Oroonoko: Civil or Savage?

When we discussed the civility and savageness of the characters in Oroonoko a few classes ago,I think that most of the groups agreed that the king and captain were savage, and that Imoinda was one of the more civilized of the characters. Oroonoko's place on the chart in all of the groups seemed to fall in the Most Civil to Neutral range. I forgot to write it down and my memory is hazy, but I believe that my group placed Oroonoko closer to the most civilized end of the spectrum.

After our class discussion, it did not seem so clear to me where all the characters should be placed, especially Oroonoko himself because he has changed so much by the end of the story. By our society's standards, it would be agreed that slavery is bad, and therefore the English should be considered savage in this story as they are trading, and killing, African Americans as slaves. But in the time period that this story takes place, slavery was a common and mostly accepted thing, wouldn't the English be considered civilized as an organized society?

In Oroonoko's case, he at first seems to be one of the most civilized characters, and one of the reasons being that he fell in love with Imoinda and decided that he wanted to be with her and only her. Though this appears to be civilized to us, in his culture, it was common for men to take many girlfriends, so Oroonoko was actually going against his society's standards. At the end of the book, when he realizes that he will never escape and that his son will be born into slavery, Oroonoko decides to, with her permission, kill Imoinda and later allow himself to be killed. By the end, Oroonoko seems to have lost all civility, but when you look at it from his perspective, he did the only thing he felt was right in his situation. He did not want his child to live his life enslaved, and felt that it would be better to die than live a life without freedom. This may come across as selfish, for taking the lives of not only himself, but also Imoinda and their unborn child, however, he genuinely believed that there was no other way out. Imoinda also agreed with Oroonoko's plan, so he did not commit these acts without her consent, so he cannot be definitely described as completely savage towards the end. It is difficult to clearly define a character as civilized or savage in this story, because it really just depends on the perspective of the reader, as well as the characters.