughout the story,
she follows the pattern of making a negative generalization about a group of people by distinguishing one
member of that group. An example is her comment about the Frenchman: "though he was a man of very little
religion, he had admirable morals and a brave soul" (2188). This statement implies that those who are not
religious lack morals and brave souls. Behn also functions as a character within the story who attempts to
Christianize Oroonoko and Imoinda. By telling stories, she tries to bring them to "the knowledge of the true
God" (2197). While this statement sympathizes with Christian readers, Behn criticizes the falseness of
Christianity through Oroonoko's contempt of the ship captain and other Christian characters who repeatedly
break their promises. One of Behn's most subtle techniques for incorporating her own point of view is through
the Lord Governor, whose arrival is necessary for Oroonoko and his family to be freed. Upon closer inspection,
Oroonoko's frustration at waiting for the Lord Governor appears to be a metaphor for the futility of the Christian
belief in the Messiah, or second coming of Jesus Christ.
Behn indirectly elicits the reader's sympathy by incorporating white supremacy in her description of the Indians
as primitive savages. Behn's narration of "the extreme ignorance and simplicity of 'em" (2203) encourages the
reader to scoff at the Indians, along with their primitive customs and incoherent babble (e.g. "Tepeeme," and
"Amora tiguamy"). Once the reader has been manipulated into this mode of thought, Behn once again reminds
him that Oroonoko is "more civilized, according to the European mode" (2189). Additionally, she compares
Oroonoko to legendary European military leaders such as Alexander the Great, Hannibal, and Julius Caesar.
Thus, Behn elicits the reader's sympathy by making Oroonoko as European as possible.
The reader of Uncle Tom's Cabin will find himself emotionally disturbed by the death of the poor, beaten slave
at the end of the book. Furthermore, the sermon-like quality (known as a jeremiad) encourages the reader to do
some introspection, and reflect on his or her own morals and attitudes. This same reaction from the Southern
plantation owners in the 1850s was only possible because Uncle Tom was everything but a stereotypical black.
Through Stowe's manipulation of Uncle Tom, she made him "white" enough to be appealing to her audience,
and thus had her desired effect of inspiring a moral conflict regarding the entire race. So, too, is Aphra Behn's
39
purpose achieved by shaping Oroonoko into an Europeanized black hero, unlike any other of his race.
Beginning as a "reportage," Behn turns the story into a fairy-tale of grand proportions, almost fooling the reader.
By making Oroonoko "white" in every aspect except his skin color, Behn achieves her desired effect of having
her readers sympathize with a black hero, serving as a step in the right direction toward racial equality.
40
Quiz 1
1. What are the whites doing while Caesar talks to the slaves?
A. drinking
B. sailing
C. cooking
D. hunting
2. How prepared are the whites for fighting?
A. in training
B. well-prepared
C. bringing in backup soldiers
D. ill-prepared
3. How does Caesar justify slavery in Africa?
A. slaves can "fight for their shackles"
B. slaves are "regarded and respected"
C. slaves are taken in "honorable battle"
D. slaves are taken for "a limited time"
4. How do the slaves respond when Caesar asks if they will "suffer the lash"?
A. if God wills
B. no, no, no
C. if Oroonoko commands it
D. yes, yes, yes
5. The slave warrior who befriends Caesar is
A. Trefry
B. Aboan
C. the narrator
D. Tuscan
6. The military man who Caesar sees as an example of courageous behavior is
A. Grant
B. Hannibal
C. Julius Caesar
D. Napoleon
Quiz 1
41
7. The first part of the escape plan is to

A. walk to Brazil
B. walk to Virginia
C. live underground
D. start a new colony
8. The second part of the escape plan is to
A. have an abundance of children who will form a militia
B. put whites to death
C. find a ship
D. start a new colony
9. How do the slaves treat Caesar after his speech?
A. they wave palm leaves
B. they give him a military salute
C. they present him with a royal robe
D. they bow down and kiss his feet
10. Trefry accompanies the militia as
A. a spokesman
B. an expert rifleman
C. a preacher
D. a hunter
11. The person in charge of rounding up slaves is
A. Trefry
B. Willoughby
C. Oroonoko
D. Byam
12. The promise made to Caesar if he surrenders is
A. education for his child
B. a house and farm
C. freedom for himself and his family
D. freedom only for his wife and child
Quiz 1
42
13. How is Caesar treated after he surrenders?

A. worshipped
B. scolded
C. whipped
D. beheaded
14. The plantation owner to whom the narrator flees is
A. Trefry
B. Oroonoko
C. Bannister
D. Martin
15. What advice does Trefry give Caesar?
A. return to Africa
B. revolt
C. continue to wait for Willoughy
D. live with the narrator
16. Caesar finally becomes convinced that
A. Bannister will never come to Parham
B. Trefry will marry the narrator
C. Imoinda's baby was fathered by Oroonoko
D. Willoughy will never come to Surinam
17. Caesar tells Clemene that
A. he will marry Clemene
B. he must be there when the baby is born
C. he will give her new arrows
D. he must kill her
18. Clemene apparently has to die because
A. She must be sacrificed
B. The slaves demand it
C. Trefry has proposed marriage
D. Caesar is worried the white men will rape her
Quiz 1
43
19. After she is dead, what part of Clemene's body is removed?

A. foot
B. heart
C. face
D. hand
20. Why doen't Caesar take revenge on Byam?
A. he is too depressed
B. he has a fever
C. he is too lame
D. he has no weapon
21. On the eighth day after Clemene's death, the whites find
A. Trefry
B. the narrator
C. Caesar
D. Byam
22. Who is charged with killing Caesar?
A. Oroonoko
B. Bannister
C. the narrator
D. Byam
23. What does Ceasar hold in his mouth shortly before death?
A. a pipe
B. a rope
C. a piece of sugar
D. a knife
24. What part of Oroonoko is thrown into the fire first?
A. hair
B. genitals
C. toes
D. toenails
Quiz 1
44
25. What is finally done to Caesar's body?

A. fed to the dogs
B. sewn back together
C. put on the fire
D. quartered
Quiz 1
45
Quiz 1 Answer Key

1. (A) drinking
2. (D) ill-prepared
3. (C) slaves are taken in "honorable battle"
4. (B) no, no, no
5. (D) Tuscan
6. (B) Hannibal
7. (D) start a new colony
8. (C) find a ship
9. (D) they bow down and kiss his feet
10. (A) a spokesman
11. (D) Byam
12. (C) freedom for himself and his family
13. (C) whipped
14. (D) Martin
15. (C) continue to wait for Willoughy
16. (D) Willoughy will never come to Surinam
17. (D) he must kill her
18. (D) Caesar is worried the white men will rape her
19. (C) face
20. (A) he is too depressed
21. (C) Caesar
22. (B) Bannister
23. (A) a pipe
24. (B) genitals
25. (D) quartered
Quiz 1 Answer Key
46
Quiz 2
1. The opening setting is
A. desert
B. tropical
C. underwater
D. frozen wasteland
2. The narrator claims to be a/an
A. eyewitness
B. African
C. detective
D. Native
3. The narrator is
A. an old Native man
B. Oroonoko
C. a young British woman
D. Imoinda
4. The narrative opens in
A. England
B. Coramantien
C. Surinam
D. Africa
5. Early on, the narrator describes the area as containing
A. prickly desert plants
B. oak trees
C. exotic plants and birds
D. golden beaches
6. What do the Europeans use to trade with the natives?
A. Buttons and bows
B. Gold and furs
C. Knives, axes and pins
D. Guns and swords
Quiz 2
47
7. The narrator describes the native people as

A. modest and shy
B. conniving and manipulative
C. surly and sour
D. outgoing and vivacious
8. A young native man who is in love with a girl
A. talks to her with his eyes
B. talks only with her mother
C. talks with her behind her back
D. talks first with her closest male relative
9. The narrator compares the natives to
A. Adam and Eve
B. Eloisa and Abelard
C. Spark and Finn
D. Romeo and Juliet
10. The natives are puzzled by a man who would
A. play a flute
B. lie
C. frown
D. wear glasses
11. The natives accuse the governor of
A. cheating
B. stealing
C. murder
D. lying
12. The narrator claims that the British do not enslave the native population because
A. they eat too much
B. they do not know how to do the work
C. they are too innocent
D. they are vastly outnumbered
Quiz 2
48
13. On what type of plantation does the narrator reside?

A. cotton
B. tobacco
C. sugar
D. coffee
14. The continent from which slaves on the plantation originate is
A. Nigeria
B. Africa
C. Asia
D. South America
15. The country from which the slaves originate is
A. China
B. Holland
C. Coramantien
D. Uganda
16. The type of narration in the first part of the narrative is
A. second person
B. third person
C. first person
D. none of the above
17. Describe how chapters are constructed in the text:
A. there are no chapters
B. in blocks of five sections
C. with roman numerals
D. back to back
18. Who rules the colony?
A. Holland
B. Britain
C. Surinam
D. France
Quiz 2
49
19. What words would the narrator be likely to use to describe the opening setting?
A. a wondrous place
B. a dark hole
C. forgettable
D. an eyesore
20. Which animals would be most likely found in the colony?
A. cows
B. polar bears
C. robins
D. parrots
21. The natives are particularly adept at
A. scuba diving
B. climbing trees and fishing
C. hunting tigers
D. growing plants
22. Which nation does the narrator agree is best for providing slaves?
A. India
B. Holland
C. Coramantien
D. Surinam
23. Why is it the best place to get slaves?
A. They take only the strongest and healthiest.
B. They take drastic measures to control the slaves.
C. They treat the slaves very well.
D. They are always at war and sell their captives.
24. How does a plantation owner go about getting slaves?
A. hires a ship
B. sends an overseer to personally apprehend the slaves
C. orders them like merchandise
Quiz 2
50
25. Who brings the slaves to Surinam?

A. the lieutenant governor
B. the deputy governor
C. the narrator
D. ship owner
Quiz 2
51
Quiz 2 Answer Key

1. (B) tropical
2. (A) eyewitness
3. (C) a young British woman
4. (C) Surinam
5. (C) exotic plants and birds
6. (C) Knives, axes and pins
7. (A) modest and shy
8. (A) talks to her with his eyes
9. (A) Adam and Eve
10. (B) lie
11. (D) lying
12. (D) they are vastly outnumbered
13. (C) sugar
14. (B) Africa
15. (C) Coramantien
16. (C) first person
17. (A) there are no chapters
18. (B) Britain
19. (A) a wondrous place
20. (D) parrots
21. (B) climbing trees and fishing
22. (C) Coramantien
23. (D) They are always at war and sell their captives.
24. (C) orders them like merchandise
25. (D) ship owner
Quiz 2 Answer Key
52
Quiz 3
1. How old is the king of Coramantien?
A. 11
B. 50
C. 100
D. 120
2. How is Oroonoko related to the king?
A. grandson
B. nephew
C. son
D. foster son
3. The nationality of Oroonoko's tutor is
A. Dutch
B. French
C. German
D. Surinameze
4. How does Oroonoko come to be made the leader of the army?
A. he is promoted
B. on the king's orders
C. he takes over the positiion
D. the general dies
5. What happens to the Coramantien people who are captured in war?
A. they are inducted into the Coramantien army
B. they are sold as slaves
C. they are put to death
D. they are tortured by whipping
6. What promise does Oroonoko make to Imoinda?
A. he wil never leave her
B. he will never take another wife
C. he will build her a palace
D. she will replace her mother
Quiz 3
53
7. How do Oroonoko's men treat him?

A. like an idiot
B. with little respect
C. like a god
D. with great disdain
8. The narrative is best described as
A. a prose poem
B. a tragic play
C. a comic epic history
D. a novella
9. What relation is Imoinda to the general who saved Oroonoko's life?
A. wife
B. sister
C. lover
D. daughter
10. What gift does Oroonoko bring to Imoinda?
A. two uncut diamonds
B. a palace
C. 150 slaves
D. 300 cows
11. What does the king send to Imoinda?
A. the royal veil
B. 11 slaves
C. a diamond
12. Where does Imoinda live when she becomes the king's wife?
A. a ship
B. the king's bedroom
C. the otan
D. underground
Quiz 3
54
13. What happens when Imoinda dances?

A. she sings
B. she entices the king to dance with her
C. she falls into Oroonoko's arms
D. she cries
14. Oroonoko's friend is
A. Aboan
B. Jamal
C. Omari
D. Enza
15. Who is the king's wife, who helps Oroonoko?
A. Aphra
B. Loera
C. Omari
D. Onahal
16. What does Oroonoko do when the king finds him in the otan?
A. he runs away
B. he takes Imoinda with him
C. he kills the guard
D. he attacks the king
17. How does the king punish Imoinda?
A. he puts her to death
B. he sells her into slavery
C. he throws her into the dungeon
D. None of the above
18. Why do the British come to Coramantien?
A. for scientific inquiry
B. to sell guns
C. to buy gold
D. to buy slaves
Quiz 3
55
19. Rate how the ship's captain treats Oroonoko:

A. Very well
B. Very poorly
C. Adequately
D. Fairly
20. What does Oroonoko threaten to do if he is not freed?
A. start a riot
B. stab himself
C. starve himself
D. run away
21. What promise does the captain make to Oroonoko?
A. he will free him
B. he will get him a ship
C. he will sell him
D. he will allow his wife to join him
22. The overall feeling Oroonoko experiences on the ship is
A. hunger
B. exaltation
C. depression
D. loneliness
23. Where does the ship holding Oroonoko arrive?
A. England
B. Holland
C. Coramantien
D. Surinam
24. How does Oroonoko part from the captain?
A. with love in his heart
B. with a knife in his hand
C. with hate in his eyes
D. with a bullet in his back
Quiz 3
56
25. To whom is Oroonoko sold?

A. the narrator
B. the deputy-governor
C. Byam
D. Trefry
Quiz 3
57
Quiz 3 Answer Key

1. (C) 100
2. (A) grandson
3. (B) French
4. (D) the general dies
5. (B) they are sold as slaves
6. (B) he will never take another wife
7. (C) like a god
8. (D) a novella
9. (D) daughter
10. (C) 150 slaves
11. (A) the royal veil
12. (C) the otan
13. (C) she falls into Oroonoko's arms
14. (A) Aboan
15. (D) Onahal
16. (A) he runs away
17. (B) he sells her into slavery
18. (D) to buy slaves
19. (B) Very poorly
20. (C) starve himself
21. (A) he will free him
22. (C) depression
23. (D) Surinam
24. (C) with hate in his eyes
25. (D) Trefry
Quiz 3 Answer Key
58
Quiz 4
1. How does Oroonoko's new master treat him?
A. kindly
B. tenderly
C. romantically
D. harshly
2. Who is the visitor at the Parham Hill plantation?
A. Trefry
B. Willoughby
C. the narrator
D. Byam
3. What happens on the journey to the plantation?
A. people give him used clothes
B. people gather to view Oroonoko
C. people play music
D. people throw stones at Oroonoko
4. What does Oroonoko wear?
A. feathers
B. royal robes
C. pajamas
D. a sheet
5. What does Oroonoko use to disguise himself?
A. feathers
B. royal robes
C. a brown suit
D. a sheet
6. What is the name of the plantation?
A. Sugarland
B. Countryside
C. Parham Hill
D. Lone Pine
Quiz 4
59
7. How does Oroonoko travel to the plantation?

A. by boat
B. by ship
C. by coach
D. by horse
8. What does Oroonoko receive when he arrives at the plantation?
A. a horse
B. a bath
C. a pie
D. a new name
9. How do the other slaves treat the new arrival?
A. they sing traditional music
B. they dance
C. they wave flags
D. they fall to the ground
10. How do the slaves recognize Caesar?
A. he is related to them through marriage
B. he wore the royal insignia
C. he sold them into slavery in Africa
D. all of the above
11. What promise does Trefry make to Caesar?
A. he will be given a great deal of money as compensation
B. he will be given in marriage to a woman of his choosing
C. he will be allowed to cultivate a farm
D. he will receive his freedom as soon as the governor arrives
12. What job is Caesar asked to perform?
A. cutting sugar cane
B. farming
C. no job
D. carpentry
Quiz 4
60
13. Who befriends Caesar?

A. Willoughby
B. Oroonoko
C. Clemene
D. the narrator
14. While walking with Trefry, Caesar is shocked to see Clemene, who has
A. a parrot
B. a dog
C. a snake
D. a pineapple
15. How does she respond?
A. she screams
B. she jumps for joy
C. she faints
D. she runs away
16. Very quickly, Caesar and Clemene
A. farm the land
B. build a house
C. marry
D. run away
17. Who invites the new couple to tea?
A. the natives
B. the slaves
C. the narrator
D. the governor
18. For whom does Caesar wait?
A. Aboan
B. the lord governor
C. the deputy governor
D. his grandfather
Quiz 4
61
19. What does the narrator teach Clemene?

A. needlework
B. gardening
C. horse riding
D. carpentry
20. How does the narrator divert Caesar?
A. playing cards
B. hunting tigers
C. treasure hunting
D. digging clams
21. Who is the father of Clemene's child?
A. Aboan
B. Omari
C. the narrator
D. Caesar
22. Where does the narrator go with Caesar?
A. native village
B. sailing ship
C. beach cabin
23. How do the natives respond to the narrator and company on their excursion?
A. with violence
B. with absolute wonder
C. with anger
D. with annoyance
24. What do the native generals do to prove their bravery?
A. kill a tiger
B. run into a fire
C. develop muscles
D. mutilate themselves
Quiz 4
62
25. Caesar becomes more and more concerned about his

A. love
B. freedom
C. money
D. life
Quiz 4
63
Quiz 4 Answer Key

1. (A) kindly
2. (C) the narrator
3. (B) people gather to view Oroonoko
4. (B) royal robes
5. (C) a brown suit
6. (C) Parham Hill
7. (A) by boat
8. (D) a new name
9. (D) they fall to the ground
10. (C) he sold them into slavery in Africa
11. (D) he will receive his freedom as soon as the governor arrives
12. (C) no job
13. (D) the narrator
14. (B) a dog
15. (C) she faints
16. (C) marry
17. (C) the narrator
18. (B) the lord governor
19. (A) needlework
20. (B) hunting tigers
21. (D) Caesar
22. (A) native village
23. (B) with absolute wonder
24. (D) mutilate themselves
25. (B) freedom
Quiz 4 Answer Key
64
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Biography of Behn, Aphra (1640-1689)

Biography of Behn, Aphra (1640-1689)

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Biography of Behn, Aphra (1640-1689)

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The Female Narrative Voice

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The Female Narrative Voice

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Cat with nine tails

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Summary and Analysis of Section One--Life in

Summary and Analysis of Section One--Life in Surinam

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Summary and Analysis of Section One--Life in Surinam

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Summary and Analysis of Section One--Life in Surinam

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Summary and Analysis of Section Two--Life in

Summary and Analysis of Section Two--Life in Coramantien

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Summary and Analysis of Section Two--Life in Coramantien

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Summary and Analysis of Section Two--Life in Coramantien

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Summary and Analysis of Section Two--Life in Coramantien

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Summary and Analysis of Section Two--Life in Coramantien

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Summary and Analysis of Section Three--Oroonoko in

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Summary and Analysis of Section Three--Oroonoko in Surinam

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Summary and Analysis of Section Four--Revolt in

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enslaved and give her up to others.

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