Antislavery Narratives

First things first, what is with all the adjectives?!  Both of this weeks readings, as well as a good many others besides, are overflowing with superfluous language of decoration and finesse.  My modern mind and eye are not well adjusted to the style.  I suppose this is a legacy of the renaissance, which certainly had no dearth of description.

During my readings I tried to place myself in a pre-emancipation frame of mind, to get a sense of how these pieces might have been received.  Aphra Bhen’s short romance “Oroonoko” was really not all that different from any other swashbuckling adventure story.  In fact this is probably the text’s strongest antislavery premise.  By framing the story of a black couple in terms that a British audience would find exciting and sympathetic, Behn is essentially making the argument that master and slave are essentially the same.

That being said, Behn’s defense of the rights of slaves was a little wanting.  Oroonoko and Imoinda seem only to be deserving of more equal treatment as particular exceptions and not a rule.  Behn goes to some length, and spares no adjectives, to describe how superior, brave, modest, athletic, strong, humble, noble, beautiful, honest, etc ad nauseum.  Of all the laurels that she bestows on the royal couple, it was Oroonoko’s cultured education which stood out most to me.  By depicting him as an intelligent prince of his people who loves the history, language and culture of Europe, Behn reveals an inherent cultural superiority.  I would argue that this is the same character trait that would make Equiano palatable to european readers of his day.  Not so much that he was human being who suffered, but that he was a human being who could quote from paradise lost.

One other thing a found intriging about Behn’s text was the way in which it tended to depict everyone as slaves in one way or another.  For instance the way in which Imoinda is bound by the obligations of her culture.

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