Oroonoko

The first thing that caught my attention when reading Oroonoko, was the first word "I". This gave me the idea that Behn, was a witness to what actually happened. Or could attest to what happened from others who experienced what she did not. She may not have witnessed everything, but she could get the information from others if she needed to. Behn tells us at first that she isn't going to bore us with the details about Oroonoko but she will eventually tell us about him, and everything that he has endured before his arrival to Surriam. This section was hard solely because of the small print and long paragraphs, however, it was one of the easier reads we've read.

Behn describes the native people as beautiful their skin color as reddish yellow. 'they are very modest and shy and despite living naked, their is never seen among them any inappropriate or indecent behavior. (Although most men would be attracted to someone naked, it was evident that they only admired them by their eyes and not their hands). She even relates them to Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden. I wondered why she did this? Then i thought about sin. How these people must not know about sin.

This becomes clear when the Europeans performed a ceremony for the governor, who they thought was dead. Only because he didn't come to a meeting. Why would they think that death was the only thing that stopped him from attending. Like he just had to be dead huh? Later on when asked what a word for a man who doesn't keep a promise. The response was "a liar". Sadly, the only thing that they understand is what they have been taught by the white man.

The British treat the natives very well. They seem as friends and don't treat them as slaves. However, the British couldn't treat the natives poorly because there were so many natives that the numbers surpassed them. Thus, who does that leave? If an owner wanted a slave, all they had to do was order the slaves like merchandise. (This brings the idea that I've always had. There were so many slaves, and sometimes so many more slaves on a plantation than whites. Why did blacks feel so low when it came to the whites. Again , this goes back to what they were taught from the white man).

I noted three different groups of people. The Europeans, the native Americans, and the African Americans. It is clear that the tension lies between the Europeans and the blacks. The British are forced to be good people and not treat the Europeans as slaves. So British make the money, the Blacks are left to harvest and tend the crops. Oroonoko comes into play as an African general.