Oroonoko Criticism

Anita Pacheco begins her article entitled-“Royalism and honor in Aphra Behn’s “Oroonoko” with a plea to her audience. Though the work of Behn is quite historical in nature it is intended by Pacheco to be viewed as a focus on royal ideology; the text is presented as a “royal disruptive text”. Pacheco goes to great lengths to display the ostensible disunity paralleled by Behn’s “Oroonoko” and England during 1688. Though Pacheco engages into specific examples of “honor discourses”, which undermine the royal ideal, there seems to be a significant example lacking that proves to sustain her points, earlier discussed in a summary on her article. The subject of honor and the old king seems to support Pacheco’s earlier position of undermining agents usurping and degrading honor and the royal line. This example will be used as an analysis or commentary to Pacheco’s point on royalism and honor.

The royal line is one that comes by noble birth and Pacheco agrees that the noble are rich in honor for they are its possessors. However, what she does not mention is that evil exists even in the royal line, and as such can potentially damage and ruin honor and nobility. Aphra Behn paints a good picture of the aforementioned disruption to royalism in the following text:

And while he was so doing, he had intelligence brought him, that Imoinda was most certainly mistress to the Prince Oroonoko. This gave him some chagrin; however, it gave him also an opportunity, one day, when the prince was a-hunting, to wait on a man of quality, as his slave and attendant, who should go and make a present to Imoinda, as from the prince; he should then, unknown see this fair maid, and have an opportunity to hear what message she would return the prince for his present…The old monarch saw, and burnt; he found her all he had heard, and would not delay his happiness but found he should have some obstacle to overcome her heart (ppg. 84).

The king took report of Imoinda’s beauty and still lusted after her even though he knew she belonged to Oroonoko. The king, prior to sending for the royal veil, reasoned within himself that “what love would not oblige Imoinda to do, duty would compel her to”. Pacheco does not make mention of this example in her article though it does support her point- those that injure Oroonoko do so unto his demise and their gain; also, royalism is undermined by honorable discourses. Again, she states “evil men may violate this order, but they cannot…destroy it”. The order, according to Pacheco, describes the legitimacy of the royal line and the subsequent honor bestowed upon such authority. The king did not show honor in spite of his blood line, though he did amend his feelings in the end and acknowledged his transgression:

He believed now, that his love had been unjust, and he could not expect the gods, or Captain of the Clouds (as they call the unknown power) should suffer a better consequence from so ill a cause. He now begins to hold Oroonoko excused… (ppg.96).

The king has repented, though honor has been lost and distrust- found, has crept within his heart. This example seems to uphold Pacheco’s compound definition of honor; those in favor for it and those who oppose it. Pacheco’s article presents a myriad of examples surrounding honor as a disclaimer to royalism and the blurred imagery of Behn’s characters. The king was honorable at one point, but turned dishonorable and “fearful” of the one character that epitomizes nobility, or the “royal everyman”. It would seem that not even the blood-line was enough to ensure true nobility and/or honor.

Anita Pacheco ends her article with the words-“in 1688, honor and the aristocracy were far from moribund, but the kind of upper class sectionalism that Oroonoko ostensibly advocates was becoming increasingly anachronistic”. Again, she states-“the line between heroes and villains is blurred, and the royal slave becomes at once a martyr and a dangerous rebel”. Oroonoko is the premier example of honor and royalty, yet Behn chooses to sacrifice her protagonist on the basis that he represents all that is right or good in the Eurocentric African. Pacheco mentions in her article that he is not part of “that gloomy race”, and as such is the one to suffer the most. Again, his honor is always in jeopardy because it is being violated by the “others” who do not posses his stature, nor recognize the greatness of his divinity. Pacheco’s article allowed for a more analytical reading of Behn’s novella, and it is because of this reading that the one example of the king’s dishonor was mentioned. His dishonor proved as much an oxymoron as Behn’s second title of her novella, “Or the Royal Slave”; both prove the lines to be blurred and support a royal disruption in the fullest sense.