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A review by realkateschmate
Oroonoko by Aphra Behn
2.0
While I'd been vaguely aware of this work, I doubt I'd ever have set out intentionally to find and read it, and so I'm glad that I came across it while reading the Norton Anthology of Literature by Women, because it has some interest as a historical document.
The very fact of the piece's existence is something of a curiosity, in a way highlighted by its presence in the Norton. Since the advent of the written word, its domination by men has been so nearly absolute that in this anthology, curated from all woman-authored works in English (Old, Middle, Modern), fewer than 200 pages are needed to cover everything before Oroonoko, which was penned in 1688. Indeed, Behn is sometimes considered the first woman to support herself financially by writing. So it's interesting to find, in an artifact of arguably the infancy of female writing, a hero with black skin, criticism of certain practices of slavery, and a bold condemnation of the hypocrisy and self-servingness of Christianity.
There's also the noteworthy fact of this being an early example of the prose fiction form that would, within the next hundred years, become known as the novel.
Having said all that, Oroonoko is a paean to "civilized" Eurocentrism, with the hero taking most of his supposedly admirable qualities from his similarity to, or knowledge acquired from, white men (such as his thin nose and lips and his fluency in English and French); while overflowing with praise for the central character and with mourning for his fate, at the heart of the story is nonetheless a virulent racism, disguised for most of the book as ignorance in the manner of noble savage stereotypes, but fully betrayed near the end when the bloodthirsty torture exacted on Oroonoko is described (by himself!) as unjust only because of his noble, royal birth - in contrast with all other black slaves, "such dogs," "the vilest of all creeping things." Oroonoko decries his failed rebellion and regrets "endeavoring to make those free who were by nature slaves, poor wretched rogues, fit to be used as Christian's tools; dogs, treacherous and cowardly, fit for such masters." Straightforwardly hateful.
I was disappointed that the Norton Anthology's introduction to this author and work, which I re-read after finishing the story, failed to critically examine these passages while declaring "complex" Behn's "treatment of racial difference" and ultimate "outrage against the injustice of slavery" which, the editors claim, "give the book extraordinary resonance."
The very fact of the piece's existence is something of a curiosity, in a way highlighted by its presence in the Norton. Since the advent of the written word, its domination by men has been so nearly absolute that in this anthology, curated from all woman-authored works in English (Old, Middle, Modern), fewer than 200 pages are needed to cover everything before Oroonoko, which was penned in 1688. Indeed, Behn is sometimes considered the first woman to support herself financially by writing. So it's interesting to find, in an artifact of arguably the infancy of female writing, a hero with black skin, criticism of certain practices of slavery, and a bold condemnation of the hypocrisy and self-servingness of Christianity.
There's also the noteworthy fact of this being an early example of the prose fiction form that would, within the next hundred years, become known as the novel.
Having said all that, Oroonoko is a paean to "civilized" Eurocentrism, with the hero taking most of his supposedly admirable qualities from his similarity to, or knowledge acquired from, white men (such as his thin nose and lips and his fluency in English and French); while overflowing with praise for the central character and with mourning for his fate, at the heart of the story is nonetheless a virulent racism, disguised for most of the book as ignorance in the manner of noble savage stereotypes, but fully betrayed near the end when the bloodthirsty torture exacted on Oroonoko is described (by himself!) as unjust only because of his noble, royal birth - in contrast with all other black slaves, "such dogs," "the vilest of all creeping things." Oroonoko decries his failed rebellion and regrets "endeavoring to make those free who were by nature slaves, poor wretched rogues, fit to be used as Christian's tools; dogs, treacherous and cowardly, fit for such masters." Straightforwardly hateful.
I was disappointed that the Norton Anthology's introduction to this author and work, which I re-read after finishing the story, failed to critically examine these passages while declaring "complex" Behn's "treatment of racial difference" and ultimate "outrage against the injustice of slavery" which, the editors claim, "give the book extraordinary resonance."