Oroonoko (Audible Audio Edition) Aphra Behn Clare Wille Naxos AudioBooks Books
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A vivid love story and adventure tale, Oroonoko is a heroic slave narrative about a royal prince and his fight for freedom. The eponymous hero, Oroonoko, deemed royalty in one world and slave in another, is torn from his noble status and betrayed into slavery in Surinam, where he is reduced to chains, fetters, and shackles. But his high spirit and admirable character will not be suppressed.
The book was groundbreaking at the time of its publication and is considered to be one of the first novels written in English. Its condemnation of slavery and Europeans and striking portrayal of sexuality and violence shrouded Behn's name in controversy for years after it was published.
Oroonoko (Audible Audio Edition) Aphra Behn Clare Wille Naxos AudioBooks Books
Oroonoko is a great book, but will make you hate Aphra Behn, as she (the narrator) is in part responsible for what happens to Oroonoko. It's a sad story, to say the least.Product details
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Oroonoko (Audible Audio Edition) Aphra Behn Clare Wille Naxos AudioBooks Books Reviews
Need for a class would never read it. Only got two thirds through... used sparksnotes for rest
I loved the characters of Oroonoko and Imoinda for their noble hearts and innocence even though life was rough to them. They still believed in human kindness up to the end of their lives.
Great summer reading; recommended to adults
Oroonoko was written by Aphra Behn an early female writer who was able to live by means her plays, poetry and this later novella. Subtitled the Royal Slave it tells the story of an African Prince, Oroonoko, described here as a beautiful Noble Savage, who was tricked into slavery and taken to the colony of Surinam in north east South America. The book has a range of themes with criticisms on slavery, Christianity and colonialism and the importance of class and in particular royalty. The author seems to think it is acceptable that slavery exists, and even the protagonist Oroonoko participates in an acceptable form of slavery, in his eyes, through selling people he has captured through tribal wars, but she deplores the trickery involved in enslavement of a Prince, as being a royal person and therefore above slavery, and deplores the poor treatment of slaves in general. Christianity receives significant criticism on its duplicity from Oroonoko who is variously promised his freedom by men who never keep their word. The author also had in mind the political situation in England at the time. She lived during the English civil war and was writing this book during the Restoration at the end of the reign of James II, a catholic king, and concerned that the anti royalists would take power again. When Oroonoko leads an unsuccessful slave revolt it is the very slaves that revolted with him that turn on him to become his chief punishers. While the portrayal of the Africans and the South American Indians in the book is somewhat idealised through 17th century European eyes she writes sympathetically of their lives in contrast to the criticism in which she describes the colony of Surinam its lawlessness and the poor quality, and class, of its Europeans settlers
This book was okay, I had to read it for college. It is really short but it is an easy read. I would recommend this book to be read because it does help understand the life of others.
It's interesting and has some weird plot turns, but I've had to read it for college lit classes too many times! This edition has some really interesting & helpful resources, though, so if you have to get a copy of this story, this is a good option.
I read this for English Literature class. I would recomend this book to anyone interested in understanding history and the influences of slavery and early female authors. I did not have problems with the electronic formating
Would you have imagined a 17th century short novel to present such contemporary themes? And the questions raised remain unresolved.
Published in 1688, "Oroonoko, or the History of the Royal Slave," is considered not only Aphra Behn's masterpiece but also a dramatic step in the evolution of the novel as a literary expression. There are several layers to the story making it exotic, intriguing, and compassionate. Readers should also be aware the writing style is more elaborate, hence, tiresome and frustrating at times. But the lasting impression will leave you thinking.
The basic story concerns star-crossed lovers who find each other, become separated through perverse schemes of others, unexpectedly reunite and move toward an inevitable, tragic end. What makes this familiar theme different is that the hero, Oroonoko, and his partner, Imoinda, are essentially African nobility from Coramantien (present day Ghana) who are enslaved and transported by British traders to Suriname, an English colony (eventually Dutch) on the northeast coast of South America.
The trail of broken promises starts first in their original village when the lovers are almost immediately separated by the lust of the old king, also Oroonoko's father, for Imoinda that pushes the old man to issue the "royal veil" for her to be one of his wives, a sort of doight de seigneur right.
Although separated, they individually endure other betrayals until they accidentally discover each other in the slave plantations of Suriname. They joyfully reunite, conceive a child and expect to return to Coramantien with the blessing of the new governor when he arrives but fails to do so.
Around this core story, Behn adds a nice level of familiarity and rich details about the exotic world within which the couple and various characters, European and native, move. Her descriptions anticipate Joseph Conrad's writing 200 years later. Additionally, she presents the female European narrator - possibly based on herself - as a dispassionate lens through which the reader can see the experiences.
This approach adds a certain acceptability to the use of slavery but also cleverly makes the lovers' anguish even more intense. It is not unlike Nelly Dean, the storyteller for the tragic romance of Heathcliff and Catherine in Emily Bronte's "Wuthering Heights" written some 150 years later.
The author touches on several issues that have a familiar, contemporary ring without reaching any judgments
- The role of women in different societies, European versus African
- The lack of a regulated system for managing members of a group and arbitrary decisions by those in authority
- The use of slavery of individuals and families, including kidnapping
- The distinctions between Africans and South American Indians as well as intermingling of the groups
- The detachment of the European moneyed class from the managers and employees of their estates
- The morality of Christian Europeans compared to the "natural" skills and ethics of the individual
How much of this story Aphra Behn actually experienced and how much is drawn on other people's experiences will no doubt continue to be debated by literary scholars. For example, at the time of the novel, there was an on-going Palmares or Mocambo slave revolt (1605 – 1694) in neighboring Brazil led by a charismatic leader, Zumbi. A similar revolt in Surinam did not happen until much later, 1765 – 1793.
Aphra Behn remains something of a mystery. However she constructed this tale, her perceptions about human experience have an enduring ring. And that should be plenty of entertainment by itself.
Oroonoko is a great book, but will make you hate Aphra Behn, as she (the narrator) is in part responsible for what happens to Oroonoko. It's a sad story, to say the least.
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