Oroonoko Summary
Oroonoko is a novel by Aphra Behn in which Prince Oroonoko of Coramentien becomes a slave in a British colony and leads an unsuccessful revolt.
- Oroonoko's grandfather, the elderly king, wants to marry Oroonoko's wife, Imoinda. When she refuses to denounce Oroonoko, the king sells her into slavery.
- The captain of a slave ship tricks Oroonoko and his army into boarding the vessel. Oroonoko is taken to the British colony of Suriname and sold into slavery.
- Oroonoko and Imoinda are reunited in Suriname.
- Oroonoko leads an unsuccessful slave revolt. In despair, he kills Imoinda and unsuccessfully attempts suicide. He is then executed.
Summary
Last Updated May 11, 2024.
Introduction
Published in 1688, Oroonoko, also titled The Royal Slave, is a first-person narrative set in 1648. The story shares the tale of an Englishwoman who, while living in the British colony of Surinam, encounters Oroonoko, a charismatic African prince tricked into slavery. In the name of freedom, Oroonoko leads a doomed slave revolt for which he is brutally and publicly executed.
Oroonoko is the most recognizable work of Aphra Behn (1640-1689), a prolific writer of dramas, poetry, and novels. Here, she fuses two of the era’s most popular narrative genres—the travel journal about life in the New World and the heroic tragedy of doomed love.
Too, the novel offers an early exposé of the brutality of the slave trade. Similarly, it operates as one of the first expressions of female empowerment in the English literary tradition, not only because of its female author and the noble courage of Oroonoko’s soulmate, the beautiful Imoinda, but for its female narrator whose education drives the novel.
Plot Summary
As the novel opens, the unnamed narrator—an Englishwoman and the daughter of a recently deceased deputy governor staying temporarily in the British colony of Surinam—assures the reader she was “an eye-witness to a great part of what you will find here.” She continues, describing the exotic delights of the Surinam culture whose indigenous peoples represent, for her: “Nature at its most harmless.”
Then, the narrator introduces the gallant figure of Oroonoko, whose physical grace recalls the heroes of Antiquity. Raised in the royal house of the West African coastal nation of Coramantien (most likely Ghana), Oroonoko served heroically in his country’s defense from a young age.
When Oroonoko returns to the palace after his combat service, he meets the beautiful Imoinda. The pair immediately fall in love. That day, they conduct an impromptu private wedding ceremony.
Palace protocol, however, demands Oroonoko seek the blessing of the King, his grandfather. The old, decrepit King, however, lusts after the pure Imoinda. When Oroonoko is on a hunting trip, he sends the maiden a veil, a sign that the girl is to be one of the King’s concubines.
When Oroonoko returns, the King prohibits him from seeing Imoinda. Intent on despoiling the virginal Imoinda, the King attempts to consummate the relationship but is too feeble.
Even still, the two separated lovers must be content to exchange looks in Court. Before Oroonoko goes off to war, he is determined to make love with Imoinda. With the help of one of the King’s wives, the two lovers spend a night together.
After Oroonoko leaves in the morning, the King confronts Imoinda about her betrayal. Enraged, the King sells her to a slave trader, a fate worse than execution. When Oroonoko returns, the King, tells him he put Imoinda to death.
A British sea captain visiting Coramantien is impressed by Oronooko’s physical strength and kidnaps Oroonoko. In chains, Oroonoko and others from his country are taken to Surinam.
There, Trefry—the overseer at the Parham sugar cane plantation—recognizes Oroonoko’s extraordinary demeanor and buys him, promising he will release him soon. In recognition of his slave’s noble presence, Trefry renames Oronooko “Caesar.” The narrator, awaiting her return to England, first encounters Oroonoko at the plantation.
Oroonoko is stunned when he encounters Imoinda among the slaves at the plantation. The two rekindle their passion and quickly conceive a child. Although Oroonoko enjoys preferential treatment from Trefry, Oroonoko sees the conditions the other slaves endure. As he realizes the greed of the colonial government, embodied by the reptilian Deputy Governor Byam, Oroonoko doubts he will ever be free.
Drawing on his battlefield expertise, Oroonoko rallies the African slaves who work the plantation’s...
(This entire section contains 885 words.)
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sugar field. The plan is simple: Under cover of night, they will head on foot to the coast, establish a settlement, and ultimately secure transportation back to Africa. On the first moonless night, the slaves head into the jungle.
Plagued by the jungle’s tricky terrain and unsure of where they are going, the gang becomes surrounded by plantation agents and colonial soldiers. They fight but are outgunned, outmanned, and outnumbered, although Imoinda wounds Byam with a poison arrow.
Byam convinces Oroonoko to surrender with the promise that the slaves will be allowed to return to Africa. Once under their control, however, the slaves are jailed and whipped. Understanding that Byam and the slavers will never keep his word and determined that his wife and child will not live as slaves, Oroonoko takes Imoinda out to the jungle. There, with her blessing, he draws his knife and kills her, “the treasure of his soul.” He plans to murder Byam himself, but grief overwhelms him, and he collapses next to Imoinda’s body.
Sympathetic white colonists, among them the narrator, find him two days later. They return him to Parham and encourage him to recover. An Irish mercenary working for the colonial government, however, apprehends Oronooko and returns him to Byam. To make an example of him, Byam ties Oronooko to a stake and then slowly dismembers him. As he is cut apart, the Prince says nothing.