Essay Database

Introduction Aphra Behn's Oroonoko is presented as an amalgamation of three narrative forms: memoir, biography and travel narrative, narrated by an English woman visiting the colony in Surinam.(1) In this essay I will examine the ways in which power groups are presented within the text and in particular the ways in which the narrator and the hero are able to transcend them. I will argue that Oroonoko's contradictory status as both a prince and a …

…the characters involved (including her 'self' as narrator) are remembered, and to make the tragic names of Oroonoko and Imoinda live on. Thus died this great man, worthy of a better fate, and a more sublime wit than mine to write his praise. Yet, I hope, the reputation of my pen is considerable enough to make his glorious name to survive to all ages, with that of the brave, the beautiful, and the constant Imoinda.