Author
As a member of the "British female transatlantic experience" and an early canonical female author, Aphra Behn's writings have been the subject of various feminist analyses in the years since Oroonoko's publication.[27] Through the eponymous Oroonoko, and other periphery male characters, masculinity is equated with dominance throughout the text, a dominance which is supplemented by feminine power in the form of strong female characters. Behn challenges the predetermined patriarchal norm of favoring the literary merit of male writers simply because of their elite role in society. In her time, Behn's success as a female author enabled the proliferation of respect and high readership for up-and-coming women writers.[27]
As an author who did not endure the brutality of slavery, Behn is considered a duplicitous narrator with dual perspectives according to research from G.A. Starr's "Aphra Behn and the Genealogy of the Man of Feeling". Throughout Behn's early life and literary career, Starr notes that "Behn was in a good position to analyze such a predicament... as a woman-single, poor, unhealthy-supporting herself by writing, and probably a Roman Catholic, she knew about marginality and vulnerability".[30] As evident in this excerpt, Behn's attitude towards the "predicament" of slavery remained ambiguous throughout Oroonoko, due in part to her identity and inexperience with racial discrimination.[30] Despite the fact that this story is told through Behn's perspective as a marginalized female author in a male-dominated literary canon, the cultural complexities of the institution of slavery are still represented through the lens of an outside source.[30]
Throughout the novella, Behn identifies with Oroonoko's strength, courage, and intelligence but also includes herself in the same categorization of the higher European power structure. For example, in Albert Rivero's "Aphra Behn's 'Oroonoko' and the 'Blank Spaces' of Colonial Fictions," the author gives context to Oroonoko within a greater body of colonial fictions. Rivero describes Behn's novella as "the romance of decorous, upper class sentiments".[16] The multi-layered components of Behn's publication parallel her ever-changing perception of racial tension throughout the novella. Behn as a duplicitous narrator plays into the ambiguity of her support for abolition, mixed with the control afforded to her because of her race and economic status.[16]
Imoinda
Imoinda serves as a strong female character in Oroonoko due in part to Behn's emphasis on Imoinda's individuality. Behn's depiction of Imoinda is mostly unrelated to the central plot point within the text; the protagonist's journey of self-discovery. During the era in which the work was written, male heroism dominated the literary field. Most often, protagonist roles were designated to male characters, and with this, the voice of the female remained silent.[31] In this sense, Behn's characterization of Imoinda as a fighter and a lively autonomous woman, despite the cultural climate of slavery and the societal norm to view females as accessories, prompted a sense of female liberation.[31]
Behn's novel awakens the voice of the female that deserves more recognition in literature. Imoinda is Oroonoko's love interest in the novel, but this is not all she is. Rather than falling into the role of the typical submissive female, Imoinda frequently displays that she is strong enough to fight alongside Oroonoko, exemplified by her killing of the governor (Behn 68). Imoinda is portrayed as Oroonoko's equal in the work; where Oroonoko is described as "Mars" (16), Imoinda is described as "the beautiful black Venus" (16). Ultimately, their strengths of aggression and beauty are exemplified through mythological parallels. Comparisons with Mars, the God of war, in the beginning of the novella provides a framework for Oroonoko's rise as an admired warrior, while Imoinda's relation to divinity is more feminine from the start, drawing a connection between her appearance, and that of the powerful Venus, goddess of love and beauty in Roman myth. Imoinda being compared to a goddess of love is fitting of her character, for through reading the novella, readers can easily see that she is a character that is driven by love, particularly hers for Oroonoko. She fights alongside her husband to free themselves from slavery, and to obtain a better life for both themselves and their unborn child. By the end of her life, Imoinda obediently accepts her death at the hands of her husband, along with that of her unborn child, out of love, admiration, and respect for Oroonoko.
By paralleling Imoinda with a Roman goddess, she is given an air of prominence and power, a revolutionary concept in literature at the time. Behn herself was a revolutionary part of seventeenth-century literature, as she played the role of a female author, narrator, and character. Behn bases the story upon her trip to Surinam and, in the beginning of the text, she makes it clear that it is a "true story", presenting Oroonoko as both an anti-slavery and proto-feminist narrative combined.
In regards to Imoinda, In "The White Female as Effigy and the Black Female as Surrogate in Janet. Schaw's Journal of a Lady of Quality and Jane Austen's Mansfield Park" by David S. Wallace, "MacDonald emphasizes the whitening of the character of Imoinda--Oroonoko's wife--in every adaptation of the novella.” Wallace also discusses how Imoinda is hypersexualized in this novel to desexualize white women. Wallace writes: "At least a few white, female authors became agents in this desexualization of white women and hyper-sexualization of their black counterparts."[32]
Sexuality
One of the first attributes allotted to Imoinda in Oroonoko is her stunning and beautiful exterior. Behn depicts her as godlike in appearance, describing her as "the beautiful black Venus" (Behn 16). For example, Behn boasts about the hundreds of European men who are "vain and unsuccessful" (16) in winning her affections. Here, Behn raises Imoinda's appearance and value above the standards of a whitened sense of European beauty. By claiming that these "white men" are unworthy of her attention, she is granted greater merit than them (16). Furthermore, Behn states that Imoinda was of such high prominence that she was "too great for any but a prince of her own nation" (16). Though our female protagonist is once again linked to the male hero here, she is still evidently given an air of dominance over the men Behn describes.[33]
When Imoinda is taken as the King's mistress, she does not give herself to him sexually simply because of his position in society. Though he makes advances towards the young Imoinda, she and the King never consummate their marriage; it isn't until Imoinda reunites with Oroonoko that she feels prepared to give up her virginity (29). With this, Behn connects a female's virtue with her sovereignty, indicating that Imoinda maintains autonomy over her own sexuality.[33]
Imoinda is not the only female protagonist who symbolizes female sexuality. Based on her portrayal of, and attitude towards Oroonoko, Aphra Behn emphasizes the sexual freedom and desires of the female gender. She molds Oroonoko in her own image, depicting him with European features despite his "ebony" flesh (Behn 15). By doing so, she is not only creating a mirror image of herself, a hero who seeks to dismantle the institution of slavery, but she is also embodying the desires of female sexuality.[33] Rob Baum claims that "Behn's attraction to Oroonoko is not engendered by his blackness but despite it" (14) and that she ultimately reveres him, not merely for his heroism, but for his overt physical attractiveness.[33]
