Paradoxical Representations
of Slavery in Oroonoko
This question has been asked many times by those who have studied this literature. Arguments have been made on both sides as to whether Aphra Behn meant this novel to be pro-slavery or anti-slavery.
Was this novel for or Against Slavery?
Passivity
Some arguments say there is a passivity in the voice of the narrator about Oroonoko having been made a slave, being that she speaks of how great he is, but how she stands by to watch his very public and barbaric execution.
Against
In the novel. Behn lifts Oroonoko up by saying how wonderful he is and compares him to other white men, elevating him in a way where the reader sees the complete contradiction of who he is described as and then he gets duped and tricked and is made a slave by his captors.
Sympathy
Some literary reviewers believe that Behn's articulation of her novel "formulated certain fundamental paradoxes intrinsic to scenes of sympathy-paradoxes that would continue to structure English citizens' emotional engagement with Caribbean slaves in the long eighteenth century.” (Mallipeddi)
I think it is difficult to say whether Aphra Behn wrote this as a pro-slavery novel or anti-slavery novel. My opinion is that there is not enough evidence either way to point directly at what her stance was in the novel as there are so many conflicting viewpoints that she narrates from: one of a friend of Oroonoko, who praises him; one of a bystander while he is murdered barbarically. - Erica Jackson
"Oroonoko reveals that part of Behn still clings to her cultural biases and inveterate racism. While she is open minded enough to praise the beauty of the natives and of the Africans, for example, Behn comments that "they have all that is called beauty except the color'" (Orange Tripod)