Behn's narrator

I found Oroonoko to be a particularly interesting read because I think it is a story told in a simple way that strikes a cadence with its readers. As we briefly discussed in class on the 23rd, as a reader, I can hear the voice of the narrator quite clearly throughout the story. It is as if the narrator wishes to tell the story of Oroonoko and Imoinda but wants us to know only as much as she knows, or in the light that she chooses. It seems as if she wants her audience to learn to idolize Oroonoko as she does without giving the reader much of an opportunity to explore any other option or opinion about the main character in her story.

Oroonoko is presented from the very beginning as "the hero himself," "[a] great man" (9), framing the opinions of the readers before the character is even introduced. The narrator then describes him lavishly, praising his appearance, his character and his knowledge as she tells her story. In fact, it almost seems as if she puts off her story to appropriately give her character the accolade she deems him worthy of. In listening to her voice, one can begin to see her (the narrator) as a character in the overall story itself, and hence the story Oroonoko could be seen as a story within a story.

We learn to understand the narrator and to appreciate the magnitude of the role she plays in the unfolding of the tragic story of the prince who became a slave. Even when Oroonoko performed acts of bravery and maybe even heroism - like when he killed the tiger - as a reader, I felt like I was not permitted to properly "see" and "hear" this gallant act as plainly as the narrator saw and heard it, for the "sounds" of the act were drowned out in my ears by the narrator's words. It almost seemed to me like the narrator's purpose of telling the story was more to tell of her affiliation to this character who she claims is "worthy of a better wit and a more sublime wit than [hers]."

Considering the role the narrator played in telling Oroonoko's story, it had me wondering how the story would have been told had it not been told from her point of view. It also had me wondering if I would have truly thought of Oroonoko as a hero had the story been told from an unbiased perspective.

Also, the tragic death of Oroonoko caught my attention. I think it is interesting and even significant that he was not so brutally executed by any of those he had planned to take vengeance upon. I think it is even interesting how his executioner was identified as "an Irishman... a fellow of absolute barbarity..." (76), a man brought from elsewhere to commit this gruesome act. Oroonoko murdered his wife and even severed her head from her corpse for the sake of the vengeance he wished to commit. In the end, he used the knife that had spilled his wife's blood on himself to mutilate his flesh and open his bowels, rather than for revenge. He also used it on an over-zealous Englishman and on Tuscan, who had been for a brief time, a friend. I think it is ironic how he met his death at the hands of a stranger to the animosity and intrigues of the lives of the slaves and their masters, and how Imoinda's death (murder) seemed almost to have been meaningless.