Transnational Research
Associates
The Powerful Theme of Self-Sacrificial Death with
Honor
in Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko
Art Madsen, M.Ed.
Behn’s novel Oroonoko
recounts in extremely realistic terms and strong emotions the story of a West
African prince betrayed into slavery in Surinam on the northern Coast of South
America in the 17th Century.
This novel, written and narrated, in fact, by a strong willed and quite
intelligent woman, definitely influenced the development of English literature
and is considered significant by modern critics for several reasons. Namely, it
presents the character of the “noble savage” for the first time and speaks out
vociferously against colonialism. Also, by virtue of its realism and its
thematic content, it is often thought to be the first English “philosophical
novel.” But these facts are well known.
What I elect to focus on deals with the dichotomy of Oroonoko’s origins
and the ways in which this led to his self-imposed death and the death of his
beloved Imoinda.
I would like to assert that Oroonoko's dual status as both a prince
and a slave causes his death, while the narrator's strange ability to identify
herself with both the powerful and the powerless sectors of society seems to
permit her to avoid personal responsibility for his death. At the same time,
she takes credit, ironically, for widely publicizing his story. She implies
that the ideologies of European culture are really what are being called into
question here, on a deeper level.
In Behn’s story, the Whites'
approach to Oroonoko demonstrates that, in spite of being the dominant power in
Surinam, they acknowledge his ability to lead his people and to disrupt the
conveniently exploitative nature of their world. The reader is dismayed to
learn that, even the narrator (presumably Behn herself), who praises Oroonoko
and seems to guarantee him his freedom, actually took measures to restrict his
freedom and ensured that he was monitored. Indeed, the way that Europeans, in this
story, treat slaves is based on two concepts: primarily on fear and,
secondarily, on the assumption that Europeans are innately superior and that
they have the God-given right to force their authority and culture onto those
they view as savages.
Keeping this in mind and in order to lead up to the dramatic death sequence, it is important to analyze the psychodynamics of Oroonoko’s situation. He arrives as a stranger and a foreigner to the colonial system. He is granted some respect because of his former position in his native country where he was a prince and, moreover, a great warrior. Yet, he is now a slave, in Surinam, and, as such, bears the shame and indignity of not being a free man. As an outsider from a very different culture, Oroonoko can see the “truth” of the colonial system to which he does not belong. The reader sees that he sees it, too, through Behn’s spellbinding narrative approach.
We need to realize that, before
traveling to Surinam, Oroonoko had learned to respect Western culture from his
French tutor; but, at the time of Behn’s contact with him, he is disappointed
to have discovered that the high-sounding concepts of justice and honor that he
had heard about in his earlier schooling did not, in reality, exist. In fact, in Surinam, the concepts of justice
and honor were no more than a thin veil to conceal White men's deceit and
dishonesty. All of this led to Oroonoko’s hatred of the slave-based economy of
Surinam and of his subservient position within it.
Because his fellow slaves recognized
Oronooko’s courage and insight, when he tried to stage a revolt among the
slaves, they were willing to follow him and he was able to produce real fear in
the colonists. Events unravel at this point and the heroism of which Oroonoko
was capable becomes apparent to the reader.
Basically, Oroonoko opts for death for both himself and his beautiful Imoinda, rather than let his child be born as a slave. Only through death, can the problems that this illustrious couple caused by being beautiful and princely be finally and eternally settled. Oroonoko literally defiles his wife's body, and he himself is sliced into pieces and his cadaver is strung up as a lesson to other slaves. But, both the narrator and the reader, are definitely aware that Oroonoko’s death was far more significant than a mere “lesson”, and that its implications ring out over the ages in horror of the injustices imposed upon him and his people. His was clearly a self-sacrificial death with honor.