Carmelo Bono
Dr. Parkes
18th
Century Women Writers
Violence and the Body in Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko
Aphra Behn is writing about the
violence and oppression that people as a whole are committing to women in her
work Oroonoko, from the perspective
of a woman. The violence inducing oppression towards the females is partially
being built on the representation of the human body in society. Behn is passing
her message of violence towards women as well as the oppression they are
enduring; through representation of the body in a visual sense, literal sense
and a metaphorical sense. An example of Behn using a visual representation to
convey ways that the violence is inducing women is by a representation of the
body in a quote from page 136 “All that love could say…” by using a list,
parallelism and carefully placed pauses. A literal sense of violence towards women
that is inducing oppression on them is a representation of the male body
through female actions as shown in a couple quotes where the woman is at the
feet of the man. The metaphorical representation of the violence towards women
to create oppression is visible in the scene on pages 117-118 of Oroonoko when Caesar is fighting the
tiger. The act of women bowing and appeasing to men; being the target of a
violent metaphorical attack from a patriarch and the violent butchering of
words on paper are all ways in which Behn is representing the female body and
male body as oppressive tools.
The visual representation of the
female body is showing the readers of Aphra Behn’s “Oroonoko” that the female body is receiving a lot of violent
reaction. The female body is partially the way that the males in the story are
oppressing the women. An example of this is through a paragraph from the story,
“All that love
could say in such cases, being ended, and all the intermitting irresolutions
being adjusted, the lovely, young, and adored victim lays herself down, before
the sacrificer, while he, stroke, first cutting her throat, and then severing
her, yet smiling, face from that delicate body, pregnant as it was with fruits
of tenderest love. As soon as he has done, he laid the body decently on the
leaves and flowers of which he made a bed, and concealed it under the same
coverlid of Nature, only her face he left yet bare to look on.” (Oroonoko, pg.136)
This scene of the story is
essentially a sex scene. Oroonoko and Imoinda are two lovers that are in a very
terrible position to say the least. The only way that they can seem to think to
get out of it is by having Oroonoko kill the fair Imoinda. Instead of easily
killing Imoinda, Oroonoko will decide to kill her in only the most ritualistic
way. He begins with her throat and then looks upon her face, he removes her
head. Her body, he will bury with only her face baring look upon him. While
engaging in coatis people normally begin by kissing the neck of their lover.
Then continue with a pausing glare into their eyes where travel down the soft
skin of their lover’s body to the wound where a pregnancy is conceivable. Behn
is also making a second remark in this quote, by having only Imoinda’s face
baring a look upon Oroonoko. Imoinda must be dead and beneath the feet of
Oroonoko before her face can bare a look on Oroonoko without feeling shameful.
But visually the way that Behn is representing the body in the quote is through
the words and punctuation. The sentences are short and sudden, and the body
parts are separated by commas in a list form. So while Oroonoko is chopping up
the body of Imoinda, Behn is chopping up Imoinda in scene as well by placing so
many commas and to the point (blunt) statements. With this visual technique of words and
punctuation, Behn is showing the readers how the female body is a large target
of violence.
Behn is representing the male patriarchs’ bodies in the story as
tools to power in a literal way. One common body par that is constantly at use
is the feet of the male patriarch. The feet of the male patriarch normally seem
to have slaves or women at them. “Threatening her royal lover, she fell on her
face at his feet, bedewing the floor with her tears” (Oroonoko, pg.95) This scene is an example of how the male patriarch
Caesar is in control of Oroonoko’s lover Imoinda. Caesar is going to have her
lover disposed of she does not agree to appease his wishes, so in
exemplification of her subordination, she is throwing herself at his feet. In
throwing herself to his feet she showing Caesar that she is able to be the very
ground on which he will step on. It is also a way that she is literally showing
him that she is lower than him and obedient to his power. Her tears and
concerns are just as important as she is as the do not even receive
acknowledgment or time to fall to the ground, they are running from her eyes to
her nose and then stretching slightly to the ground. “They fell on their faces
at the foot of his carpet,”(Oroonoko pg.98)
Caesar’s soldiers and officer may not have been slaves or women however this
may place in perspective the power of the male patriarch in a culture. The
soldiers and officers were given the right to proudly bow down to their king,
their master and be happy to serve beneath him. But the slaves and women were
not so lucky; he wants a slave or women to bow down they have no choice as the
soldiers and officers. However, the fault is lying in the fact that the
soldiers and officers are bowing down because they also want to and are seeing
a reward for their obedience unlike the slaves and the women. “Carefully
guarded her eyes from beholding him; and never approached him, but she looked
down with all the blushing modesty”(Oroonoko,
pg.77) in another literal sense, the very act of looking upon a majesty without
permit is also a body representation. The eyes are playing a number of
different roles in Oroonoko however
in this instance the head of Imoinda is facing downwards as to not keep
Oroonoko in her sight. This is because she is bashful but it is also a form or
Oroonoko’s patriarchal role as one of Imoinda’s oppressors. Imoinda looking
down is saying to Oroonoko that he is too good for her and she does not deserve
to look upon his face, o she will look at the ground as to not disturb or
insult him. The reader soon after realizes that Oroonoko is looking at Imoinda
in return to her floor gaze as though he is recognizing that she is being an
obedient young woman to him. “they all cast themselves at his feet, crying out,
in their language, ‘Live, O King! Long live, O King!’ And kissing his feet,”(Oroonoko, pg.109) Caesar jumps into the
water at the electrical eel and is learning that he is not invincible let alone
able to kill anything he wants. Caesar is near death and all is looking well
for Oroonoko and Imoinda until the boatmen bring Caesar. A literal image of the
boatmen are crying at his feet, trying to bring him back to life. The boatmen
are loyal servants to Caesar not because of the simple way he is treating those
beneath him but because that is how he is conditioning the people beneath him.
As Machiavelli suggests, Caesar makes his people fear him but love him at the
same time through various techniques. Though he may treat certain types of
people beneath him bad he repays them in small ways that seem great when basing
it on the past. The classical conditioning of making slaves and women feel like
they need to be under the male patriarch is still going on today and always
will be going on.
There is a way that Behn is metaphorically conveying the body of a
female as a target of violence in Oroonoko.
The tiger is introduced as a female but is switched out for that of a male tiger
(confusion within the text possibly) while the attacks on it are occurring.
“ran his sword
quite through the breast down to his very heart, home to the hilt of the sword.
The dying beast stretched forth her paw, and going to grasp his thigh than fixing
her long nails in his flesh very deep,”(Oroonoko,
pg.117)
Behn is conveying
the tiger as female in this scene as she is jumping at the sword from which
Caesar is tucking to the left side of his chest (near his heart). The tiger is
a metaphor for the female and thusly foreshadowing as well for Imoinda. The
tiger is finding the end of Caesar’s sword because he is claiming her cub and
she is disapproving of that so she fiercely attempts to retrieve back her cub
and warn off the invader. This is showing the readers that the female can
resist angrily or quietly accept the terms of a patriarch, but no matter what,
they will meet the same fate. The sword is also a metaphor for a male’s
genitals by acting as phallic imagery in the hands of Caesar. In the quote Behn
is also attempting to portray the length of the sword and the jump of the tiger
as she is writing in long drawn out sentences. Even though the words are
quickly conveying the point, the visual structure of it is drawing out as
though it was from the perspective of the jumping tiger or Caesar. “Found him
lugging out the sword from the bosom of the tiger, who was laid in her blood on
the ground. He took up the cub,” (Oroonoko,
pg.117-118) Like Imoinda, the tiger is finding herself dead at the ends of a patriarch
that wants what he cannot have. The sword is a repetition of the phallic
imagery destroying the “angry female,” as the blood is also a metaphorical
representation of the female menstruation cycle as well. “he shot her into the
eye, and the arrow was sent with so good a will, and so sure a hand, that it
stuck her brain and made her caper.” (Oroonoko,
pg.119) Another tiger is at risk due to Caesar’s overbearing control of
everything since he is a patriarch and feels like he has the right to have such.
The gender of the tiger is amiss when “he” is in no harm but then “she” when
the tiger is in danger or dead. Caesar is shooting arrows at the female tiger
which is another form of phallic imagery. But like the last tiger and Imoinda,
this tiger is meeting the same fate, death by the patriarch. The tiger has no
control over this, and it was not even bothering anyone at the time, the
tiger’s home is under siege by Caesar who feels that the female tiger is
invading his land. The image of the phallic arrows sticking into the brain of
the tiger send a metaphorical message as well as a visual gore. The attacks and
demands that the patriarchs make towards women are remaining in the brains of
the women to which they govern. Like the tiger capering, and throwing a fit of
rage, women are finding themselves in the same predicament as they know that
they need to believe and trust in their patriarch but for some reason feel the
need to fight it and act human with human freedoms. So from the scenes of
Caesar slaughtering the female tigers, there can be an understanding that Behn
is representing the female body as constantly the victim of patriarchal
violence. Whatever the deathly result is between a quarrel of man and woman,
the woman will suffer the most and be understood as the reason for it.
The way Behn is representing the body in her work Oroonoko, is in the way of conveying the idea that they are tools to the violence leading to oppression. The violence is very sexual in the way that it is an execution of passion and smooth completion. The Violence the female body is enduring throughout the story is metaphorical as it is discussing the tiger as though she is an actual female, victim to the slaughter of a patriarch. The male’s body in the story is not victim to violence in the same sense as the woman, but the male is violently oppressing the female body to show the existence of the patriarchy. Visually the words on the page representing the body of the female are victims to butchery; punctuation is the male action of slaughtering it.
Works Cited
1.
Behn, Aphra.
"Oroonoko." Oroonoko, The Rover and Other Works. Ed. Janet
Todd. 1st ed.
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