Racism in Aphra Behn's Oroonoko

Indictment of Racism Hampered by Its Own Racism

Aphra Behn's story Oroonoko is intended to be an indictment of racist policies and racism in general. How strange, then, that the story itself is filled with racist comments and thoughts. There exists throughout the story many episodes of racism which prove to dilute the power of the story itself. Some of these episodes are just comments and observations while others are more encompassing and prove to be a drag on the theme of the story, clearly something that was not intended.

Early on in the story Behn gives this description of the black wives of the King of Coramantien, "for most certainly there are beauties that can charm of that color" (2173). This is clearly a statement of racist outlook, though it may be so subtle as to pass right by the reader's sense of radar. In much of the story Behn may be stretching the point of racism to further enlarge her ultimate goal, but this simple statement shows the mark of a racist mind at work. To say that there does exists charming black women is to say that most black women are not charming and that the charmers are few and far between. We can extrapolate from that statement that the writer assumes that most black women are utterly without charm since it's such a big deal that there exists beauties of that color who can charm.