African Integration Into 18th Century British Literature Oroonoko

Oroonoko Aphra Behn's novel Oroonoko is about a young man who was born a prince and dies a slave. As an African male, Oroonoko is subjected to the racism of the white males who have all the power in his society. In the time period that Aphra Behn was writing, Africans were being captured and enslaved no matter what their birth status. Even a prince could find himself enslaved and forced to work for white oppressors.

The institution of slavery was already heavily practiced by the time that Behn wrote this book and her depictions of slavery and the enslaved are apt. The harsh portrayal of the peculiar institution is accurate in terms of the history of slavery. Oroonoko was one of the first texts to take a negative stance against the institution of slavery.

There are critics however who try to cast Behn in the role of racist for several odd reasons, including the idea that institutionalized racism was such a large part of the cultural psyche that it would have been impossible for her not to have racist or prejudicial attitudes (Nestvold 1). These critics argue that it is not slavery of Africans that Behn is criticizing, but the enslavement of a prince. It is the class that causes concern, not the racial profiling or feeling of white superiority.

There is some evidence of this position. As a prince, Oroonoko himself was an oppressor. He and his father both owned slaves and sold formerly freed people into slavery (Ibbotson 1). Thus, the fact that the reader is then to empathize with Oroonoko could be seen as identification with the slavery of one who is born high up socially, rather than criticizing the institution of slavery as a whole. Prince Oroonoko is made to have all manner of virtues. He is educated and articulate. In his own realm, he was royal.

This means that he is a certain caliber of person. Behn uses him to show several criticisms of slavery. However, the way she does this is by making the reader identify with one particular character who has been enslaved. One critic, Ana Ma Manzanas Calvo accuses Behn of "whitening" the slavery issue by creating a character who, although brown-skinned, possesses many Caucasian characteristics. Oroonoko has hair texture that is reminiscent of the European population. He is also described as having facial features which are not traditionally African (Calvo 102).

This makes him seem more closely related to the white characters who are forcing him into slavery than with his African relations. There are critics who believe Behn was racist and then there are those who believe she was not only trying to explain the harshness of enslaving a member of royalty, but any human being. As a woman of the time period, she also would have been culturally marginalized (Nestvold 2). A woman during the 18th century had no voice unless she took it by force, as Behn did.

She can speak for the minimized community because she knows what it is like to have a sense of power, but then to have that autonomy and individuality stripped from you by white male oppressors. This was the beginning of the cult of domesticity where women were to be seen but not heard and the home and family were to be the very center of their existences. In the social hierarchy of the slave system, gender differentiation was also stratifying.

A slave was on the bottom rung of the social ladder, but a female slave was even beneath him. The female slave Imoinda is not only forced into slavery as a laborer, she also becomes the target of lascivious desires from the more powerful males (Ibbotson 1). Her body is not only a force of slave labor; her body is a slave to the sexual desires of her oppressors, both slave and master. Slavery is known as the peculiar institution and that is an apt description.

When a slave was first brought to a plantation, they would be stripped of their original identity. This happens to Oroonoko and Imoinda in the story. Their culture is removed, along with their clothing and their very names (Ibbotson 1). Everything is given to them anew by their slaveholders. The idea behind this was to force the slave to completely depend.