CHAPTER II

The Ambivalence of Cultural Representation:

Oroonoko: or, the Royal Slave

"The European has only been able to become a man through

creating slaves and monsters ... "

Jean-Paul Sartre (Fanon 1968: Preface)

The social groupings and their cultural representation (as has been

analyzed in the earlier chapter) leading to binary oppositions of 'we'

and 'them' would be a simplistic way of looking at the formation of

identity in the novels selected for detailed study. There are multiple

trajectories and confluence of experiences and positions that need

to be scrutinized for any understanding of the configurations of

powers which places them in relation to themselves as well as the

others. It is therefore, necessary not to accept the binary as a pre­

fixed constructed category but rather to see how it has evolved and

how it has been projected in the novels. None of the oppositions

can exist by itself. For example, a discourse on the difference

between the whites and the blacks would inevitably bring in issues

not only of colour, but race, nationality, physiognomy, gender,

religion and culture. What matters most is how and why, in a given

context, a specific binary is constructed and used, and how it

configures with the other signifiers. What are its immediate effects

and what are the implications on the articulation of power. How do

members of one racial group relate to another; is it one of

sympathy, identification, solidarity, or of antipathy, diffidence and

hatred. In this chapter, I would be primarily addressing the power

33

dynamics that underlie the social relations in the construction of

subjectivity and identity.

Any form of representation has to be based on knowledge, and

knowledge cannot be seen as simplistically neutral. Representation

based on knowledge is a process of giving concrete form to

ideological concepts. No representation can be true, as no

knowledge can be true or real. Not only do human beings construct

their own truth, but also the so-called 'objective' truths rest on

notions and situation. This is what led Aijaz Ahmad to question

where does one draw the line between representation and

misrepresentation. (Ahmad 1992) It is exactly this tension between

the materiality of experience and the constructedness of

representation that forms a crucial issue of Said's work too. Said

has readily accepted that representations are formations, or as

Roland Barthes puts it they are "deformations". (Said 1998: 273)

The novel, one of the most articulate mediums, presents a web of

representation. By its very characteristic of speaking to the reader,

it is in an elevated superior position. It dictates and dominates the

thinking, it authorizes and validates its views, and it exerts a

coercive power over its readers. This is most evident in Aphra

Behn's Oroonoko, where the autobiographical element - so

common in the early novels - seeks to legitimize the narrator's

process of "knowing." In many of her works, Behn's narrator is not

just a woman but also significantly, the self-portrait of a well-known

author - one who has the freedom and the power to choose her

destiny, someone who is not silent but has the authority to speak.

This is indeed commendable at a time when very few writers, let

alone women writers, could earn a livelihood by writing. Aphra

34

Behn wrote a number of plays, poems and longer narratives and.

established her fame in her lifetime (1640-1689). Virginia Woolf

praises Behn's role as a female writer in.A Room of One's Own by

stating 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 mind" (Todd 1989: 69) and claims her to be the first

woman author in English. Though this might be contested yet one

cannot deny Behn the credit for influencing the development of

English narratives, especially the novel. A study on Behn must

primarily answer two questions: What was Behn's significance

during her time and why do we read her today? Apart from the

indisputable fact that she has become something of an icon as the

first professional writer, we need to understand the s0cial and

historical contexts in which she wrote to fully appreci'ate her

contribution. During her lifetime Behn had led, what can be termed,

a very 'theatrical' life and was an object of fascination for the public.

Her voluminous literary output does not throw much light on her

personal life which has consequently been a site for· intense

speculation by biographers. Behn in her childhood had witnessed

the Civil wars led by Charles I and his prime minister, Oliver

Cromwell, which resulted in the beheading of the king. In 1658 the

monarchy was restored. A staunch supporter of the Stuarts, a Tory

and a fervent Roman Catholic, Behn's works are closely associated

with politics of the time. Throughout her life, Behn was a militant

royalist and her works have consistently portrayed loyal royalists

who have been opposed by the Parliamentarians. She was a great

favourite at the court of Charles II and might have worked for him

as a spy during the wars. Later as the king failed to pay her she

was cast in the debtor's prison. It was at this point that she began

to write to support herself. Oroonoko was written a year before her

death. Her writings repeatedly reflect her political affiliations and

35

critiques sexual, national and colonial politics. She fascinates the

readers with her bold transgressions and sheer vitality of her

literary style.

Her most popular work Oroonoko: or, The Royal Slave was written

in 1688, and like most of her other works have a distinctly political

content. This was a time of massive anxiety in English politics.

Charles II had died, and James II had come to the throne. James'

purported Roman Catholicism and his marriage to an avowedly

Roman Catholic bride aroused the Parliamentarians to speak of

rebellion. The old faithful Royalists were turning against the king

and preferred William of Orange as the candidate for the throne. It

was in such an atmosphere of infidelity and betrayal that Aphra

Behn, herself a firm royalist, insisted in her novel on the divine

nature of kingship and the sanctity of keeping one's vows. By the

time the Glorious Revolution would end in 1701 with the Act of

Settlement, whereby Protestantism would take precedence in the

choice of the British monarch, Behn's topicality would lose much of

its impact on the readers. But before that one must consider the

impact of her works during her lifetime and the possible reasons

why she is continued to be read even today.

The reason why Aphra Behn continues to be read even today is

perhaps because she is a very marketable writer. At the time when

she wrote, she was a very commercially viable writer precisely

because she understood the pulse of the public, what they would

like to read and what would be of paramount interest to them. As

one critic says, "Behn's texts are often linked to quite specific

circumstances of the market and of politics." (Wiseman 1996: 2)

Behn herself was very well aware of the need to arouse the interest

of the readers. In Oroonoko, she says, "Where there is no Novelty,

there can be no Curiosity." (Behn 2006: 2184) Even today she is

36

eminently saleable. The specific contemporary issues she

addressed then is of equal, if not more importance, especially when

seen today from the postcolonial perspective. Her engagement with

gender issues, imperialism, colonialist ideologies and the

contradiction in the formation of a national identity of the English

continue to interest us and shall be the focus of this chapter.

Behn claims her work to be "a true history". The novel written in first

person narration portrays the narrator who travels from England to

Surinam in the West Indies with her unnamed father who has been

newly appointed as the Lieutenant General of the colony. He,

however, dies on the way. The narrator, a white woman lives in the

relative comfort of the white colonial settlement and narrates her

experiences:

I was myself an eye-witness to a great part of what you will find here set down;

and what I could not be witness of, I received from the mouth of the chief actor in

this history, the hero himself ... {2183)

Whether or not Behn actually traveled to Surinam or saw what she

wrote has been debated for more than a century. A lot of criticism

has been centered on the veracity of her experiences but this is

beside the point. During the 1680's the appeal of prose narratives

lay in its ability to mimic truth and Behn's works appeared at a

transitional moment when both 'truth' and 'romance' existed

simultaneously. Emphasis on verisimilitude was a common feature

in most of the novels at the beginning of the eighteenth century,

including Robinson Crusoe and Gulliver's Travels. The element of

credibility and fidelity to the facts of the world made the characters

and the plot plausible. Her insistence that her work is true history,

that it is 'real' and that there are no elements of 'invention',

'diversion' or 'adornment' can be read as an underlying anxiety to

justify her work as worthwhile. This is further heightened by directly

37

addressing the reader and inviting him in the ambit of narration and

making him a confidante.

Moreover, the emphasis on veracity validated her position as an

author who has the authority to "tell" and the power to shape and

organize. Again, as in all cases where the narrative voice blends

with the author's, it is always problematic to distinguish between the

two and draw a line between where the former ends and the latter

takes over. In the case of Oroonoko the difficulty becomes more

pronounced as the author purposefully projects a romanticized self­

portrait. The fictionalized autobiography, starring an idealized

version of the author, compels us to accept the reflections of the

narrator and the author as twin images. I would also try to assess to

what extent the two images penetrate or overlap each other and

when and for what reasons do they dissociate themselves.

Otherwise for all practical purpose, the narrator's views and

ideologies would be considered as the author's.

The author begins by giving an account of the inhabitants of

Surinam. This is then followed by the history of the protagonist and

the main plot of the love of Oroonoko and lmoinda; the last part

deals with Oroonoko's rebellion and death. Oroonoko, the grandson

of an African king, falls in love with lmoinda, the daughter of the

king's journal. But before he can publicly express his love for her,

the old king, also enamoured by her beauty, sends her a sacred

veil, thus commanding her to be his wife. lmoinda cannot refuse

this and unwillingly joins the king's harem. However, the two lovers

secretly meet only to be discovered by the king. Enraged at this,

the king has lmoinda sold as a slave. Oroonoko too is tricked and

captured and carried off as a slave. The two lovers are reunited in

Surinam in the West Indies, which was at that time an English

38

colony based on sugarcane plantations. There they befriend Trefry,

a Cornish gentleman, and live under the new Christian names of

Caesar and Clemene. Desirous of liberty, Oroonoko organizes a

slave revolt. The English forces, under Byam, persuade him to

surrender by offering him freedom. However, when the slaves

surrender, Oroonoko is betrayed and whipped. To protect his life

and dignity Oroonoko decides to kill the English captain .. But

knowing that lmoinda would face violation after his death, and to

protect her honour he kills her with her consent. Oroonoko is cruelly

dismembered and publicly executed.

An important element of Behn's works is the female-centredness of

her narratives (The Fair Jilt, The Unfortunate Happy Lady), which

focus on the experiences of the female protagonist. The white

female narrator is central to Oroonoko. She is a character within the

story, she relates with the other characters and provides her

commentary on the events. Her role as a narrator and her close

proximity with the characters make her central to the tale, but at the

same time she is a detached outsider. The spatial dislocation of the

narrator becomes the primary issue in animating the discussion of

the relation between the colonial and the colonized. Firstly, the

white western woman traveling to another country within the

colonial domain, consciously or unconsciously points out the

tensions in colonial relations and the conflicts present in the relation

between the British and the indigenous people. Behn's other

fictions, particularly, Love Letters Between a Nobleman to his

Sister, shows the reworking of contemporary politics of Stuart

England in a distant location. (Behn 1759).

Secondly, a woman narrator/author changes the entire perspective

of the context, audience and status of any form of cultural

39

representation and how she is included and accepted in their

sphere. There are complicated positioning of desire, power,

authority, innocence and helplessness. As a result of these, the

narrator finds herself located in a tangle of cultural and theoretical

contradictions: contradiction between her western/ colonial self and

her personal concern for an individual; contradiction between her

political voice and her professional position; contradiction in her

location; contradiction in what she has internalized and what she

projects. These paradoxes show the web of political and social

affiliations of an individual and the complexity of his/her cultural

identities.

The narrator begins by presenting a utopian picture of the "natives",

"like our first parents before the Fall":

And these people represented to me an absolute idea of the first state of

innocence, before man knew how to sin. And 'tis most evident and plain

that simple Nature is the most harmless, inoffensive, and virtuous

mistress. 'Tis she alone, if she were permitted, that better instructs the

world than all the inventions of man. Religion would here but destroy that

tranquility they possess by ignorance; and laws would but teach them to

know offense, of which now they have no notion. (2184-85)

H. L. Moore in Space, Text and Gender (Moore 1986) states that

within the colonized space it is "the ruling or dominant group which

always presents their culture as normal". But here, the narrator, a

member of the dominant culture, 'represents' the 'other' culture as

"natural". She is aware of the plurality of culture but her emphasis is

on the difference itself: the 'Native' is different from the English. The

racial and culture differentiation is achieved by constructing the

natives as simple, innocent, natural, harmless, primitive. In catering

to a metropolitan, Anglocentric audience for whom the novel is

obviously being written, Behn constructs a strange and exotic

paradise where men and women are naked and the most fabulous

40

species of birds and animals are found. She projects the colonizers

as intruders in this paradise, who with their vices, duplicity and so

called civilization defile the pristine innocence of the natives, "which

knows no fraud; and they understand no vice, or cunning, but when

they are taught by the white men." (2185) At the same time she is

acutely aware of the need to keep the people satisfied and on the

white man's side because no mission of appropriation, commerce

and colonizing is possible without their support:

But before I give you the story of this gallant slave, 'tis fit I tell you the

manner of bringing them to these new colonies; those they make use of

there not being natives of the place: for those we live with in perfect

amity, without daring to command 'em; but, on the contrary, caress 'em

with all the brotherly and friendly affection in the world; trading with them

for their fish, venison, buffalo's skins ... {2183)

The text indicates the contradictory interest in both the exotic and

the economic potential of the New World. What apparently seem to

be liberal ideas of 'perfect amity', 'brotherly and friendly affection'

becomes fundamentally treacherous ideals, complicit with wider

colonial and imperial hegemony and exploitation. The purpose of

such progressive behaviour is the overt recognition of the

usefulness of the entire colonizing project:

With these people, as I said, we live in perfect tranquillity and good

understanding, as it behoves us to do; they knowing all the places where

to seek the best food of the country, and the means of getting it; and for

very small and unvaluable trifles, supply us with that 'tis impossible for us

to get. .. So that they being on all occasions very useful to us, we find it

absolutely necessary to caress 'em as friends, and not to treat 'em as

slaves, nor dare we do other, their numbers so far surpassing ours in

that continent. {2185)

In the seventeenth century, the New World was viewed as exotic

and economically productive. For the western readers introduced

to these places by the works of John Donne, Andrew Marvell and

Ben Jonson, the West Indies and South America were the focus of

41

fantasy about gold, spices and exotic products. The domination of

Caribbean and Surinam became important because of its crucial

economic value. AsS. J. Wiseman puts it," Gold and sugar make

Surinam significant for a late-seventeenth-century reader as a

place of both exoticism and trade." (Wiseman 1996:86)

Colonization added to all this, the diverse economy of the

availability of cheap labour and these places became a rich source

for obtaining slaves who were cruelly exploited. In Oroonoko, the

narrator mentions a wide spectrum of commodities that the

Europeans traded in, ranging from the economically useful to the

exotic: fish, venison, buffalo skin and also

marmosets, a sort of monkey, as big as a rat or weasel, but of marvelous

and delicate shape, having face and hands like a human creature; and

cousheries, a little beast in the form and fashion of a lion, as big as a

kitten, but so exactly made in all parts like that noble beast that it is it in

miniature. Then for little paraketoes, great parrots, mackaws, and a

thousand other birds and beasts of wonderful and surprising forms,

shapes, and colors. (2183-84)

Also for skins of prodigious snakes; rare flies, "some as big as my

fist" and for feathers of inconceivable colours. In return, "We dealt

with 'em with beads of all colors, knives, axes, pins, and needles;

and any shining trinket." (2184) Obviously exploitation was the

basis for all commercial transactions and the list of items are

empirical evidence of the difference in both value and cultural

difference. But other than these objects, the real purpose of trade

remained gold and slaves. These became the dominant motive for

the English, French, Dutch and the Spanish to compete among

themselves for the rights of these lands. The narrator of Oroonoko

laments the loss of "the mountains of gold" because after the

English left Surinam "the Dutch have the advantage of it: and 'tis to

be bemoaned what his Majesty lost by losing that part of America."

(2216)

42

In 1688, the year Oroonoko was written, politically and globally

imperialism had not yet become an actively espoused doctrine. But

the representation of identity had already matured and mani!ested

in fiction, travel writing and social theories. "The issue of national

distinctiveness, and racial and linguistic origins" much before

defining and locating Europe's others, hinged on "myth, opinion,

hearsay and prejudice generated by influential scholars quickly

assumed the status of received truth." (Ashcroft 2004: 51) The

cultural assumptions and ideological discrimination between 'us'

and 'them' had already entered the language virtually as universally

agreed truths, as is evident from the excerpt of the novel quoted

above. It was therefore easy and logical for the narrator to identifY•

and affiliate herself with the dominant power, the British colonialists.

Despite the enormous differences between the different colonial

enterprises of the various European nations, there seems to have

been a fairly stereotype image of the outsider as primitive,

uncivilized, irrational, innocent, etc. The attributions were often,

needless to say, often contradictory and inconsistent. Difference in

colour, race and religion {Christianity) became the basic

parameters of differentiating and for generating cultural prejudices.

This connection was particularly seen in the case of 'Negroes' and

'Moors'. Oroonoko belongs to Coramantien "a country of blacks"

and is "a gallant Moor"; and even though he does not belong to "our

world", yet

He had an extreme good and graceful mien, and all the civility of a well­

bred great man. He had nothing of barbarity in his nature, but in all points

addressed himself as if his education had been in some European court.

(2187)

In the 'hierarchy' of human beings, Oroonoko is not the social equal

of the Europeans but he is better accepted than the other blacks

because he has tried so hard to be accepted in the white man's

43

cultural ambit. "The great and just character of Oroonoko", we are

told, has received his education and learnt his manners from the

best and the most accomplished tutors - the Europeans

themselves. The French, the Spaniards and the English have

taught him not only "morals, language (both English and French),

science" but also "quick wit and sweet conversation." (2186) All this

has made him quite comparable to the white men because now he

is sensible and refined and considered capable of governing wisely.

Not only has the 'noble savage' been Europeanized enough to

make him acceptable, but it also reflects the achievement of the

colonizers in 'civilizing' him.

The perfections of his mind are admirably matched by the

perfection of his physical appearance. He is "beautiful, agreeable

and handsome" precisely beeause he is so unlike the others of his

race. His colour is not "that brown rusty black which most of that

nation are", his nose is not "African and flat", and his lips are "far

from those great turned lips which are so natural to the rest of the

negroes." (2186) Wiseman points out that the description inverts

what a European reader would expect an African to be: "Each detail

of his face ... are coded as not what would be expected but as its

European opposite." (Wiseman 1996: 94) The text therefore

assumes that the African physique is inferior. Like the land itself,

the man is exotic. He is both familiar and different. Homi K. Bhabha

calls this colonial imitation "mimicry'', ·and defines it as "the desire

for a reformed, recognizable Other, as a subject of a difference that

is almost the same, but not quite." (Bhabha 1994: 86) The imitation

or "mimicry'' of English/European manners can thus be seen as

constructing a particular form of colonial subjectivity. This "almost

the same but not quite", or rather the "almost the same but not

white" makes a mockery of the colonial subject and thus ensures

44

the authority of the colonial power in appropriating the split and

alienated personality.

While the exoticism of Surinam was exciting, Oroonoko's difference

is difficult to identify with and hence in a way mysterious and

threatening. As Lacan reminds us, the conscious effort to imitate is

"like the technique of camouflage practiced in warfare" (Jacques

Lacan, 'The line and light', in Bhabha 1994: 85) and can be

potentially dangerous and menacing for the white presence. The

ambivalence in the physical presentation of Oroonoko, indicates the

problem of drawing a border between the 'self and the 'other'. The

contradiction manifests in the paradoxical title itself: The Royal

Slave; he is both a king and a slave. It highlights his ironic and

inconsistent position in relation to his own people, the colonizers,

the narrator and the readers.

lmoinda, whom Oronooko loves, is a beauty - a beauty that is

familiar and identifiable: "that to describe her truly, one need say

only, she was female to the noble male; the beautiful black Venus·

to our young Mars." (2188) The black woman is an object, to be

gazed upon and to be fantasized. And although thousands of white

men have sighed after her, she is too great for any but a prince of

her own nation to adore. Thematically the narrative is dependent on

her. Almost every major incident of the story takes place because

of her. Oroonoko falls in love with her; the old king besotted by her

youth and loveliness forces her to join his harem; her clandestine

meetings with Oroonoko angers him and she is sold as a slave; the

two lovers meet again in Surinam and are married; her pregnancy

trouibles Oroonoko because he does not want his child to be born

into slavery; he leads the slaves to revolt against their white

masters; the white colonizer, Byam has rapacious designs on

45

lmoinda; to protect her honour Oroonoko kills her; he grieves over

her body; he is captured and cruelly killed by the colonialists. Her

tale is embedded in the narrative as a catalyst. Without her the

story would have fallen flat but she is not central to the novel. She

just acts as a medium to precipitate the conflict between the whites

and the blacks. Unlike Oroonoko, she does not straddle two

contradictory positions of being European and African; she is as the

narrator says in the end "the brave, the beautiful and the constant

lmoinda."(2226, my italics) It is her unwavering cultural identity, her

refusal to collude that makes her different and hence she is

silenced and displaced from the readers' interest.

Clearly then, the focus is on the relationship between the Black

Slave and his White Mistress. Critics have reflected on the

triangular relationship between the narrator, Oroonoko and

lmoinda, the sexual overtones, and the narrator's fascination for

Oroonoko or her possible romance with him. But as that's not the

area of my study, my participation is more bound up with the

ideologies of representation. The narrator and the hero both share

an affinity, as they are both victims and beneficiaries of imperialism.

Oroonoko captured and traded in slaves before he himself was

enslaved. And the narrator not only belongs to the slave owning

class but openly supports it. For the narrator then, Oroonoko is a

possession, a property like the land itself, an exotic object that is

fascinating but at the same time has to be kept in place because it

is potentially dangerous.

By 'othering' the black man and the black woman, Behn constructs

and consolidates the western self. The analogy between race and

gender is clearly the terrain upon which a reconfiguration of female

and racial subjectivity takes place. The black woman and the land

46

are objects to be used and to be exploited. In fact, the wooing of

lmoinda is contextualized in a typical colonial terminology. After

persistent persuasion by Oroonoko, she relents to be "conquered"

by him, and

After a thousand assurances of his lasting flame, and her eternal empire

over him, she condescended to receive him for her husband. (2189}

The apparent tone of the author/narrator is one of sympathy, trying

to comprehend the vastly cultural and racial differences, and

attempting to portray what critics often consider an anti- imperialist

or anti-colonial stance: "the novella had been recognized as a

seminal work in the tradition of antislavery writings from the time of

its publication down to our own period. (Brown, 1987: 181) But a,­

close reading of the novel would show that it does actively

participate in the discourse of racism. The narrator's critiquing of

Christianity and 'Western' men and practices might appear to be

evidence of her generous and unbiased outlook, but there are a lot

of overlapping, entangled and sometimes inconsistent elements in

the discourse. Other than stereotyping the 'Natives', the narrator

also indulges in, what can be called, inverse racism. The white/

Christian/colonizer is painted in broad strokes, generalized and

typecast as evil, vicious, untruthful and deceitful:

in that country, where men take to themselves as many [women] as they

can maintain; and where the only crime and sin with woman is to turn her

off, to abandon her to want, shame, and misery: such ill morals are only

practised in Christian countries. (2188)

Immediately after having said this, Behn indicates the degenerate

nature of the Natives' social practice and their attitude towards

women. The old king keeps a number of women in his otan for his

"pleasure" and "for his private use", and his old heart longed with

impatience to "play" with the beautifullmoinda. And when he comes

to know that she is his grandson Oroonoko's mistress, his "heart

47

burned" with jealousy and anger. He immediately sent her the royal

veil so that she is "secured for the king's use." (2189) He threatens

to kill Oroonoko if she does not appease him. Again, Onahal the

abandoned old wife of the king satisfies her passion in the arms of

the young courtier Aboan. There is, therefore a vast incongruity

between what the author proposes and what the text presents. The

Christian reader would find the evidences of strange "ill- morals"

practiced in the 'other' lands. On the one hand, Oroonoko shows a

resistance to binary racial categories, but at the same time it

perpetuates categories it seems to reject.

There is contradiction again in the development of interpersonal

relationships between the blacks and the whites. Oroonoko who

"took more delight in the white nations, and, above all, men of parts

and wit" (2200) sells his slaves to an Englishman, the commander

of an English ship. The English captain takes advantage of

Oroonoko's hospitality and by an act of treachery, seized him and

his men and bound them up as slaves. The narrator does not make

any moral judgment, but rather leaves it to the reader to do so:

Some have commended this act, as brave in the captain; but I will spare

my sense of it, and leave it to my reader to judge as he pleases. (2201)

When Oroonoko protests against this indignity, the captain

promises to set him free once they reach the nearest land, provided

Oroonoko promises that his men will not revolt. Oroonoko gives his

solemn oath but the captain is not willing to believe him as he

could not resolve to trust a heathen, he said, upon his parole, a man that

had no sense or notion of the God that he worshiped. Oroonoko then

replied, he was very sorry to hear that the captain pretended to the

knowledge and worship of any gods, who had taught him no better

principles than not to credit as he would be credited. But they told him,

the difference of their faith occasioned that distrust for the captain had

protested to him upon the word of a Christian, and sworn in the name of

48

a great God; which if he should violate, he would expect eternal torment

in the world to come. (2202, my italics)

The effect of these contradictions on the reader is to create the

impression of a narrative voice deeply disturbed by the events

related, and convincing us with the divided loyalty of a narrator who

is affected by and affecting colonial ideologies. She is both

marginalized and powerful, and it is precisely this ambivalent

position that manifests in her discourse. As a white woman she

identifies with the dominant group, the colonizers; but as a woman

she occupies the same peripheral position as Oroonoko does and

hence her sympathy for him. She is both the subject and the object;

and this "makes it impossible to ignore the contradictory social

positioning of white, middle-class women as both colonized

patriarchal objects and colonizing race...:privileged subjects."

(Donaldson 1992: 6.) The narrator is acutely aware of her position

in the hierarchy of power. She is addressed as "The Great

Mistress" by Oroonoko and though he believes that her "word

would go a great way with him" (2209) to grant him freedom, yet

she knows that her power and authority is limited only to the extent

of being a "female pen that celebrated his fame" (2205)

To reinforce the ideology ofracial superiority, the white colonizers

must keep the blacks in place and force them into their 'natural'

class position. Much before imperial mission based on a hierarchy

of races manifested itsel.f, racist ideologies were prevalent which

identified different races and classes of people as fundamentally

suited for particular tasks. Thus, black men should forever remain

labourers or slaves. A person of Oroonoko's stature, appearance

and royal lineage is a threat to the stability of the entire colonial

framework that solely depends on the power equation between the

superiority of the exploiters and the inferiority of the exploited.

49

Oroonoko is therefore brought down to his position by a process of

systematic devaluation. First of all, he is dispossessed of his land

and kingdom and brought as a slave to an English colony, then, he

is fettered in chains, he is divested of his royal robes, and finally the

deprivation is literally and figuratively completed when he is bereft

of his name.

I ought to tell you that the Christians never buy any slaves but they give

'em some name of their own, their native ones being likely very

barbarous, and hard to pronounce; so that Mr. Trefry gave Oroonoko that

of Caesar. (2205)

By conferring the Christian names of Ceaser and Clemene on

Oroonoko and lmoinda, the act of subjugation is complete. The act

of renaming can be seen as snatching away all vestiges of identity,

nullifying all sense of selfhood, and reiterating the supreme power

that the colonizer exercises over the colonized. This can also be

seen as an attempt to include 'them' in the category of 'us'. The

inclusion can be acceptable and tolerated as long as the 'them

does what the 'us' wants them to do. The inclusion in their

community is based on his segregation from his own people and

from the men:

he liked the company of us women much above the men, for he could

not drink, and he is but an ill companion in that country that cannot. So

that obliging him to love us very well, we had all the liberty of speech with

him, especially myself. (2208-09)

So a man of action, one who has spent his life "in arms" is kept in

the company of women and entertained by the narrator with stories

about the "loves of the Romans." Clearly, he is being encouraged to

become lazy, tame, effeminate, bereft of action- the very terms by

which the Orient has been represented and denigrated.

50

he spoke, with an air impatient enough to make me know he would not

be long in bondage; and though he suffered only the name of a slave,

and had nothing of the toil and labor of one, yet that was sufficient to

render him uneasy; and he had been too long idle, who used to be

always in action, and in arms. He had a spirit all rough and fierce, and

that could not be tamed to lazy rest; and though all endeavors were used

to exercise himself in such actions and sports as this world afforded, as

running, wrestling, pitching the bar, hunting and fishing, chasing and

killing tigers of a monstrous size, which this continent affords in

abundance, and wonderful snakes, such as Alexander is reported to

have encountered at the River of Amazons, and which Caesar took great

delight to overcome; yet these were not actions great enough for his

large soul, which was still panting after more renowned actions. (2209,

my italics)

Oroonoko's isolation is now complete, alone outside the white

camp and also distanced from his own people, different from them

in his upbringing, looks, and now even in the way they act and

function. He is compelled to obey his masters, follow their dictates

and to assure them that "whatsoever resolutions he should take, he

would act nothing upon the white people." (2209)

It is clear that his actions have to be approved by the white masters

and whatever he does has to please them. So, to please the white

ladies, for "the trophies and the garlands", Oroonoko is ordered to

kill some wild animals which have been troubling the colony. The

detailed description of Oroonoko killing fierce wild beasts manifests

his courage, his fearless spirit, his strength and his almost

detached participation in such acts of violence.

(We) found him lunging out the sword from the bosom of the tiger, who

was laid in her blood on the ground; he took up the club, and with an

unconcern that had nothing of the joy or gladness of a victory, he came

and laid the whelp at my feet. We all extremely wondered at his daring,

51

and at the bigness of the beast, which was about the height of an heifer,

but of mighty great and strong limbs. (2211)

This also draws attention to the schism in the representation of

Oroonoko's self. Up till now we had seen the nobility of the Noble

Savage, now we see his savageness. These seemingly innocuous

wild adventures, narrated as they are just before Oroonoko's

rebellion, gains significance precisely because they reflect the wild,

the dangerous and the barbaric side of him. Obviously then all

attempts, however cruel they might be, to curb mutiny would be

amply justified because it would be then seen as an attempt to

civilize the barbarians.

After the dangerous predators, which had endangered their lives,

have been vanquished, it is now the Indians from whom they live in

"mortal fear." The choice of words and language used to describe

both the predators and the Indians is noticeably similar.

About this time we were in many mortal fears about some disputes the

English had with the Indians; so that we could scarce trust ourselves,

without great numbers, to go to any Indian towns or place where they

they abode, for fear they should fall upon us, as they did immediately

after my coming away; and the place being in the possession of the

Dutch, they used them not so civilly as the English: so that they cut in

pieces all they could take, getting into houses, and hanging up the

mother and all her children about her; and cut a footman, I left behind

me, all in joints, and nailed him to trees (2213)

The rebellion has to be controlled and Oroonoko goes as their

guide as none of the whites in the group spoke the language of the

native people, and "imagining we should have a half diversion in

gazing only, and not knowing what they said." (2213) The trip is

anticipated as a "diversion", more a source of intense amusement,

as they would be "gazing" at the natives- the rarities of nature, like

the marmosets and the cousheries, the little monkey like beasts

52

that are to be found in this place. But once the whites reach the

Indians' habitation, the subject becomes the object of gazing:

They had no sooner spied us but they set up a loud cry, that frighted us

at first; we thought it had been for those that should kill us, but it seems it

was of wonder and amazement. They were all naked; and we were

dressed, so as is most commode for the hot countries, very glittering and

rich; so that we appeared extremely fine: my own hair was cut short, and

I had a taffety cap, with black feathers on my head; my brother was in a

stuff-suit, with silver loops and buttons, and abundance of green ribbon.

This was all infinitely surprising to them ... By degrees they grew more

bold, and from gazing upon us round, they touched us, laying their hands

upon all the features of our faces, feeling our breasts and arms, taking

up one petticoat, then wondering to see another; admiring our shoes and

stockings, but more our garters, which we gave 'em, and they tied about

their legs, being laced with silver lace at the ends; for they much esteem

any shining things. In fine, we suffered 'em to survey us as they pleased,

and we thought they would never have done admiring us. (2214)

lnspite of the subject-object reversal, the reader is left in no doubt

about the power hierarchy. It is clear that"their extreme ignorance

and simplicity'' made them "admire" the whites and "adore" them as

gods. While the whites are deemed to be "gods", the Indians are

reckoned as "simple", "ignorant", "superstitious", "cunning" and

described as a hideous spectacle:

We were conducted to one of their houses; where we beheld several of

the great captains, who had been at council: but so frightful a vision it

was to see 'em, no fancy can create; no sad dreams can represent so

dreadful a spectacle. For my part, I took 'em for hobgoblins, or fiends,

rather than men.(2215)

Not only does this passage attribute racial stereotypes of barbarity

and savagery to the Indians, but also distinguishes differences

within a race. We are told that Oroonoko brought about a good

53

understanding between the Indians and the white colonizers. Here

there is an implied distinction between savages (as represented by

the Indians) and the noble savage (represented by Oroonoko). The

distinction is based on the presumption that humans are different

qualitatively. Ania Loomba draws attention to the contradiction

inherent in the term 'noble savage' and says, "The noble savage

idea therefore represents a rupture, a contradiction, a point at

which the seamless connections between interiority and external

characteristic are disturbed. Similarly, the converted heathen and

the educated native are images that cannot entirely or easily be

reconciled to the idea of absolute difference. While at one level they

represent colonial achievements, at another they stand for

impurity ... " (Loomba 1998: 118-19) Again it is to be noticed that in

relation to the 'Negroes' or the 'Indians' all Europeans are "white

people", but within themselves they are categorized as English,

Dutch, Spanish, French and even Cornish. So, while all Europeans

are considered superior to the rest of the world, some like the

English are more superior than the others.

The actual tension arises when the converted native switches back

to his original identity thus challenging the very colonial parameters

within which he was functioning. The tragedy of Oroonoko is the

contradiction in the identity of the hero. When he participates with

the whites he is "gallant" and "charming"; when he wants to regain

his self-identity, he is seen as an ambiguous figure, an object of

distrust. Oroonoko wants freedom for himself, for his wife, their

unborn child and for his men. Unable to accept the fact that their

child would be born a slave, Oroonoko incites his men to rebel

against their white masters. He "made an harangue to 'em, of the

miseries and ignominies of slavery; counting up all their toils and

54

sufferings, under such loads, burdens, and drudgeries as were fitter

for beasts than men." (2216-17)

"And why," said he, "my dear friends and fellow-sufferers, should we be

slaves to an unknown people? Have they vanquished us nobly in fight?

Have they won us in honorable battle? And are we by the chance of war

become their slaves? This would not anger a noble heart; this would not

animate a soldiers soul: no, but we are bought and sold like apes or

monkeys, to be the sport of women, fools, and cowards; and the support

of rogues and runagates, that have abandoned their own countries for

rapine, murders, theft, and villainies. Do you not hear every day how they

upbraid each other with infamy of life, below the wildest savages? And

shall we render obedience to such a degenerate race, who have no one

human virtue left, to distinguish them from the vilest creatures? Will you,

I say, suffer the lash from such hands?" They all replied with one accord,

"No, no, no; Caesar has spoke like a great captain, like a great

king."(2217)

This passage then becomes the crux of the entire crisis of

dislocation and its attended problems of cultural representation of

the self and the other. Here, the author/narrator (a white colonizer)

sees herself, her nation and people through the eyes of another

person (an enslaved black). Does the actuality of dislocation, the

fact that she has moved away from her own country, enable her to

see her nation from a distance and to have a clearer perspective?

Or, is it the articulation of the internalized tangled web of ideologies

and opinions? Does this reflect a clear position taken on anti­

colonialism, or, does this climactic moment reflect the inherent

ideological contradictions that dominate the novel? Oroonoko's long

lecture against slavery is inconsistent and contradictory to his

earlier position and status as a slave trader, who sold the slaves to

the English colonialists. The narrator portrays the white colonizers

as "a degenerate race", "the vilest creatures" "of absolute barbarity"

in the manner with which they treat the blacks. She is horrified at

55

the inhuman treatment meted out to them but at the same time she

feels that "such revoltings are very ill examples, and have very fatal

consequences oftentimes, in many colonies." (2218) The narrator

vacillates between her friendship with and fear of the slaves. She

understands the plight of the slaves and is sympathetic towards

them but she by all means does not denounce the institution of

slavery; in fact she considers them essential for mercantile and

colonial expansion. In fact she is an active consumer- using the

tinctured feathers for her dress and even using the slaves for her

service.

Her sympathy for the oppressed group contradicts with her position

of power. Her place within the framework of the novel, as that of a

female narrator, is to mediate between the two worlds. When there

is a threat to the colony, then the narrator is part of the "we" of the

colonists. But when she narrates the brutality of the colonial

leaders, she allays herself with the powerless members of the

society, implies her own helplessness, and thus takes no

responsibility for the cruel actions. One the one hand she endorses

Oroonoko's understanding of the Europeans as vow-breakers, and

on the other hand she feeds him with false promises of freedom.

She exploits his attachment to her and faith in her to keep him

under her control. She surrounds him with spies because "I neither

thought it convenient to trust him much out of our View, nor did the

Country, who fear'd him." (2209)

The slave revolt is suppressed by the colonizers, not with honour or

valour, but by treachery and duplicity. Byam, the Deputy- Governor

of Surinam pretends friendship with Oroonoko and breaks his

promise to free them. The narrator has the misconception that she

"had authority'' to help Oroonoko but flees from the scene because

56

we were possessed with extreme fear, which no persuasions could

dissipate, that he would secure himself till night, and them, that he would

come down and cut all our throats. This apprehension made all the

females of us fly down the river to be secured; and while we were away,

they acted this cruelty. (2221)

She is absent when Oroonoko is mercilessly whipped for his act of

rebellion, and returns later "protesting our innocency of the fact".

(2221) But by now the text can no longer handle the contradictions

and the reader can easily see that all claims of innocence is merely

lies and duplicity. Perhaps Oroonoko himself expresses this best

when humiliated and cheated by the whites, he plans to kill Byam:

... till I have completed my revenge; and then you shall see that

Oroonoko scorns to live with the indignity that was put on Caesar. {2222)"

He no longer wants to live with the double 'self bestowed by the

colonizers; he cannot be both Oroonoko and Ceaser. If he has to

live with dignity then he has to "scorn" the identity given to him by

the whites. From here onwards the contradictions that the text has

so assiduously built up cannot be any more sustained. All attempts

to unravel or answer the paradoxes are given up and the narrative

moves in one conclusive direction - Oroonoko, the text and

Oroonoko, the character are shorn of the doubleness. After

Oroonoko kills his beloved wife, his "precious soul", he mourns over

her dead body in the wilds. When the search party, led by the

whites, finds him,

they stood still, and hardly believing their eyes, that would persuade

them that it was Caesar that spoke to 'em, so much was he altered.

(2224)

This alteration, this change in the man is emphasized when the

narrator describes him:

57

We ran all to see him; and, if before we thought him so beautiful a sight,

he was now so altered that his face was like a death's-head blacked

over, nothing but teeth and eye-holes.(2225)

This sight, the text seems to suggest, is the 'real' self of Oroonoko;

his colour, teeth, eyes, lips, nose which were earlier described as

"beautiful" and "agreeable" are no longer beautiful because they no

more 'agree' to the European standards. This then becomes the

proof of the difference of his identity. In the confrontation of the

colonialist 'self and the native 'other', Oroonoko cannot fit into the

dominant group. Laura Brown in 'The Romance of Empire:

Oroonoko and the Trade in Slaves,' quotes Tzvetan Todorov to

reinforce the discovery that the 'self makes of the 'other': "every

colonist in his relation to the colonized, conceives of the native

according to the two component parts of alterity, absolute identity or

absolute difference". (Nussbaum 1987: 184) The knowledge of and

representation of the 'other' would necessarily have to take into

account opposition and resistance to colonial autonomy. In the

power struggle between the colonizer and the colonized, the

dominant, pervasive nature of power can only be maintained, when

the alterity is represented as inferior. As can be seen from the

passage quoted above, the narrator of Oroonoko moves from the

previous position of identifying the 'other' as identical and equal, to

imagining the 'other' as absolutely different and hence inferior.

Oroonoko, who looked like a Roman god, is now the "Devil"

personified.

The sight was ghastly: his discourse was sad; and the earthy smell about

him was so strong that I was persuaded to leave the place for some time.

(2225)

Oroonoko has 'degenerated' from his earlier exalted position and

the only thing that the narrator and consequently the narrative can

58

do is to leave him. The absence of the narrator and therefore her

inaction to prevent Oroonoko's death, is an attempt to justify her

moral position. In reality, she separates herself from the dominant

discourse of the colonizers using brute force to make the natives

subservient. Now she. is neither 'us' nor 'them'. She detaches

herself from both the camps and her sex becomes the excuse. A

woman, the narrator seems to say, will have to flee for her own

security. The gender and the marginality of the narrator are

exploited by Behn to a certain extent. The female narrator can

observe and use her pen to glorify the native, but she cannot

exercise her authority or power. At the same time, she can use this

pretext to imply that she is not unethical or guilty of the treatment

meted out by her own countrymen.

The narrative closure implies that Oroonoko has brought about his

own downfall. By not participating in the white man's cultural

representation and by declaring his independence, Oroonoko has

made his disintegration inevitable. The doubleness and

consequently the fragmentation of the hero's identity match the

structure of the closure of the novel. The narrative that had

'created' Oroonoko's self by giving him an anglocentric identity, has

now got to destroy that identity because he no longer fits into its

parameter. This is done literally at the end of the novel. Oroonoko

is condemned to die and the last moments of his life coincide with

the end of the novel; Oroonoko is literally dismantled as he .is

cruelly dismembered by the colonial masters.

He had learned to take tobacco; and when he was assured he should

die, he desired they would give him a pipe in his mouth, ready lighted;

which they did. And the executioner came, and first cut off his members,

and threw them into the fire; after that, with an ill-favored knife, they cut

off his ears and his nose and burned them; he still smoked on, as if

nothing had touched him; then they hacked off one of his arms, and still

59

he bore up, and held his pipe; but at the cutting off the other arm, his

head sunk, and his pipe dropped, and he gave up the ghost, without a

groan or a reproach. (2226)

It is significant, that while the narrative attempts to break him into

parts, to separate the doubleness inherent in the character, it is not

able to do so. The ambivalent status accorded to him as

simultaneously African and European is sustained. He is stoically

smoking a pipe, a product of imperialism, even in his death. The

pipe drops only when he breathes his last. The vicious

dismemberment of Oroonoko's body, almost sadistic in its

description, cuts off the very features -the ears, nose and limbs­

which had earlier separated him from the native identity and made

him belong to 'them'. His refusal to be subservient to the whites and

the subsequent rebellion on his part was an act of 'a man of

action'. Given the centrality of action in Restoration discourses as

masculine, Oroonoko's refusal to be passive and docile is seen as

a threat and as potentially dangerous to the white man's authority.

His masculinity must be dissociated from him and symbolically

then, his members (presumably meaning genitals) are cut off thus

completing his emasculation. The violent end of the hero signifies

that, not only the protagonist but the text too with its contradictory

ideologies had become problematic to handle and therefore had to

be brought to an end.

Laura Brown draws our attention to the similarity between the death

of Charles I and Oroonoko. The climatic drama of the last days of

the King and his beheading is echoed in the tragic death of

Oroonoko. Brown quotes from sources on the life of Charles I, to

demonstrate the narrative parallelism between the two and to

indicate the powerful grip of political events on Behn's writings. The

60

Royalist writers' version of the death of the King which appeared in

about 1681, present him as:

Shewing no fear of death ... his Bloody Murtherers ... built a scaffold for his

Murther whereunto they fixed several Staples of Iron, and prepared

cords, to tye him down to the block, had he made any resistance to that

Cruel and Bloody stroke ... And then, most Christianly forgiving all,

praying for his Enemies, he meekly submitted to the stroke of the

Axe ... he suffered as an Heroic Champion ... (Dugdale1987: 198)

Bloody trophies from the execution were distributed among the King's

murderers at the execution and immediately thereafter ... (Perrinchiefe

1987: 198)

Oroonoko's death, "the Spectacle ... of a mangled King" whose body ..

is quartered and distributed around the colony evokes the vivid and

violent death of Charles I. He represents the same stoic Christ like

suffering and dies a martyr, "without a groan or a reproach". (2226)

. Critics like Richard Kroll too supplies elaborate evidence to argue

about the 'parallel history ' in Oroonoko and views Behn's "quasi­

sociological account" a "desperate attempt between 1 0 and 29

June 1688 to warn James II that if he continues on the path he has

described since his accession, he risks suffering the same fate as

his father'' [Charles I, who was executed by Parliament]. (Kroll

2006: 37) It is understandable that Behn who was "one of the

staunchest apologists for the Stuart kings" (Todd 1992, Vol.l: xxv)

and whose political faith expresses Tory royalism would reflect in

her work the world as she found it. But it is difficult to accept either

Brown's or Kroll's insistence to regard the work as a political

allegory. The very facts that the work has endured beyond its

moment of creation, has been read over the years, and has almost

been accorded a canonical stature in English literature show that its

appeal is not limited to its precise political meaning in June 1688.

61

Subsequent generations of readers have read and interpreted it in

accordance to the current interest.

Hence, more significant than the political allegory is the fact that for

writers like Behn, the colonies provided a stage, an arena where

the disturbing historical and political domestic events could be re­

enacted. The spacio-temporal dislocation of the

protagonist/narrator, and removing the experiences to a distant

foreign land could perhaps be seen as an attempt to distance the

contemporary political tensions for the readers at home. At the

same time, it voices the concerns of the time - the rapid rise of

colonization, the end of absolutism, and the historical shift that

made England a modern imperialist power. Oroonoko, poses for

the reader some of the complex and contradictory ideological

positions of the late seventeenth century. As an experimental

narrative genre, the text articulates the contradictory attitudes of the

time to cultural difference, power relationships, and the inherent

paradoxes of racial and national superiority. Perhaps it would be

pertinent to state here that no colonial discourse can ever be

unambiguously one-sided. The scrutinizing of the object of colonial

discourse through identification and difference is bound to be

ambivalent and open ended, comprising fear and attraction,

sameness and difference.

In the long journey of the novel through the next few decades and

over the century, as a conscious and manipulated medium to

construct a tangible concept of 'Englishness' and the English

nation, Aphra Behn's Oroonoko is a definite first step. If Behn's

narrative presented the ideological contradictions and the

ambivalent attitude of the ideals and the exigencies of her time, the

study of the next novel, Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, would show the

62

emergence of a more definite and clear-cut pattern of nationalist

sentiments.

63