In Oroonoko, Aphra Behn presents two very distinct civilizations: the 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 a product of his own Western past, which adds a third realm to the novel: 17th-century England, or Europe as a whole. These three “worlds” contrast sharply with each other; While Behn's Europe is the most advanced civilization, with its laws, religion, technology and social order, the Coramantien and Suriname are increasingly smaller versions of European society. Surinam is everything that Europe is not: the people are simple-minded and the only semblance of structure in existence was put in place by settlers. Coramantien, on the other hand, falls somewhere in the middle; its royal governance is certainly reminiscent of countries like England, but the presence of practices such as polygamy and the absence of established laws suggest that it is far from the equal of Western countries. Although Behn certainly considers Europe the best of the three civilizations, this superiority comes at a price: morality; for Behn, the more advanced the society, the more corrupt the people. Behn uses this dynamic of the "three worlds" and the way the protagonist Oroonoko fits into each of them to create a complex picture of 17th-century Europe: despite being technologically, politically and socially superior to the colonies of the New World, it morally lacks following these societal advances. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essayBehn begins the novel with a description of the natives of Surinam, with whom she asserts that the English "live...in perfect friendship, without daring to command them, but on the contrary caress them with all the brotherly and friendly affection of the world” (9). Behn goes on to discuss the various items that the English trade with the Surinamese people; here, Behn makes it clear that although the settlers and natives interact frequently and are on good terms with each other, they still belong to very separate and distinct parts of Suriname. Generally, Europeans would not want to live with natives because it seems degrading; the natives are “savages” and refined European citizens should never have to associate with people like them. However, Behn does not view the ethnic Surinamese in this way; in fact, she likes them very much, admiring their beauty and modesty: "[They are] a wonderful character to behold...They are extremely modest and shy, very shy and pleasant to touch" (10-11). Behn actually believes that the segregation of settlers and natives is beneficial to the natives, instead of being a means of preserving one's delicate and cultured European identity. For Behn, the natives of Suriname have a certain purity that would only ruin them. if they had to adapt to a European way of life. She compares the natives to Adam and Eve: “And these people represented to 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 savages, Behn instead sees them as innocent and uncorrupted. Instead of living by the laws of religion or government, which Behn believed would ultimately be their downfall, the natives live by the laws of nature: "It is [nature] alone, if it was permitted to him, who instructs the world better than all the others. the inventions of man; therereligion would here only destroy this tranquility which they possess through ignorance, and the laws would only teach them to know the offense, of which they now have no notion” (11). They live the most moral life because they don't know how to live immorally. Furthermore, Behn asserts that the only conception that the natives have of sin or dishonesty comes strictly from the 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 about the relationship between natives and settlers could not be clearer: the pure and untouched life of the Surinamese people is only tainted and corrupted by the wickedness 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 view is made quite evident in Oroonoko. The corruption of the English people is largely attributed to their government and religion, which not only taught people what is not acceptable in society – which, counter-intuitively, often leads them to act in such ways – but, because of all the disagreements they caused, both institutions were also major sources of violence, particularly in England. The English tendency toward dishonesty and cruelty is echoed later in the novel through Behn's characterization of the settlers of Suriname. Byam, the governor of Surinam, is one of the most reprehensible characters in the entire novel; he only shows cruelty towards the slaves, especially Oroonoko, and his word means little. 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 comrade Tuscan finally take Byam's word and agree to join the settlers, they are captured and "whipped...in a most deplorable and inhumane manner" (Behn 67). The character of Trefry also represents the unreliability of the English, but certainly not to the same degree as Byam: from the moment Oroonoko and Trefry first met, Behn says: "Trefry soon discovered that [Oroonoko] was, however, something greater than he had confessed; and from that moment he began to conceive such great esteem for him that he always loved him as his dearest brother, and showed him all the civilities due to such a great man” (42). Trefry truly cared for Oroonoko and promised that he would help her return to Coramantien; However, his promise turns out to be empty, which only reinforces Behn's image of the English as ultimately lying and evil people. This idea is truly summed up at the very end of the novel, when Oroonoko is about to die. Banister, an Irishman whom Behn describes as “a man of absolute barbarity,” tells Oroonoko “that he should die like a dog like he was” (Behn 76). Oroonoko replies that "this was the first act of bravery that Banister had done, and he never said any meaning until he had uttered the word, and, if he wanted to keep it, he would declare, in the next world , that he was the only man. , of all white people, the one he ever heard tell the truth” (Behn 76). Through its juxtaposition of the innocence, purity, and kindness of the Surinamese people and the dishonesty, malevolence, and violent ways of the English characters, Behn's belief that his fellow English people live perverse lifestyles and cruel because of their government and religious practices. , and the overall power they retain in the world; the natives, on the other hand, remained healthyand virtuous thanks to their ignorance of these Western institutions. Contrary to his praise of the superior morality of the natives, Behn continues to believe that Europeans are, ultimately, the superior race. When Behn begins her description of the natives, one of the first things she mentions is that the English treated them as friends and brothers; however, shortly after, Behn adds: “we find it absolutely necessary to caress them as friends, and not to treat them as slaves; nor do we dare to do otherwise, their number far exceeding ours on this continent” (12). Although it never seemed that the English treated the natives as equals, Behn certainly seemed to imply a certain kind of respect for them that led to friendship between the groups; here it seems that the real underlying cause of this knowledge was mainly so that the natives could not turn on and attack the English. Behn's belief in European superiority is also reflected in his description of the physical appearance of the natives: "Some of the beauties who are indeed finely formed, as almost all are, and who have pretty features, are very charming and news, for they all have this is called beauty, except the color, which is a reddish yellow” (10-11). Behn praises their beauty, but only to a certain extent; she implies that if the natives were white (as Europeans are), they would be really beautiful, but their "reddish-yellow" skin diminishes their beauty. Additionally, the natives in the novel seem extremely simplistic and ignorant, which is especially noticeable when the narrator and her brother visit the place where the natives live: "Taking their hair in their hands and spreading it widely to those whom they called , as if they wanted to say... innumerable wonders... Little by little they became more daring, and looking at us all around, they touched us, placing their hands on every feature of our face, feeling our breasts and our arms, taking a petticoat, then being surprised to see another, admiring our shoes and our stockings, but even more our garters… [which were] laced with silver lace at the ends, because they value all things very much shiny. (Behn 57) In this section, the natives seem completely overwhelmed and impressed simply by the clothes the narrator and her brother are wearing. Behn describes them as unintelligent and simple-minded. This view is reinforced by Behn's discussion of the physical quality of all their work: unlike the Europeans, they have no technological innovation of any kind; all their work is bodily and dirty. Although Behn never explicitly says that she believes Europeans are inherently superior to natives, her discussions of their hard land labor, their lesser physical beauty, their friendship due to fear of attack, and their feeble-mindedness all imply that She ultimately views the natives as inferior to her and her fellow Englishmen in many ways. Behn's views on Coramantien country, the homeland of Oroonoko, are not as simple as his views on Surinam. Coramantien lies somewhere between Surinam and Europe in terms of the development of its civilization. For Behn, Europe is the most advanced region in the world, so it should naturally supplant Surinam and Coramantia; However, Coramantien is significantly more developed than Suriname, making it a happy medium between modern Western standards and the primitive, underdeveloped lifestyles of the Surinamese. In Coramantia, there is some sort of social order, but not as developed as that of Europe; a kingpresides over the country, which establishes at least one concentrated source of power against a wild (or non-existent) power structure. However, it is unclear how the rest of Coramantian society reports to the king; Behn mentions that there are war generals, who seem to enjoy a certain kind of esteem, and she also speaks of the king's many wives, who had received the greatest honor by marrying him. Ordinary people receive no attention from Behn, making it seem as if Coramantien's social order does not extend beyond the royal family or soldiers. In contrast, Europe's distinct social order – monarchs, aristocrats/nobles, working class and peasants – is significantly more structured than that of the Coramantine and, for Behn, undoubtedly better. There also appears to be ambiguity in the laws of the Coramantien. When Oroonoko meets Imoinda, the beautiful daughter of the deceased war general, the two immediately fall in love. Shortly after, Orinoco asks Imoinda to be his wife, and Imoinda accepts: “After a thousand assurances of her lasting flame and her eternal empire over him, she deigned to receive him as her husband; or rather, received it as the highest honor the gods could do him” (Behn 18). The two do not undergo a formal marriage ceremony, the traditional way of uniting a husband and wife, but Imoinda's acceptance of Oroonoko's proposal seems to be enough to consider herself married. When Orinoco's grandfather, the King of Coramantien, discovers Imoinda's beauty and sends her the royal veil – an act which means Imoinda becomes one of his wives – Imoinda tells the king that she cannot cannot be his wife because, "as according to the laws he could not, and by his royal kindness he would not take away his wife from any man, so she believed that she should... tell him that she belonged to a other and that she could not be so happy to be his” (Behn 19). The king, however, declared the marriage of Imoinda and Oroonoko void because it had not yet been consummated. But later in the novel, when Oroonoko sneaks into the king's nato and sleeps with Imoinda, Oroonoko believes that he is not breaking any laws because of the promise they first made to each other, as well as the fact that the king himself never slept with Imoinda. What actually constitutes a Coramantien marriage is very unclear, and the vague nature of Coramantien marriages reflects the complete lack of clearly defined laws in the country. Once again, the definitive code of Europe and the enforcement of laws are firmly opposed to the system in place in Coramantien. Behn's comparison of Europe and Coramantia – as well as the tacit conclusion of Europe's superiority – is largely based on the countries' political and social structures and their systems of law. However, just as with the Surinamese, Behn also evokes the physical beauty of the Coramantians. 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 more beautiful, more pleasant and more beautiful in nature » (16, 15). Again, Behn focuses on the color of their skin – that is, it is not white – as being 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 war and the king's possession of numerous wives are very biblical themes. Behn's distinction between the appearances of Coramantian people and those of Europeans, indirect comparisons of country structures, and the biblical subtext of Coramantian society all suggest the innate superiority of Europeans, as in the case of the Surinamese. Finally, the characterization.