A Feminist and Human Interpretation of Oroonoko文献综述

 2022-09-03 22:51:27

Literature Review

In the development of female literature, three stages of female literary creation, Feminine, Feminist and Female, have been put forward by Showalter, an American feminist critic. In view of this development, the British feminist novels also show different forms of female consciousness and various expressions. In mid and late 17th century, female writers first come on the scene in Western Europe, with the improvement of womenrsquo;s level of education and the growth of their independent consciousness. Oroonooko or The Royal Slave: A True History(1688), written by Aphra Behn, is such a kind of novel which not only inherits the tradition of romance narrative, but also contains new elements like the casual style and the authority of feminine. Baldly stated, the novel is one of the earliest literary works in English on the transnational slave trade, the plot of which centers on a royal West African prince from Coramantien (contemporary Ghaha) called Oroonoko and his beloved, Imoinda, who is the daughter of a slain general but is then sold into slavery by Oroonokorsquo;s grandfather, the old king, in Surinam on the northern coast of South America. Soon after a British slave trader tricks Oroonoko into slavery and brings him from Coramantien to Surinam, where he meets Imoinda again. For fear of their lifelong enslavement, Imoinda goads Oroonoko into orchestrating a slave rebellion but fails disastrously. The novel ends with a grief-stricken Oroonoko discovered with Imoindarsquo;s remains by the command of colonial officials, who finally kill him cruelly.

Criticism and commentaries on this novel have been endless since its publication. In different historical periods, many scholars have made various comments from different perspectives. A wide range of themes have been studied by critics: the style and rhetoric, the subject of race and women, the transnational elements, and so on. The reviews are from various perspectives. Mainly, they can be divided into two aspects: human and feministic studies.

According to Victoria Kahn, in the seventeenth century “passion and action” replace “virtue and vice” as explanations for human motivation, and thus for human ethics and politics. In Corrinne Harolrsquo;s The Passion of Oroonoko: Passive Obedience, The Royal Slave, and Aphra Behnrsquo;s Baroque Realism (2012), Aphra Behnrsquo;s Oroonoko demonstrates passivity to be a law of nature, which is not susceptible to human will or politics. It makes a pragmatic case for passive obedience negatively, but also presents passionate young people rebel against a tyrannical parental figure. Behnrsquo;s young lovers find realism rather than romance and passivity rather than rebellious, which predicts a great deal of compromise for the future citizens of democracy. While in Body Narrative in Aphra Behnrsquo;s Oroonoko (2013), Imoinda is criticized as a faithful slave, who has no that rebelling consciousness and obey her husbandrsquo;s every decision. It reveals that women in that place and that period are all controlled by men. The fate of Imoinda depicted by the female writer Aphra Behn is to expose womenrsquo;s ignorance as one of the root reasons to their miserable destiny. In its opinions, womenrsquo;s fate is doomed, while itrsquo;s hard to say whether it is caused by their inaction and passivity.

One year later, Violetta Trofimova in her paper Direct Style and Rhetoric of Freedom in Aphra Behnrsquo;s Oroonoko (2014) pointed out that womanrsquo;s position is subordinate throughout the novel both in African and English colonial society. Oroonokorsquo;s polite address to the ladies in the novel also proves it, though he is the one who, to some degree, shows some respect to women. “Their owners are Women, Fools, and Cowards, as well as Rogues, Runagades, that have abandoned their own Countrieshellip;Such people do not deserve to be slave-ownershellip;Shall we render Obedience to such a degenerate race?” In this paper, humanity is also highly praised. Oroonoko thinks that English colonists being the people below any human standards do not deserve to own slaves, since “a man is divine creature”. While conclusion is also made that slaves have lost the divine quality of men. Therefore, liberty from slavery in this novel, as Bossert notices, requires a will to freedom, a will needed by a natural body.

In the paper Fact and Fiction in Aphra Behnrsquo;s Oroonoko (2017), Katharine M. Rogers emphasizes Oroonokorsquo;s identity as a black man. His race denies him the freedom to which his class and personal worth entitle him. And Oroonokorsquo;s speech to his fellow slaves directly asserts that it is beneath human dignity to submit to slavery at all. Expectably, this novel arouses powerful anti-slavery feeling in eighteenth century audiences. And humanity beyond slavery is widely accepted and pursued.

As above illustration shows, Behn tells most of her stories through a narrator who is female, together with the female protagonist, to convey the actual position of woman in that history period. Their inferior position is similar to slaves, who lost their dignity as well as human freedom. In this case, feminism and humanity is combined by Aphra Behn in the novel Oroonoko.

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