Just a little more on Oroonoko

After reading the first portion of this story, as Oroonoko was on the boat headed for the plantation, I remember thinking that I would be very upset if he didn't find Imoinda over there.  Needless to say, when they found each other and finally got to be together I was pretty happy.  Unfortunately the story just goes downhill from there.  I don't quite get why people thought Oroonoko would simply sit around and let the promises made to him be delayed forever; I was more surprised that he waited as long as he did.  And seriously, "we have to wait until the governor gets back" is a pretty shoddy excuse considering the entire point of a deputy governor is to fill the governor's shoes while he's not around.  There's no reason he couldn't have made the call himself, which means he was just being (as we found out later) a major asshole.  I guess maybe they were used to dealing with slaves who had been captured in battle and felt, culturally, that their fate was deserved.  Whatever the case, things took a sharp turn for the worse after he led the mass escape.

(www.quickmeme.com)

I was heartened to hear in class that I was not the only one who approved of his killing Imoinda.  At that point it was obvious they were not going to get their freedom, even though they could have given the colony a hundred other slaves as a ransom.  (From a pragmatic point of view, why the people in charge wouldn't trade two troublesome slaves for a hundred more docile ones is something I'll never understand.)  I agree with his determination to live free or die, as did the founders of this country under much less harsh treatment than he suffered.  What's more, the manner of his death justified his choice to me fully; if they would go so far as to cut off his genitals and other parts of his body and burn them in front of him, I cringe to think what they would have done to his wife and unborn child.

Oroonoko's death scene, to me, was the ultimate revelation of who is "civilized" and who is "savage."  Part of why I view Oroonoko and Imoinda as so high on the "civilized" scale is because of where they started in relation to where they ended up, in terms of morality and personal growth and character.  If you are raised in a civilized culture, with an emphasis on right and wrong, a strong moral code, and a high degree of organization, I think it is far worse for you to sink to the barbarous level of Oroonoko's grandfather than it is for someone raised in a less civilized culture.  Basically, I think you should be measured by the culture you were raised in.  Of course, the natives in this story present an interesting dilemma.  They have a strong moral code and a good understanding of right and wrong, but they don't have a lot of organization.  Does this make them more civilized or more savage?  The definition you use has a great effect on how they are categorized.  Personally, I consider morality to be the most important product of culture, so I consider a highly moral society to be a civilized one.  How about you?

(4 out of 5)