In Oroonoko, Aphra Behn presents two very distinct civilizations: Coramantien, an African country ruled by royalty, and Suriname, an English colony in South America that is home to both settlers and natives. However, Behn's depictions of these two regions are the product of his Western background, which adds a third domain to the novel: 17th-century England, or Europe as a whole. These three “worlds” are in stark contrast to each other; while Behn's Europe is the most advanced civilization, with laws, religion, technology and social order, Coramantien and Suriname are smaller and smaller versions of European society. Suriname is everything that Europe is not: the people are naive and the only semblance of structure that exists was created by settlers. Coramantien, however, falls somewhere in the middle; its royal government is certainly reminiscent of countries like England, but the presence of practices like polygamy and the lack of established laws suggest that it is far from the same as Western countries. While Behn certainly considers Europe to be the best of the three civilizations, this superiority comes at a cost: morality; for Behn, the more advanced society is, the more corrupt people are. Behn uses this “three worlds” dynamic, and the way the protagonist Oroonoko fits into each of them, to create a complex image of seventeenth-century Europe: although it is technologically, politically and socially superior to the colonies of the New World, is morally deficient. as a result of these social advances. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Behn begins the novel with a description of the natives of Suriname, with whom he claims the English "live...in perfect friendship, without daring." command them, but on the contrary caress them with all the fraternal and friendly affection in the world" (9). Behn goes on to discuss the various items that the English trade with the people of Suriname; here, Behn makes it clear that, although the settlers and natives often interact and are on good terms with each other, they still belong to very separate and distinct parts of Suriname. Typically, Europeans would not want to live with natives because it seems degrading; the natives are “savages” and refined European citizens should never have to deal with people like them. However, Behn does not see the Surinamese natives this way; in fact, she is very fond of them, admiring their beauty and modesty: "[They are] a wonderful figure to behold... They are extremely modest and shy, very shy and gentle to touch" (10-11). Behn actually believes that the segregation of settlers and natives is beneficial to the natives, rather than being a means of preserving his delicate and cultivated European identity. For Behn, the natives of Suriname have a certain purity that would only be ruined. if they had to adapt a European lifestyle. He compares the natives to Adam and Eve: “And these people represented for me an absolute idea of ​​the first state of innocence, before man knew how to sin” (Behn 11). Instead of seeing the natives as savage and brutal, Behn instead sees them as innocent and uncorrupted. Instead of living by the laws of religion or government, which Behn believes would ultimately be their downfall, the natives live by the laws of nature: “It is [Nature] only, if it were allowed, that would instruct the world better than everyone else. man's inventions; here religion would do nothing but destroy that tranquility which they possess through ignorance, and the laws would do nothing but teach them to know the offence, of which they now have no notion” (11). They live a more moral life because they don't know how to live immorally. Furthermore, Behn argues that the only conception that natives haveof sinfulness or dishonesty comes strictly from Europeans: “They have a native justice, which knows no fraud; and they understand no vice or cunning, except when taught by white men” (11). Behn's ideas on the relationship between natives and settlers could not be clearer: the pure and pristine lives of the people of Suriname are only tainted and corrupted by the evil of Western culture. Due to recent events such as the beheading of King Charles I, Behn believed that the English had a strong disposition towards violence and evil; this point of view is made quite obvious in Oroonoko. The corruption of the English people is largely attributed to government and religion, which have not only taught people what is not acceptable in society – which, against all intuition, often leads them to act in such ways – but, Because of all the disagreements they caused, both institutions were also major sources of violence, especially in England. The English tendency towards dishonesty and cruelty is seen again later in the novel through Behn's characterization of the settlers in Suriname. Byam, the governor of Suriname, is one of the most reprehensible characters in the entire novel; he shows nothing but cruelty towards the slaves, especially Oroonoko, and his word means little to nothing. Towards the end of the novel, Trefry, Oroonoko's overseer and friend, believes that Byam will allow Oroonoko and the other slaves to live if they surrender. But when Oroonoko and his companion, Tuscan, finally accept Byam's word and agree to go with the settlers, they are captured and "whipped...in the most deplorable and inhuman manner" (Behn 67). Trefry's character also represents the untrustworthiness of the colonists. English, though certainly not to the extent that Byam does: from the moment Oroonoko and Trefry first meet, Behn says “Trefry soon discovered that [Oroonoko] was something greater than he had confessed; and from that moment she began to conceive such great esteem for him that she always loved him as her dearest brother, and showed him all the courtesies due to so great a man” (42). Trefry truly cared for Oroonoko and promised him that he would help him return to Coramantien; however, his promise turns out to be empty, which only furthers the image Behn presents of the English as ultimately lying and evil people. This idea really comes to a head at the very end of the novel, when Oroonoko is about to die. Banister, an Irishman whom Behn describes as “a type of utter barbarism,” tells Oroonoko “he should die like a dog as he was” (Behn 76). Oroonoko replies that "this was the first act of courage that Banister ever made, and he never spoke sense until he uttered that word, and, if he had kept it, he would have declared, in the other world, that he was the only man, among all the white people, who ever heard the truth” (Behn 76). malevolence and violent ways of the English characters, Behn's belief that his fellow Englishmen live perverse and cruel lifestyles due to their government, religious practices and the overall power they hold in the world the natives, on the other hand; they remained intact and virtuous due to their ignorance of such Western institutions. Contrary to his praise of the higher morality of the natives, Behn still believes that Europeans are, ultimately, the superior race natives, one of the first things he mentions is that the English treated them as friends and brothers; however, not long after, Behn adds, “we find it absolutely necessary to pet them as friends, anddo not treat them like slaves; nor do we dare do anything else, since their numbers far exceed ours on that continent” (12). Although it never appeared that the English treated the natives as equals, Behn certainly seemed to imply a kind of respect for them that led to friendship between the groups; here, it seems that the real cause behind the knowledge was primarily to prevent the natives from turning on and attacking the English. Behn's belief in European superiority is also seen in his description of the physical appearance of the natives: "Some of the beauties who are indeed finely modeled, as almost all are, and who have graceful features, are very charming and novel, because they all have what is called beauty, except the color, which is a reddish yellow" (10-11). Behn praises their beauty, but only up to a certain point; he suggests that if the natives were white (as the Europeans), they would be truly beautiful, but their "reddish-yellow" skin detracts from their beauty. Furthermore, the natives in the novel appear extremely simplistic and ignorant, which is especially evident when the narrator and her brother visit the place where they live. the natives: "Taking their hair in their hands and spreading it to those they called, as if saying... countless wonders... Little by little they became bolder, and looking around us, they touched us, imposing their hands on all the features of our faces, groping our breasts and our arms, taking one slip, then marveling at seeing another, admiring our shoes and stockings, but above all our garters... [which were] intertwined with silver lace at the ends, for they highly esteem anything shining.” (Behn 57) In this section, the natives appear completely overwhelmed and in awe simply by the clothes the narrator and his brother are wearing. Behn describes them as unintelligent and naive. This view is reinforced by Behn's discussion of the physical quality of all their work: they, unlike Europeans, have no technological innovations of any kind; all their work is physical and dirty. Although Behn never explicitly states that he believes Europeans are innately superior to natives, his discussions of their hard earthly labor, their lesser physical beauty, their friendship as a result of fear of attack, and their mental weakness all imply that she ultimately sees the natives as inferior to her and her fellow Englishmen in many ways. Behn's views on the country of Coramantien, Oroonoko's homeland, are not as simple as his views on Suriname. Coramantien lies somewhere between Suriname and Europe in regards to the development of its civilization. For Behn, Europe is the most advanced area in the entire world, so it would naturally replace both Suriname and Coramantien; however, Coramantien is significantly more developed than Suriname, thus making it a happy medium between modern Western norms and the primitive, undeveloped ways of the Surinamese. In Coramantien there is a sort of social order, but not as developed as the European one; a king presides over the country, which at least establishes a concentrated source of power as opposed to a wild (or non-existent) power structure. However, it is unclear how the rest of Coramantien society falls under the king; Behn mentions that there are war generals, who seem to be held in some esteem, and also speaks of the king's many wives, who were given the highest honor by marrying him. The common people receive no attention from Behn, which makes it seem as if Coramantien's social order extends no further than royalty or soldiers. In contrast, the distinct European social order – monarchs, aristocrats/nobles, working class and peasants – issignificantly more structured than Coramantien's and, for Behn, indisputably better. There also appears to be an ambiguity of the laws in Coramantien. When Oroonoko meets Imoinda, the beautiful daughter of the late war general, the two immediately fall in love. Not long after, Oroonoko asks Imoinda to be his wife, and Imoinda accepts: “After a thousand assurances of her abiding flame and her eternal empire over him, she devoted herself to receiving him for her husband; or rather, she welcomed it as the greatest honor the gods could pay her” (Behn 18). The two do not undergo an official wedding ceremony, the traditional way of uniting husband and wife, but Imoinda's acceptance of Oroonoko's proposal seems to be enough to consider them married. When Oroonoko's grandfather, the king of Coramantien, discovers Imoinda's beauty and sends her the royal veil – an act that means Imoinda becomes one of his wives – Imoinda tells the king that she cannot be his wife because, "since according the laws he could not, and out of his royal goodness he did not want to take away his bride from any man, so he believed he had to... tell him that she belonged to another and that he could not be so happy to be his” (Behn 19). The king, however, declares the marriage between Imoinda and Oroonoko null and void because it had not yet been consummated. But later in the novel, when Oroonoko sneaks into the king's otan and sleeps with Imoinda, Oroonoko believes she is not breaking any laws at all. due to the promise they had made to each other for the first time, as well as the fact that the king himself had never slept with Imoinda. What actually constitutes a marriage in Coramantien is very vague, and the The vague nature of marriages in Coramantien reflects the total lack of clearly defined laws in the country. Once again, Europe's definitive code and enforcement of laws is starkly contrasted with the system in place in Coramantien. Behn's comparison between Europe and Coramantien – as well as the tacit conclusion of Europe's superiority – is largely based on the countries' political and social structures and their systems of laws. However, just as with the natives of Suriname, Behn also brings out the physical beauty of the Coramantien. Behn refers to Imoinda as the “beautiful black Venus of our young Mars” and says of Oroonoko, “in spite of her color, there could be nothing in nature more beautiful, pleasant, and beautiful” (16, 15). Once again, Behn focuses on the color of their skin – that is, the fact that it is not white – as an obstacle to their true beauty. Finally, Behn's depiction of Coramantien seems very similar to the Old Testament of the Bible; the country's constant engagement in warfare and the king's possession of many wives are very biblical themes. Behn's distinction between the appearance of the Coramantien people and that of the Europeans, the indirect comparisons of the countries' structures, and the biblical subtext of the Coramantien society all suggest the innate superiority of the Europeans, as is the case with the Surinamese. Finally, the characterization of Oroonoko and how she individually relates to Suriname, Coramantien, and Europe are essential components of Behn's presentation of European superiority. Behn is particularly fond of Oroonoko, describing him as having "humanity... [a] true greatness of soul... refined notions of true honor... absolute generosity... softness capable of the highest passions of love and gallantry " (14). However, Behn will surely say that these qualities are not the product of his life in Coramantien; growing up, Oroonoko's royal guardian was a Frenchman and she also communicated frequently with the English and Spanish. It was from these interactions with Europeans that Oroonoko's cultured and refined character developed. So although Oroonoko may be from.