Paradoxical Representations
of Slavery in Oroonoko
The Atlantic Ocean offered a colonial trade system for slavery and commerce via many bodies of water, ports, ship routes and plantations which all help to shape the slave trade. The Caribbean, West Africa and England were hotbeds of activity for this to happen within. This route helped to carry slaves from one place to another. Each place relied heavily on the other in order to do slave trade and commerce and labor.
During the late 16th century, slave trade was occurring between England, Africa, and the Caribbean. Oroonoko was transported by the English from Coramantien to Surinam. This geographical triangle made up of these locations led to the English colonizing in the Caribbean and in other countries. This geographical triangle also served as the background of the violence that comes to be in this story. (Sills)
A Triangular Trade
Transportation
Commerce
Behn to Surinam
Slave plantations were formed and sugar colonies rose in number due to the growing slave trade which was growing more and more popular. Commerce also involved clothes, textiles, food, and silks. (Mallipeddi)
Additional paradoxes are found in this novel including where the slave trade is taking place. From the opening pages of the novel, this new place, Surinam, is described in the most delightful terms. It provides a magical background for the novel and what we envision as the place where the enslavement of people is taking place. It is a place where "a motley assortment of rarities and curiosities which the natives trade with the planters," (Mallipeddi) such as "a thousand other Birds and Beasts of wonderful and surprising Forms, Shapes, and Colours. For Skins of prodigious Snakes, of which there are some threescore Yards in length . . . also some rare Flies, of amazing Forms and Colours . . . and all of various Excellencies, such as Art cannot imitate" (O, 8-9).” One is left with the impression that this place is quite beautiful. (Behn). This beautiful place serves as the backdrop for the monstrosities that the slaves and Oroonoko will eventually suffer. It is a juxtaposition of something beautiful with something horrible and this grabs the reader and makes one contemplate the very real contrast of the things that are occurring here: physical geographical beautify with physical enslavement of people.
Per the novel, this is the route Oroonoko's narrator would have traveled on her journey before arriving to Surinam. This was no doubt influenced by Behn's own travels and played out in her book.