Oroonoko, or the Royal Slave

                I found the story of “Oroonoko, or the Royal Slave” by Aphra Behn, to be quite sad, but I thought he died bravely since he took his brutal death very calmly. I realized that Oroonoko was destined to end up in a bad situation ever since his grandfather, the king, sent the veil to Imoinda. If the king had never forcefully interfered, then Oroonoko and Imoinda could have lived happily without any problems. I also feel bad for Oroonoko since he was betrayed many times by his friends and started to lose trust in people. The only positive person that Oroonoko seemed to have in his life was Imoinda, she would most likely never betray him and always love him. Even when Oroonoko killed her, she was happy to die by his hands and not live the life of a slave with their unborn child. Trefry also seemed to be a good friend since he did not want any harm to come to Oroonoko and tried to make Byam leave so he could not hurt Oroonoko again.Also,the way that Byam executed Oroonoko seems as though it would convey a powerful message to other slaves to not mess with the Europeans, since Oroonoko was royal and Byam showed no mercy in his execution.

   

In the story, Oroonoko is portrayed with having European features, is well educated, knows two different languages, and is a prince and a general of an army. Which the Europeans admire and respect, but they still treat him as a slave, because of his skin color. I find it quite sad to see how the other “common” slaves were treated worse, since they did not have the same features, abilities, and status as Oroonoko. It seems to me that the slaves that were better and different looking were more appreciated and treated better, which is definitely not fair. If Oroonoko had not looked the way that he did then he would have been treated as a regular slave and even worse things might have happened to him throughout the story.

Throughout the story I also found many of the Europeans to be highly annoying, since they did not care about anyone but themselves. For example, when Oroonoko is being punished for running away and they did not want Imoinda to see him being punished and die of fear, because they might lose her and the unborn slave.

Discussion Questions:

Why do you think the author found a way to put the narrator into the actual story and started telling the story from her point of view?

If the Europeans on the plantation had let Imoinda and Oroonoko go home, would they have lost credibility and be thought of as weak?