Oroonoko, and Other Writings Book

I wish I could give this book 3 and a half stars. I can't fault the editor, who included some useful footnotes and other bits of information, and the book itself is tidily presented in adorable, portable form, with a pleasing font, carefully maintaining Behn's sixteenth century orthography in all its quaint irregularity. But I just couldn't warm to these short, brutal stories.

The repetitive similarities became increasingly un-ignorable; there's only so much in the way of faithless females, stabbing sirrahs, non-complying nuns and friends-turned-rivals that I can stomach. Melodrama in novels is all very well, but I need more variety than this particular selection provides. As a window onto late sixteenth century literary style, it certainly is illuminating, and most likely represents Restoration fiction more than adequately. But tastes change, and not all fiction stands the test of time.

The story of Oroonoko is substantially longer than the others in the collection, and as such offers the author more room to exercise her imagination. This mini-novel is often held up as an example of Behn's supposed abolitionism, since she appears to depict African people with more humanity than was generally done by white Europeans in the sixteenth century. However, as has been pointed out by scholars, Oroonoko was not intended primarily to be a critique of the slave trade and the barbaric treatment of slaves in America, but as an allegory of the rise and fall of the ill-fated James II of England, who had frequently been given the appellation "Black James", in reference to his dark hair. Incidentally, one of the stories in this collection, The Adventure of the Black Lady, concerns a white woman who happens to have dark hair, underscoring the fact that in the sixteenth century readers read and interpreted the word "black" in different ways than we generally do.

More to the point, another story in this collection, The Unfortunate Bride, features a villain named Moorea, introduced to readers as "a Blackamoor Lady", who Behn also describes as "black in her mind, and dark, as well as in her body." After Moorea tricks a white woman, Belvira, into believing that she has seduced Belvira's fiancé, another of Behn's characters puzzles as to how or why this could have been accomplished; he asks aloud "what delight could [her white fiancé] take in a Blackamoor Lady", with the understanding that a woman of African origin could not possibly be more attractive than her white counterpart. In this context, the argument that some have put forth - that the writing of Oroonoko proves that Behn held sympathetic views regarding racial equality - falls rather flat.

Oroonoko is a thinly veiled critique of James' rule, with encoded descriptions of his character failings and even his relationship with his wife, all of which eventually contributed to his losing the throne of England in ignominious fashion towards the end of Aphra Behn's life. It includes a great deal of tragedy, star-crossed love and gruesome violence, all of which would likely have held great appeal for Behn's audience. Most likely none of these readers had much in the way of sympathy for the plight of African slaves, any more than Aphra Behn did herself.