A critique of the major yhemes in Oroonoko
A wide range of issues are highlighted in Aphra Behn’s novel Oroonoko spanning the concept of a perfect social order, the interconnectivity of the strength of love, power of allegiance, slavery, and heroism. After reading through the entire novel, I arrived at a number of tentative conclusions which will be discussed in this essay. During the process of reading this novel, I had reasons to ask a number of questions such as the motivation that inspired the author to arrive at such lucid presentations of the main themes in the novel.
The thought of a perfect society, brings to mind the possibility of a utopian view of the current world order. Equally, it is worth stating that other academic disciplines such as philosophy, anthropology and to a limited extend psychology has either covertly or overtly addressed the question of social perfection. It is therefore not an exclusive preserve of literature. The concept is however not cast in iron and stone and thus subject to varied interpretations depending on the view of the individual in relation to the story in oroonoko. The story begins with the author portraying a perfect world order which is characterized with unprecedented illusions as the story unfolds.
Sadly, as the story advances the author ushers in the idea that this perfect social situation is progressively unsustainable because of the imminent difficulties both lovers have to contend with. It sounds like a battle against an endless bad fate for the young lovers. What particularly thrills me is the strength of the love chord that binds both Oroonoko and Imoinda. He defied all the odds in his quest to loose his dream bride to the king. Oroonoko was prepared to pay the price no matter how much it cost. I read with utmost delight how the author packages that beauty of the mutual love shared by these two lovers to the point that they will be stopped by nothing in their bid to consolidate their relationship. Even, the hero is determined to defending his love so much so that he is prepared to pursue any extremist position in order to secure his love territory. For instance, I find it hard to rationalize his motivation to “design to first of Killing her, and this Enemies, and next himself” (61). Understandably, that represents a manifestation of jealousy being stretched to rather unacceptable heights. The tragedy of Oronooko’s weird adventure is that fate eventually worked against him, as the king finally gets his way by being able to get the hand of Oronooko’s dream lady in marriage. The question that is asked is if the story presents a reconciling ground for the crisis that underlines power and love?
Evidently, the struggles of Oronooko as presented by the author gives me justifiable grounds to believe that he should be ascribed the hero’s role in the story.
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