It was hard for me to read the ending of Oroonoko. Being from the twenty-first century, it is hard for me to imagine people enslaving other human beings and treating them so poorly. It moved me emotionally and made me cringe while I was reading that, but because of that stirring of emotions, I could not seem to stop reading. I wonder if this was Behn's point all along. She wanted people to realize that slavery was going on in the world, and it was affecting families and even royalty of other cultures in a very real way.
Knowing some about slavery and what all it entailed, I was not as shocked at the cruelty as I believe someone during Behn's time would be. Sure, there were prisoners of war and public executions, but slavery was not the norm. The way that Oroonoko was killed was worse than how animals were killed for food. To wrap ones mind around it is unthinkable, and I cannot imagine the other ways in which slaves were killed.
To Behn's original audience and to readers today, the reality of slavery is revealed in a gruesome and emotionally stirring way. Behn makes one think about slavery in a way that slave owners would never wish people to know. Her bluntness and the way she elevates Oroonoko at the beginning, stirs empathy within the reader as Oroonoko comes to a tragic end.
Blog challenge: 4 of 5!
I wish it were as hard for me to imagine people enslaving other people as it is for you. (Unfortunately, I had to receive a shocking briefing on it when I went overseas: http://www.state.gov/j/tip/what/ covers the basics.) However, I agree that Behn made a point of exposing the brutality, inhumanity, and immorality of it in a way that people could understand. It made me think of the Game of Thrones series in that as soon as I got attached to the characters, terrible things started happening to them and then they died.
ReplyDeleteDespite slavery being a terrible thing that all people living in the 21st century now realize is very wrong, there are more slaves now at this point in time than at any point in history. So I'd be lying if I said that it's hard for me to imagine humans doing this to other humans. Oroonoko is a very tragic tale, however, and is an important story that shows how awful slavery is, especially with its superb character development, which makes the ending even more tragic.
ReplyDeleteSlavery is just ugly and it will always be so. It's something of our past that I thank the Lord we're over it. This story got to me too, it's just so hard to believe people could be so dehumanized.
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