Oroonoko: A Special Slave

Laura Brown writes, "On the face of it, the treatment of slavery in Oroonoko is neither coherent nor fully critical.  The romance motifs in Oroonoko's story, based up on the elitist focus on the fate of African 'princes,' render ambiguous Behn's attack on the institution of slavery" (240).  Certainly Behn's description of Oroonoko's physical appearance,  his skin "not of that brown, rusty Black which most of that Nation are" and his nose "rising and Roman, instead of Arican and flat," coupled with that of his character, "He had nothing of Barbarity in his Nature, but in all Points address'd himself, as if his Education had been some European court," contribute to what Brown calls "Behn's description of Oroonoko as a European aristocrat in blackface" (Behn 13; Brown 234).  Also speaking to Behn's ambivalence, though perhaps less obviously, are certain emphatic qualifiers she includes in these early descriptions.  When she attests to the nobility of Oroonoko's character, she is careful to interject, "I . . . do assure my Reader," and in her efforts to render his appearance akin to that of Europeans, she stresses that his lips are "far from" those of other Africans.  With these statements, she seems to be apologizing to her audience for her audacity in attempting to humanize a black man or to be reassuring her readers that hers is an effort only to offer an exception to certain perceptions of Africans, rather than an attempt to humanize the entire race.  A simple explanation for this may be that Behn viewed such appeasements as a pragmatic means of combatting slavery from within existing paradigms, of presenting her readers only with that which they were more readily inclined to hear in order to ultimately effect, if slowly, change.  Indeed, Brown writes that Behn's description of a European-like Oroonoko, "does not necessarily change the novella's emancipationist reputation; precisely this kind of sentimental identification was in fact that staple component of anti-slavery narratives in England and America for the next century and a half" (234).  More troubling, then, perhaps, and more puzzling to me in terms of Behn's views, is the way in which she represents Oroonoko's own perception of slavery.

Clearly, Oroonoko has no qualms with the institution as the novella opens, as he is an active participant in the slave trade; all enemies that his army "took in Battel, were sold as Slaves" (Behn 11).  His later speech inciting his fellow slaves to flee reveals his logic in considering such a system just: "'And why . . . shoul'd we be Slaves to an unknown People?  Have they Vanquish'd us Nobly in Fight?  Have they Won us in Honourable Battel?  And are we, by the chance of War, become their slaves?" (52).  To be the losing party in a fair fight, then, is, to Oroonoko, to be deserving of the fate of slavery.  (That he is here disputing the legitimacy of the Europeans' ownership of these slaves raises questions as to how he originally viewed his selling of them, as his committing such a transaction without conceiving of it as a legitimate transfer of ownership does not seem in keeping with his character.  Had his views on the justness of taking enemy combatants as slaves changed through his own experience of captivity, this would be less puzzling, but as his speech makes clear, this is not the case.)  What I was most struck by, however, in what can certainly be seen as anti-slavery work, was Oroonoko's contempt for and disregard of other slaves, even when he himself has become one. 

There is, of course, the fact that, when Oroonoko learns of Imoinda's pregnancy and becomes increasingly anxious for his and his family's freedom, an immediate recourse is to offer Trefy "a vast quantify of Slaves" in exchange for former’s liberation (40).  Even more surprising is the fact that Oroonoko seems to posit slaves as weak, as "he accus'd himself of having suffer'd Slavery so long; yet he charged that weakness on Love alone" (42).  Implied here is the idea that slaves are somehow complicit in their captivity, a view that would certainly do little to engender empathy in Behn's early audiences.  This is reinforced when Oroonoko and the other slaves are overcome by the white militia, and only he, Imoinda, and Tuscan continue to resist.  The actions of his fellow escapees render Oroonoko “asham’d of what he had done, in endeavoring to make those Free, who were by Nature Slaves” (56).  The notion that individuals possessed by a fear for their lives or those of their family, which, if a weakness, is certainly a very common, very human one, deserve to live those lives in servitude to others, would unlikely be of any efficacy in creating anti-slavery sentiment; it suggests that slaves are only such because unwilling to risk their lives for their freedom and are, if Oronooko himself is to be believed, therefore fit to be slaves.  Behn, then, through her representation of Oronooko’s own views of slavery, speaks less of the injustice of enslaving human beings than of the injustice of enslaving human beings of a certain caliber.  Even the title of the novella suggests as much: This is not a story of slaves or of slavery, but of a special slave, a royal slave.