We started discussing Oroonoko in Brit Lit yesterday, and I was pretty annoyed by the time we got out. The instructor is somewhat of an Anglophile, and Brit Lit is her specialty, and she was so excited to teach this work; she claimed it was one of her absolute favorites to teach. My approach to this work is one of more dread than eager anticipation. I think the first time I read it it nearly gave me an axiety attack, what with the dismemberment and roasting of Oroonoko at the end. But what turns me off the book completely is how Behn describes Oroonoko in the first place. She basically suggests that Oroonoko is only African in skin color, and is European in every other physical aspect. He has European looks, speaks English and French; he is basically a white European aristocrat, in black face. I can't stand this point of view -- that he was a "great soul" due to his possession of Eurocentric ideals.
So I don't really like Behn. It is a real aggravating read for me from the start, and the finish is just as ludicrous. Our instructor started things off well enough, but the conversation turned when she moved on to the description of Oroonoko that I just mentioend. Several black girls in the class remarked that he seems really handsome, ohhing and ahhing about how "fine" he is. The instructor asks the class who they think could play the part of Oroonoko today, and the girls began to call out actors like Tyrese, and Tyson Beckford, and my hand shot up and I said, "I don't think anyone could play this role. This is a white person in blackface -- this is a made up person that doesn't exist..." Okay. While I might have some control of words on paper, I have limited control orally, and am often misunderstood. A black student remarked, right after my mini-outburst, that of course there are black people that look like this, implying that I was suggesting there are no black people who look European, or have European facial features, which was not my point all, but what can I do? The teacher is fostering this conversation, using Behn's time and ideals as a cover for glossing over the issue of race in Oroonoko.
All this has made me very wary of this class. I understand that we can focus on Behn's fierce royalism, her loyalty to royal ideals, but when Eurocentrism is not identified and demonized (at least by someone in the class), I have a hard time believing that there is any critical thinking going on. I used to think I was at least somewhat into English Literature, but the more I read it, the less I care, and the more I just want to focus on American Literature....forever! But I can't ignore Shakespeare, and I do like Virginia Woolf, and even the Bronte sisters. I'm just really shocked that I'm in what would be considered an ethnically diverse class, discussing things like Royalism, and the girls in the class are swooning over Oroonoko instead of punching Behn in the face for crapping on his African heritage. It's tough, I can't excuse it.
4 comments:
Oh dear. I can't comment. I haven't (gasp) read it. I had better do so, so that I may comment.
Racism is not simply black and white. I am quite confused as to why your class is not discussing eurocentrism and racialism with regard to this book -- but perhaps you will next time.
American lit is the bomb. Sometimes literally.
I hazzard a guess (is that right? I don't even know), that you have read it at some time.
I figure I better write anout it, you know, about what I think it contributes to the discourse on race. Although I think my instructor would rather it be on the discourse of gender, feminie in particular. I just hate the intrinsic racism in the work. I know I wasn't as outraged by Huckleberry Finn, which is peculiar, but I think I wasn't as offended because Clemens is such a trickster writer, and he is pointing to the racism as Briar Rabbit points to the patch as a bad place place to be. That is, Clemens points to racism as a tolerable institution or mind frame in order to focus your attention on it and move you to reconsider. Whether or not you change your idea is up to you. Clemens gives the reader this power. Behn, on the other hand, focuses your attention on Oroonoko's European nobility that oozes out of his "noble soul" through his European bone structure and genetics, laquered over by a layer of, not black skin only, oh no, but a layer of "ebony," a precious and exotic material that the British Empire could capitalize on. Her desire to both sumit to Oroonoko's masculine power and dominate his exotic properties is the ultimate in expoitation.
It has been a while since I've read this novel; I think I still own a copy of it somewhere in this pile of books I call "the library."
I do recall us talking about the racial politics at play in Behn's novel when it was assigned for whatever class a long time ago. I'm wondering if she perhaps makes her African character more European in his features in order to make him more appealing? In other words, racial beliefs being what they were at the time, would a European reader have only accepted Ooronoko's "humanity" as filtered through a European lens. As in, "See, he's really just like us. He EVEN looks like us." I think that only complicates matters for a contemporary reader. It smacks of a different kind of opportunism on Behn's part then. She's being rather callous in her depiction of her chief character, as you said, but for perhaps an even more despicable reason in some ways.
English literature, particularly of the period you're studying, is like visiting a foreign country. It's not your native culture, even if the language is (allegedly) the same. We are more comfortable with Americn literature because we have spend our lives immersed in the culture and have had so many years of history and language study to provide us with a context. That doesn't mean that English literature isn't worth the effort. There are quite a few English writers (or, more properly, British writers, I guess) whose works I love. Hang in there and let them win you over a bit too.
Well yes, of course that's a highly plausible reason "why" she did it. I think it's easy to understand this novel from various historical viewpoints -- I am interested in the way the text has changed since the 1600s. My reader response is obviously very dramatic, since it's from 2008 and America and Southern California and Long Beach. It's also somewhat emotional due to my British heritage.
I get frustrated with these older texts, but also understand they continue to have an impact on the universe, which qualifies them for inspection. I just can't help vent my anger at Behn's dispicable tactics, however clever or historical they may be. Roar.
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