Oroonoko

Oronooko is an excellent play by Aphra Behn that discusses a large array of wonderful themes. The story’s main character depicts a person of power. He was in a sense eventually forced to empathize with those he unintentionally caused a great deal of harm to. Oronooko a man of royalty participated in the selling of African slaves. An African himself saw nothing wrong in doing this; this was an accepted part of his culture. He befriended the British and lived a life envied by those he persecuted.

It’s ironic how his very friends (the British) became those people he learned to hate; they became his masters. The story has a nice turn of tales. A man once full of power, now forced to interpret life from the other end of the life cycle. Behn clearly illustrates how there are mainly two extremes in life; Oronooko lived on both ends of these extremes. He went from possessing outstanding amounts of power to encompassing almost none.

Page 2

The novel forces the reader to slightly sympathize with Oronooko. He was made to feel the pain of his people (something he never thought he would have to do). Although a man of ignorance he became a man of knowledge. He was ignorant to what true betrayal was, ignorant to love, ignorant to the beliefs and pain of others. Behn was trying to teach her readers a lesson of living empathetic lives. This moral although helpful was revealed in such a brutal yet effective manner.

This play teaches us about the life cycle and how vicious it could be. It shows us what lengths enlightenment will pursue in order to complete this cycle exposed through the eyes of Oroonoko. Restoration for Oronooko was a first hand experience unavoidable and inevitable. The play is again excellent in exposing us to life’s inescapable karma, a clear and evident themes throughout the novel.

Through brilliant language and the usage of symbolism, Bhen allows us to see what was happening to Oronooko in the most memorable scene. “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….The executor came and first cut off his members and threw them in the fire.

Page 3

“….They cut his ears and his nose and burned them; he still smoked on, as if nothing touched him. “This is a great example of visualization through the text, it is quite easy to picture the scene here taking place in great detail. “ Then they hacked