Tuesday, May 8, 2012

The Many Lives of Oroonoko

          Although Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko is, on the surface, a story about slavery in the Americas, it is much more likely that Behn was writing a treatise on monarchy and the Stuart rule in England than a plea for the end of slavery. However, after Behn’s death Oroonoko took on a life of its own. The story of the enslaved prince was made into a play only six years after Behn died, then over the next two hundred years it was reproduced over and again by numerous authors, each of whom slightly altered the text to fit their own agenda and their own audience’s needs and expectations. The most significant changes to Behn’s story were made by Thomas Southerne, who first transformed Oroonoko into a play in 1695; John Hawkesworth, who in 1759 cut Southerne’s comic subplot and created the play form that others later followed; and John Ferriar, who changed Oroonoko into a thoroughly abolitionist story in 1788 – precisely 200 years after Behn’s original novella was published. By the time it reached its final transformations, Oroonoko was a solidly anti-slavery piece.
          Aphra Behn published Oroonoko; or, The Royal Slave in 1688, the year before her death. The original intent of her book has been debated, but it was most likely a royalist treatise inspired by the events surrounding the end of the Stuart reign in England. Many scholars compare the predicament of Oroonoko himself to that of King James, noting that Oroonoko “bears in captivity the same name—Caesar—which Behn uses to address both Charles II and James II” (Spencer 225). Truly, Behn condemns the enslavement of a monarch in her novella far more than she does slavery itself. For example, Oroonoko reprimands the slave ship captain who tricks him into captivity not for dealing in the slave trade, but rather for his dishonesty and false Christianity. When departing the ship, Oroonoko utters, “’Tis worth my Suffering to gain so true a Knowledge both of you, and your Gods by whom you swear” (67). Indeed, Oroonoko actually argues for slavery (that is, the traditional tribal dealings with slavery) in Behn’s novella: “Have they Won us in Honourable Battel? And are we, by the chance of War, become their Slaves? This wou’d not anger a Noble Heart” (86). Clearly, Behn’s story is more anti-slave trade (if that) than anti-slavery; but it does create a perfect framework for later authors to use in the fulfillment of their own agendas, which eventually did include abolition.
The first rewrite of Behn’s Oroonoko was by Thomas Southerne, who transformed the novella into a play (Oroonoko: A Tragedy) in 1695, six years after Behn’s death. The most drastic addition to the story is Southerne’s comic subplot, a sexually charged storyline involving two sisters, Charlott and Lucy Welldon (who are in Surinam seeking wealthy husbands), and a lusty widow, the Widow Lackitt. After much cross-dressing and trickery, the three women are happily married by the end of the play. The raunchy comic additions seem strange when placed side by side with the tragic tale of Oroonoko and Imoinda, but this style of tragicomedy was actually popular with the audiences of Restoration theater, and Oroonoko: A Tragedy “was one of the most frequently performed of all London dramas in the first half of the eighteenth century” (Munns 176).
Some of Southerne’s deletions from Behn’s text are just as telling as his addition; among the themes edited out of his play were the entire continent of Africa, almost all reference to (and all appearances of) the Surinam Indians, the presence of the narrator (generally understood to be Behn herself), and Imoinda’s blackness. There are many theories on the reason for making Imoinda white. One of these theories is that Southerne eliminated the narrator and made Imoinda white to combine the characters and play up the sexual tension between the narrator and Oroonoko in Behn’s version (Spencer 233). While there is not much evidence for this in the text itself, it does make for an interesting supposition. Another theory is that “the change in Imoinda’s coloring has as much to do with theatrical traditions as sexual transgressions or racial anxiety” (Munns 177). The argument here is that actors would readily wear blackface in order to portray heroic black men, but since pale skin was seen as the ultimate mark of womanly beauty at this time, in order for Imoinda to be beautiful she must also be white (Munns 177). 
In all but eliminating the Surinam Indians (they appear only offstage in the plays), Southerne and all of his successors also eliminate the complex three-way relationship that existed between white colonists, black slaves, and native Indians. In Southerne’s version of the story, Oroonoko proves his loyalty and heroism by rushing to defend the plantation when the Indians attack. This version “avoids the reality of dangerous alliances between indigenous inhabitants and imported African labor. … [The] alteration involves radical simplification and a massive act of forgetting” (Munns 180). It is also possible that the Indians were simply not necessary to Southerne’s play; he was not as interested in promoting colonization in the Americas as he was in box-office results, which were helped along by his addition of the comic subplot, as noted above.
While it is true that Behn’s story is not anti-slavery, it does plant the seeds for that reception. Southerne’s version, on the other hand, moves in the opposite direction, making Oroonoko defend not just tribal forms of slavery but also European slave trafficking. In Behn’s novella, after Oroonoko declares that winning a slave in battle is honorable, he adds, “but we are Bought and Sold like Apes, or Monkeys, to be the Sport of Women, Fools, and Cowards” (86). In Southerne, Oroonoko’s speech is quite different: “If we are Slaves, they did not make us Slaves; / But bought us in an honest way of trade: /… They paid our Price for us, and we are now / Their Property, a part of their Estate” (3.2.122-127). This complete reversal is credited to Southerne’s personal life – he was “seeking patronage from … one of the riches West Indian slave-owners” (Spencer 232) at the time that he wrote this play.
Southerne’s version of the tale also plays down Oroonoko’s royal honor and plays up his love of Imoinda – he is now motivated to rebel only because of his love for her, as any good Restoration hero might do. After his speech to Aboan on why they should not revolt (see above), Oroonoko is finally persuaded to anger by the thought of Imoinda being ravaged by the Governor. Aboan tells him that the Governor “Will know no bounds, [there is] no law against his Lusts” and Oroonoko at last replies “Ha! thou hast roused / The Lion in his den … / I’ll undertake / All thou would’st have me now for liberty” (3.2.221-240). While Behn’s Oroonoko was appalled at being enslaved and having his son born into slavery, Southerne’s Oroonoko seems fairly content with his lot until the thought of his lover’s innocence lost convinces him otherwise. With this, Oroonoko takes his first steps in Southerne’s play toward a less powerful presence; he is portrayed, in a way, as “a proper English gentleman who just happens to be black” (Munns 179). At the end of the play, he does not even possess the uncivilized emotion necessary to murder Imoinda, who is forced to kill herself and leave Oroonoko to follow suit.
John Hawkesworth was the next author to recreate Oroonoko’s tale with his version of the play, Oronooko: A Tragedy, As it is now Acted at the Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane, which was produced in 1759. The only major change from Southerne’s version was his deletion of the comic subplot. Later reproductions of Oroonoko generally followed Hawkesworth’s version of Southerne’s play, rather than Behn’s original storyline: they all cut the comic subplot because of contemporary audience expectations. The sexual innuendo and broad comedy accepted during the Restoration period was considered lowbrow and vulgar to the 18th-century Sentimentalism crowd (Spencer 244-45). In an anonymous Prologue added to Hawkesworth’s play for its first performance, “Southerne is chastised for tainting the serious material with the comic: ‘Slave to custom in a laughing age, / With ribald mirth he stain’d the sacred page’” (qtd. in Trooboff 123).
Another change toward sentimentalism was the making of Oroonoko into a true tragic hero, deserving of pity and dying for love. Hawkesworth’s Oroonoko, like Southerne’s, cannot be encouraged to rebel by his friend Aboan alone, and is only compelled once Aboan’s urgings are combined with the thought of his unborn child with Imoinda. He goes further in becoming a victim of circumstances, however, by resolving not to strike first and by leaving his enemies alive at the end; after finally agreeing to lead the slave revolt, Oroonoko adds, “The Means that lead us to our Liberty / Must not be bloody – no – must not be bloody /… And not a Life shall fall” (3.2.249-260).
The play is not abolitionist, but it does evoke some of those feelings in its audiences by “emphasizing the brutality of the planters … creating sympathy for all the enslaved and not just for the noble prince” (Munns 181). The other slaves are given more lines and stage directions in this version, and emphasis is placed on the suffering caused by the entire system of slavery. For example, just before Oroonoko leads the rebellion, three slaves converse about their deplorable situation and their hope for Oroonoko to lead them to freedom:
2nd Slav.       … when I look
 At him, and hear him talk, I think I’m free already.
          3rd Slav.        Why aye, to be sure; such Men as he may do much.
          2nd Slav.       Why we were all such Men, ‘till Slav’ry broke us.
          (3.3.4-7)
Sentimentalism is certainly achieved by portraying all the slaves – not just princes – as human and emotional. This is a drastic change from Behn’s original novella, wherein the other slaves are portrayed at best as cowardly automatons.
Oroonoko was recreated again the following year by Francis Gentleman with his Oroonoko: or the Royal Slave, A Tragedy. Altered from Southerne. His play is actually altered from Hawkesworth’s version more than Southerne’s, as there is no comic subplot, and his additions are restricted to more sentimentalism and two new antagonists. Gentleman’s new characters are Massingano, a slave in Surinam whom Oroonoko had previously defeated and sold into slavery, and Zinzo, a newly arrived slave and cohort of Massingano. In this version, Massingano – with his desire for revenge – tricks Oroonoko into rebellion against the planters. The kind planter Blandford (first added to the play by Southerne as “Blanford” and kept in all subsequent versions as “Blandford”) comes to the rescue and stems the violence on both sides, making Oroonoko appear not only naive but also somewhat demure. His character takes another step on his path towards conventional protagonist and away from unique hero.
Yet another version of the play was written the same year by an anonymous playwright. Oroonoko, A Tragedy. Altered from the Original Play of that Name, Written by the late Thomas Southern, Esq. was published in 1760 but was never acted. The only major additions are those of new minor characters: Maria, daughter of the Lieutenant Governor and confidant of (still white) Imoinda, and Heartwell, President of the Council. The anonymously written version begins tending more toward anti-slavery, but is mostly simply patriotic (pro-British). Heartwell’s character, for instance, can be interpreted as the counterpart to the ruthless Lieutenant Governor, providing the play “with a benevolent representative of British colonial authority” (Spencer 252). In fact, the play still includes Oroonoko’s argument for slavery and the European slave trade. His rebellion seems directed not against slavery in general, but against the Lieutenant Governor in particular. It has been argued that this change in subtext was probably due to the era in which it was produced: the audience would have been “less troubled by Restoration and early 18th-century concerns with anarchy and tyranny than by issues of order and riot” (Munns 183). The Lieutenant Governor’s actions are seen in this light as inciting riot and disorder and therefore worthy of the audience’s disdain.
By 1780s England, the anti-slavery movement was beginning to appear not just in newspapers and pamphlets, but also in literature, art, and poetry – and John Ferriar’s version of Oroonoko (entitled The Prince of Angola), published in 1788, was one of the stories that was reworked to fit the theme of the times (Spencer 224-58). Ferriar’s title page to the play even included a note on the usefulness of the arts in the abolitionist movement: “Drama is a powerful weapon in the war to change minds and redress a terrible grievance” (qtd. in Trooboff 125). In fact, older versions of the story were not just being rewritten but actually reinterpreted in their original forms to fit the perspective of contemporary audiences. In other words, “Oroonoko was being replaced by the Oroonoko myth” (Spencer 255). The first plays by Southerne and Hawkesworth were beginning to be perceived as abolitionist propaganda in and of themselves; therefore, Ferriar’s version was a logical extension of that trend.
This abolitionist version – like other contemporary anti-slavery writings, including the narrative of Olaudah Equiano – seems meant to personalize and individualize the suffering of slaves in order to more effectively engage the audience’s pity and thereby rouse them to action. The character of Blandford, for example, gives audiences a course to follow in Ferriar’s version by changing his own stand on the matter from benign acceptance of slavery to extreme abolitionist. When Blandford appears in the opening scene of the play, he speaks to the Lieutenant Governor not of abolishing slavery, but of treating the slaves in a more benevolent manner: “Give them proper food and sufficient cloaths; destroy your instruments of torture; abridge your overseers of the pleasure of the flogging” (1.1.24-26). After befriending Oroonoko, Blandford begins to see the wrongfulness of slavery and seems to speak directly to Ferriar’s audience when he cries to Oroonoko, “Your history / Must redden each European cheek with shame” (2.2.192-193). Finally, Blandford’s declaration to Stanmore (and the audience) in the last scene, moments after Oroonoko kills himself, exemplify his total commitment to the eradication of slavery: “But you who mutely eye this scene of horror, / Curse not the erring arm – the guilt is ours; / For deeds like these are slav’ry’s fruit; the chain / And bloody whip bring punishment upon us” (5.4.170-173).
While Ferriar’s is the first purposefully abolitionist version of the story, by the time Oroonoko is fully transformed to an anti-slavery play the character himself has lost his original powerful presence. Ferriar eliminates many of Oroonoko’s soliloquies, violent tendencies, and references to his African origins (along with any plot-complicating references to having owned or dealt with slaves in his own country), and in so doing, he creates a version of the character that has taken the final step in becoming an anonymous white stage hero in blackface. Almost nothing remains of the original Oroonoko’s personality at this point, and Ferriar’s incarnation of the story is compellingly yet merely a framework on which to establish his anti-slavery rhetoric.
In fact, Ferriar changes even the motivation of the other slaves in Surinam, who now give up the rebellion and turn on Oroonoko not because of their own low rank (and therefore character), as in Behn’s novella and the successive plays, but because of what they have been put through by the cruel and ruthless slave owners (as hinted at in Hawkesworth’s version). Where Behn writes Oroonoko’s scornful speech that the other slaves “were by Nature Slaves, … Dogs, treacherous and cowardly, fit for such Masters” (90), Southerne keeps the sentiment (and almost the exact words) with Oroonoko’s lines that they “were by Nature Slaves; Wretches design’d / To be their Master’s Dogs, and lick their Feet” (5.2.64-65). This exchange remains in the later plays, until Ferriar reverses the response and completely abandons the original speech, making Oroonoko speak first directly to his fellow slaves, and then address the Lieutenant Governor: “And is it thus? is this to be a Slave, / To be a man no more in ought but shape? / Now, Tyrants, I perceive your lashes cut, / Ev’n deeper than I knew; they mark the soul” (4.1.59-62). The surrendering slaves’ cowardice is portrayed not as their own fault, but the fault of slavery and those who practice it.
The numerous reproductions of Oroonoko have created countless changes, some of them major, such as the presence of the African continent, the race of Imoinda, and even Oroonoko’s motivation to revolt, and some of them minor, such as the presence of the narrator, the role of the other slaves, and the presence or absence of minor characters. Besides these factors of content, however, one could argue that the grandest changes of all were the transformations in Oroonoko’s subtext: the underlying reason for the work ebbs from monarchical justification to abolitionist appeal, while the hero himself morphs from dominant sovereign to demure slave.





 




Works Cited
Anonymous. “Oroonoko, A Tragedy. Altered from the Original Play of that Name,
Written by the late Thomas Southern, Esq.” Oroonoko: Adaptations and Offshoots. Ed. Susan B. Iwanisziw. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006. 185-202.
Behn, Aphra. Oroonoko. Ed. Catherine Gallagher. Boston: Bedford, 2000.
Ferriar, John. “The Prince of Angola.” Oroonoko: Adaptations and Offshoots. Ed. Susan
B. Iwanisziw. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006. 203-257.
Gentleman, Francis. “Oroonoko: or the Royal Slave, A Tragedy. Altered from
Southerne.” Oroonoko: Adaptations and Offshoots. Ed. Susan B. Iwanisziw. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006. 163-184.
Hawkesworth, John. “Oroonoko, A Tragedy, As it is now Acted at the Theatre-Royal in
Drury-Lane.” Oroonoko: Adaptations and Offshoots. Ed. Susan B. Iwanisziw. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006. 104-162.
Munns, Jessica. “Reviving Oroonoko ‘in the scene’: From Thomas Southerne to ‘Biyi
Bandele.” Troping Oroonoko from Behn to Bandele. Ed. Susan B. Iwanisziw. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004. 174-197.
Southerne, Thomas. “Oroonoko: A Tragedy.” Oroonoko: Adaptations and Offshoots. Ed.
Susan B. Iwanisziw. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006. 1-80.
Spencer, Jane. Aphra Behn’s Afterlife. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000.
Trooboff, Rhoda M. “Reproducing Oroonoko: A Case Study in Plagiarism, Textual
Parallelism, and Creative Borrowing.” Troping Oroonoko from Behn to Bandele.  Ed. Susan B. Iwanisziw. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004. 108-140.

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