Behn depicts how British imperialism, in tandem with the Atlantic slave traffic, fundamentally changed life in Africa and certain parts of South America. Her closest friends include Oroonoko and Imoinda, who often dine at her table. Oroonoko is about within the 1600s, at a time when many countries, including Surinam, were under British colonial rule. She describes her health as poor, and is very sensitive to all kinds of odors. The narrator admires the foods and customs of the ethnic groups she comes into contact with, and in general she has a keen sense of adventure. While the narrator abhors how Oroonoko is treated, she never admits that she has a problem with the institution of slavery itself-the main injustice she decries is that a natural king like Oroonoko should be treated so disrespectfully. While she highly esteems Oroonoko, there is a sense that he is the exception, not the rule, when it comes to African. The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Restoration and the Eighteenth Century, edited by Stephen Greenblatt, W. She sees these “natives” as close descendants of Adam and Eve before the Fall of Man, but her opinions toward black Africans seems to be a bit murkier. For the most part, the narrator is open-minded (for her time) and not entirely bigoted in her opinions of the native peoples of the European colonies. Almost the whole of Oroonoko is told in the narrator’s voice and from her perspective. The narrator is a female Englishwoman, and possibly the direct voice of the author, Aphra Behn, who lived in Suriname for a while and may have had similar experiences to the narrator.
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