34 pages • 1 hour read
Aphra BehnOroonoko
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1688A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Section 1Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Section 1 Summary: Narrator’s Introduction
The novella begins with the narrator’s assurance that what follows is the truth, rather than fiction; she will make no attempt to invent or embellish Oroonoko’s story. She explains that she was an eyewitness to the events in Surinam and heard of everything else from Oroonoko himself. The only changes that have been made to the tale are the omission of certain details that might bore the reader.
Surinam, the narrator explains, is a colony in the Americas where slaves are bought and sold in lots. The English settlers live harmoniously with the indigenous people.
The narrator gives a detailed description of Surinam’s native wildlife, the way the native people dress and the objects they make. She tells us that the native people are “like our first Parents before the Fall” (6); they are simple and without curiosity. These people are also very innocent, according to the narrator, they, “understand no Vice or Cunning, but when they are taught by the White Men” (7). The native men have many wives but no servants except for slaves they have captured in war. Their society is not led by a king but by the oldest war captain.
The narrator explains that it is to English settlers’ advantage to live “in perfect Tranquility” (7) with the natives, because, not only are their hunting and fishing skills and their knowledge of the area an advantage to the English, the natives also outnumber them so they don’t dare treat them badly. This is one of the main reasons that the native people aren’t enslaved; instead, black slaves are imported to work on the sugar plantations.
Section 1 Analysis
The opening pages introduce the reader to the English colony of Surinam in what is now South America. The narrator provides descriptions of the wildlife as well as the native people and gives us insight into the relations between the English colonizers and the indigenous people. In part, these details support the narrator’s claim that everything in the story is true—how could she provide such detailed descriptions if she hadn’t been there? This claim to truth might, in part, be an attempt to assert her credibility as a female writer in the seventeenth century; it might also have been an attempt to give extra weight to the ideas explored in the text.
The narrator’s descriptions of the native Surinamese people are quite typical, in that they represent them as “Noble Savages”: people who are “naturally” honorable but not as civilized as Europeans. The native people only learn to lie when the white Europeans arrive and teach them by example. At one point, the narrator compares them to “our first Parents” (6)—Adam and Eve—and suggests that they have not changed since the days of Eden. This is a good example of the way the idea of the “noble savage” combines positive and negative attributes: these people retain the innocence and simplicity of Eden, but they have not changed or learned anything since that time. Despite being described as “Parents” (6), they are actually considered to be more like children and, therefore, apparently in need of the care and authority of Europeans.
