Essay Database

A black African is captured and sold into slavery. It’s an unfortunate story, but one with approximately eleven million equivalents. Aphra Behn, however, brings this common piece of history to life in her story Oroonoko, the tale of an African prince tricked into slavery in the West Indies. As the storyteller, Behn makes use of two common forms of narration, the third person and the first person. She recounts what she is present for …

…only purpose that Behn has for using the third person narration technique is its necessity to provide the background to the story. This follows from the conclusion that the first person narration is superior in both its ability to portray action, and its ability to portray emotion. If it were possible for Behn to have been present as all the events described in Oroonoko, the entire story would have been written in the first person.