Narrative Authenticity
as a Literary Device in Oroonoko

In light of the extended title of Aphra Behn’s most famous work, Oroonoko, or The Royal Slave, A True History, it is immediately apparent that the author intended her novel to be read as an account of fact rather than fiction. In truth, the novel opens with Behn assuring the reader of her credibility, professing that the events to follow were either witnessed first-hand by her, or were told to her by credible sources. Unfortunately for Behn, Oroonoko was not widely read at the time of its publication, only a short while before her untimely death. But as decades passed, her readership increased and speculation began to rise regarding the veracity of the truth-claim that begins the novel. What was once regarded as a premature demise now became perfect timing, for in the event of her absence these discussions were allowed to continue without answer – even now, more than three hundred years after her death. Therefore, it is the intent of this essay to examine this debate over authenticity and establish that the events of which the narrator relates are for the most part, false; furthermore, it will be shown that this distortion of the truth was executed as a literary device, by which the narrator unifies the novel, provides realism in a fundamentally romantic story, and serves as a link to the standards of her European readers.

It is no small wonder that early biographers of Aphra Behn assumed that the first person narrator was the author herself. Behn led an extraordinary life: she is widely regarded as the first female novelist, acted as a spy for Charles II during the Second Dutch War, spent time in debtor’s prison, and was the most successful dramatist in her day. Even though Behn was deceased by the time any significant literary interest in her novel occurred, there were few who would argue that she was telling the truth. However, the novel’s fictional narrator cannot be Aphra Behn. For one, she claims in the novel that her father was to be the deputy governor of the colony but died en route at sea (Behn 51). This did not occur to her real father, Bartholomew Johnson. There is also no account of anyone except William Byam being deputy governor at that time, and this can explain for the author’s hostility towards Byam in the novel, for he took the position supposedly to be held by her father. Also, any correct topographical or political information Aphra Behn may have related in the novel could easily have come from Byam, whose accounts were widely known around London in the 1660’s.

So if it is to be assumed that Behn did not actually experience the events in Oroonoko, then what could be her reasoning for writing a novel that “hinges on truth and deception?”(Chibka) This reasoning is threefold, and is best described by Martine Watson Brownley, who indicates that “functioning as a strongly felt presence throughout Oroonoko, the narrator unifies the novel, enhances the tenuous realism of the basically heroic story, and offers a viable standard of judgment for the readers” (Brownley).

Oroonoko was unique in its time in that it synthesized both realism and romance into a cohesive work. Much of Oroonoko is about improbable people and events, the type of story that “belongs to a class of romance that flourished almost a century later, when Rousseau had given popularity to the philosophical ideas that underlie it” (Raleigh). Behn was well ahead of her time, and found value in romance long before the majority. Many of the novel’s romantic elements can be attributed to Behn’s career as a stage writer, which is most readily apparent in her dramatic style. However, with this style came the over-dramatics of the stage, which can be seen when Oroonoko kills Imoinda as a way of protecting her from sexual abuse at the hands of Byam: “embracing her with all the passion and languishment of a dying lover, he drew his knife to kill this treasure of his soul, this pleasure of his eyes. While tears trickled down his cheeks, hers were smiling with joy she should die by so noble a hand” (Behn 71). The character of Oroonoko is romantic in every aspect, and most of Behn’s descriptions of him involve some form of divine metaphor. In fact, Oroonoko is almost entirely written in hyperbole, and as Paul E. More writes, “even if some of the events of her tale are based on actual occurrences in Surinam, her characterization of the slave-prince is a piece of pure romanticism; it could not have been drawn from her own observation” (More).

Oroonoko is largely a novel concerned with how ordinary, realistic people react to extraordinary circumstances. As such, Behn needed a way to unify these two disparate elements. Neither Behn nor Oroonoko’s oppressors can be given romantic, heroic treatment, and thus Behn included colloquial elements into her narrative style as a way of unifying both groups. She could not present the average person in the same romantic way that she does for Oroonoko, and so by using contrasting styles she presents each group in such a way that they can function together. She presents the story almost as a conversation, speaking directly to the reader, often referring to him/her as “you.” This style is familiar with modern audiences, which in part, gives the novel its longevity. Behn’s combination of style was not entirely successful, in that Oroonoko is more heroic romance than it is realism, but her implication that she indeed experienced these events allowed this contrast to exist. Thus, the effectiveness of the narrative voice unifies the real and romantic elements of the novel. But style alone does not account for the success of the narrator in Oroonoko, nor is it the sole reason for her implying that she is in fact the narrator.

Aside from the presentation of the narrator, very few elements in the novel are realistic. The highly virtuous hero and the purely evil villain, unlikely coincidences, and horrible misfortunes are typical within the realm of pure romance and heroic drama. It is for this reason that Behn was so adamant in convincing the reader that her story was true. Because the events of Oroonoko are so fantastic and unlikely, it became necessary for Behn to ground it in some semblance of reality in order to make it appeal to her European readers, who again, held "a sort of general scorn for invention, entertainment, and feigned heroes" (Chibka). When a story is so unlikely that it approaches pure fantasy, many readers may not take it seriously or may feel that it has no applicability to their own lives. But when the same story is said to have been based upon actual events, it garners more respect because it chronicles the unrealistic journey of real people. Thus by placing the positives of an imaginative story within the confines of a realistic novel, her readers are content in knowing that they are not the victim of fancy, all the while enjoying its aesthetic effects.

As unrealistic as the events are in Oroonoko, the same can be said for its characters. Most are described in exaggerated terms, being either overly good or extremely bad. Almost everyone is in some way exceptional: Oroonoko and Imoinda are the ideal couple, Bannister is an absolute barbarian, and even Trefy is possessed of an extraordinary wit (Brownley). Most of Behn’s characters therefore resemble a Type rather than a real person. And so it becomes the duty of the narrator to anchor the reader in terms of the ordinary. In order for it to be successful, the reader needs to be able to identify with the story. If the narrator was not realistic, then nothing in Oroonoko would apply to the reader at all. The “real narrator” becomes a character that the reader can identify with. Throughout the novel the narrator is an ordinary woman in extraordinary circumstances, and she adds realism which is lacking in the action, setting, and other characters.

The character of Oroonoko provides the reader with actions of utmost nobility, but he is too much of an ideal rather than real. Oroonoko’s type of heroism is too idealistic, too black and white, and cannot exist among the real world’s shades of grey, and so the novel requires standards in ordinary as well as ideal terms, in order to temper Oroonoko’s message in a way that it can be adapted for European life. The narrator, a normal, decent woman, can scale down Oroonoko’s values in the realistic terms required. She serves as a link between European society and Oroonoko, interpreting him to her own world. Her standards and judgments are applicable to the reader’s own experiences.

The narrator provides several standards of judgment for her readers. One is to make the unusual comprehensible to her English audience by making comparisons with things they already know – for example, she describes the Amazon River as “almost as broad as the river of Thames”. And while her first and foremost objective with the novel was to entertain, Behn does not hesitate to offer social and political moral observations (Brownley). As seen in this following passage, she shows a humanitarian concern for the values and beauty of African culture:

And though they are all thus naked, if one lives forever among them, there is not to be seen an indecent action or glance; and being continually used to see one another so unadorned, so like our first parents before the Fall… these people represented to me an absolute idea of the first state of innocence, before man knew how to sin…religion would here but destroy that tranquility they possess by ignorance, and laws would but teach them to know offence, of which now they have no notion (Behn 11).

While using her story to educate for better treatment of blacks, she is also attacking the European concept of “nobility.” Though Behn never openly indicts the practice of slavery, she does expose the mistreatment of slaves, and Oroonoko’s speeches condemn the system. She also condemns certain practices in Christian countries where they act in the name of God, and yet are wholly without virtue or morality. They hide behind the concept of religion, as if that alone justifies the rightness of their actions.

Through her standards and judgments, Behn’s tale is an exploration of human nature – of what happens when the real confronts the ideal (Brownley). Those whose lives are not governed by moral principles cannot live with the ideal of Oroonoko in their midst. The weak in power (some slaves) aid in destroying him and the powerful rely on deceit. The king plays on his nobility to save himself while the slave trader abuses Oroonoko’s honor and trust to destroy him. Behn also recognizes that between the people who completely lack morals and those like Oroonoko whose honor and values are unrealistically ideal, lays a third group of people, the majority, the ordinary, decent folk like Behn herself and her readers. This judgment is never stated, but can be found in the narrator’s actions at the end of the novel.

At first, the narrator’s flight from Oroonoko may seem like an unexpected betrayal, being that she depicts herself as one of Oroonoko’s strongest supporters, but it actually makes sense in realistic and psychological terms. Although she truly admires him, she is still a product of her European upbringing, thus her commitment to him is not absolute. Even though he has shown her nothing but honor and devotion, when the going gets tough, she does not trust him. When he promises her to wait with patience for a little longer for the Lord Governor and his freedom, she does not think it “convenient to trust him much out of our view” (Behn 50). Her distrust is most apparently on display during the slave rebellion. Although Oroonoko has previously vowed never to harm her or those around her, when the women hear of Oroonoko’s revolt, she says: “we were possessed with extreme fear, which no persuasions could dissipate, that he would secure himself till night, and then, that he would come down and cut all our throats” (Behn 68).

Behn shows the betrayal of social conditioning. In a moment of fear, she falls back on what she has learned in Europe – to be wary of the black man. When all is said and done, she is no more able to live with his ideal than the evil men who persecute him. She cannot believe enough in the reality of Oroonoko’s goodness to trust him fully. The use of Behn’s fictitious narrator makes the message of her flight more powerful, because it illustrates the bleak reality of their relationship, and the justice of European social conditioning at the time. Had she remained with Oroonoko, most readers would not recognize how strong a statement that would be, and thus her abandoning of him is more resonant.

While her first flight from Oroonoko is a result of her lack of commitment to him, her second is no better. She cannot stand the sight of his tortured body, and she feels sick. Yet nowhere else in the novel does she show weakness (in fact, she was among three out of eighteen who had the bravado to venture into the Indian town). Her actions appear to be the result of no longer being able to cope with the overwhelming circumstances that surround her. Thus, she disengages herself personally from the conflict, allowing events to unfold as they will. As Brownley astutely identifies, “at the end of the novel all the good people are ineffectual” (Brownley). The narrator has fled, Trefy has been falsely lured away by Byam, and the narrator’s family can only watch helplessly. Behn makes the point to show that there is a time within the momentum of events that becomes too great for any single person to do anything to stop it (e.g. the French revolution, the crucifixion, mob violence, etc.). Normal standards become useless against such determined evil. So when viewed in this context, the narrator’s flight is realistic enough because whether her spirit was divided or not, there is nothing she could have done but sit back and watch the horror.

Thus, Behn uses the fictitiously real narrator in Oroonoko to unify and add realism to the unrelated elements of the novel. In addition, her words and actions provide a standard of judgment for the honorable, the wicked, and the ordinary people she represents. Her imagined realism allowed her novel to be accepted in a time when it ordinarily would not have. Through this controversy over veracity, scholars are still debating the issue today, allowing new readers to discover and learn from a woman hundreds of years before her time. Through her romance, Behn illustrates the good and just that is inherent in every human being, not only white Europeans, and unveils the weaknesses we all wish to hide. The standards of average men fail in the world of Oroonoko, but that does not undermine their importance. We must work toward a world where situations like this never exist, and the morals and virtues of decent men overcome those of evil tyrants.

Works Cited
Behn, Aphra. Oroonoko. London: Penguin Group, 2003.
Brownley, Martine Watson. "The Narrator in Oroonoko." Essays in Literature, Vol. IV,
No. 2. Fall, 1977. pp. 174-81.
Chibka, Robert L. "'Oh! Do Not Fear a Woman's Invention': Truth, Falsehood, and
Fiction in Aphra Behn's Oroonoko." Texas Studies in Language and Literature
30. 1988. pp. 519-37.
5 Apr 2006 Reprinted: http://social.chass.ncsu.edu/wyrick/debclass/chipka.htm
More, Paul E. "A Bluestocking of the Restoration: Part Two." The Nation, Vol. CIII, No.
2675. October 5, 1916. pp. 322-23. Reprinted in Literature Criticism from 1400 to
1800, Vol. 1.
Raleigh, Walter. "The Romances of the Seventeenth Century." The English
Novel: A Short Sketch of Its History from the Earliest Times to the Appearance of
"Waverley." 1894. pp. 87-109. Reprinted in Literature Criticism
from 1400 to 1800, Vol. 1.