Critical Interpretation of Oronooko by Aphra Behn
... And if there is a character in literature whose life exemplifies the many and unspeakable ways in which this atrocious institution can reduce the most heroic individual to a level of abject humiliation and spiritual destitution our hero, Oroonoko, in Aphra Behn’s work by the same name, is that character. Set in the mid-seventeenth century in two vastly different parts of the world, Surinam, a colony located in the West Indies, and the region now called Ghana on the west coast of Africa, Behn’s novella depicting the life of an African native named Oroonoko follows this hero’s turbulent experiences and his transition from a life of power and prestige through his descent into a hell of bondage and suffering. ... Through the eyes of both the narrator, who is debatably a persona of Aphra Behn, and Oroonoko himself, the reader witnesses this world of highs and lows through a variety of contradictions and conflicts that our hero is introduced to as his life changes from one scene to the next . ... All aspects of Oronooko’s life seem contradictory, all the way down to the paradoxical title he is given of “The Royal Slave”
“Oroonoko” is a piece that does not easily fall into one literary genre. While it possesses many qualities found in a romance, drama, action or adventure, Behn’s work has been generally referred to as an amalgamation of three styles: a memoir, a