ENGLISH LITERATURE 1B – SUMMATIVE ESSAY

DAY & TIME OF TUTORIAL: Friday at 11am

TUTOR: Emma Aviet

EXAM NUMBER: B205525

ESSAY TITLE: To what extent and in what ways do your selected texts reinforce and/or
subvert colonial ideology?

CHOSEN TEXTS: Oroonoko (1688) & Beloved (1987)

ESSAY WORD COUNT: 2044 (excluding bibliography)

For a long time, the Anglo-literary industry has been a white-male dominated space, which in its early

days explicitly sought to isolate and remove people of colour from the authorial world. The concept of the
2

novel was deeply rooted in European colonial ideology and although taking a mimetic approach would be

reductive, in its suggestion that literature is always a reflection of the contemporary political and social world,

it cannot be denied that early literature was informed by theories and beliefs “concerning the superiority of

European culture and the righteousness of empire”. 1 These attitudes were widely held by the English

population when the novel emerged in the late 17th and early 18th century, not to mention rarely challenged.2

Nonetheless, this did not mean texts discussing - and contesting - colonial ideology more overtly were absent.

Aphra Behn’s 1688 short, fictional prose Oroonoko 3 is a perfect example of this, in its open exploration of the

“chaotic, carnivalesque colonial space” and initial alignment with an enslaved, Black man. 4 However, the

relationship with colonial ideology in Oroonoko is more complex than a surface reading may indicate,

resulting in a text that both corroborates with and criticises the colonial enterprise. Since then, works

explicitly challenging and even subverting colonialist themes and ideas have become more prominent; with

new forms of writing coming into fruition, predicated on the existence of, and demand for the end of colonial

thought. With American Slave Narratives growing in publication in the 19 th century and the new distinctive

voice of the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s, which fuelled the Negritude movement and the celebration of

Black, vernacular traditions, it is no longer uncommon to encounter a piece of literature written by a Black

author – something which inherently defies colonial ideologies of white supremacy. 5 This is not to negate the

disastrous consequences of European colonialism which has, in Frantz Fanon’s terms, left “tinctures of decay”

across African nations, but rather it is important to note the vital literature that has arisen during the

Postcolonial era and integrated itself into the Anglo-American, literary canon. 6 Namely, Toni Morrison’s

Beloved (1987) which unflinchingly unpacks the impacts of plantation slavery in a Postmodern-Gothic light. 7

Or more recently, Akwaeke Emezi’s Bildungsroman, Freshwater (2018) which, through the voices of several

Igbo cosmological spirits, explores the complexity of growing up in the liminal space between two cultures

and multiple identities.8 Both of these literary works shamelessly and rightfully break boundaries in both their

1
Elleke Boehmer, Colonial & Postcolonial Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 3.
2
Franco Moretti, “History of the Novel, Theory of the Novel” Novel: A Forum on Fiction, vol. 43, no. 1 (2010): 1-10.
3
Aphra Behn, Oroonoko, The Rover & Other Works (London: Penguin Classics, 1992).
4
Albert J. Rivero, “Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko and the ‘Blank Spaces’ of Colonial Fictions” Studies in English Literature, 1500-
1900, vol. 39, no. 3 (Summer, 1999): 444.
5
Boehmer, Colonial & Postcolonial Literature, 180-223.
6
Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, trans. Constance Farrington (London: Penguin Books, 2001.) 200.
7
Toni Morrison, Beloved (London: Random House Vintage, 2007).
8
Akwaeke Emezi, Freshwater (London: Faber and Faber, 2018).
3

themes and their very creation, but also in their refusal to comply with colonial ideologies which have dictated

the past and present of the colonised for too long.

Oroonoko was written at a time when the sudden onset of European migration, as a result of the

growth of the plantation industry, welcomed a newfound desire to explore and ‘decipher’ unfamiliar spaces.

Spaces that were deemed “blank” as critic Albert Rivero identifies it, and therefore suitable locations for the

projection of European imagination and fascination. 9 This depiction of remote lands presented itself in a

seemingly innocent, ethnographic light, but in reality, authors’ selection of ‘exotic’ people and places was just

another way of transforming ‘the other’ into a profitable, imperialist commodity. 10 Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko is

no stranger to this idea, and whilst it has been tentatively described as the “first literary abolitionist text on

record”, Behn’s ambivalence towards colonial supremacy proves otherwise. 11 This ambivalence is what Moira

Ferguson identifies as having generated a paradigm for British colonialist discourse; demonstrating that

sympathy and alignment with an enslaved person was not enough to subvert colonial ideology and challenge

the brutal treatment of non-white people in literature. 12 If anything, the construction of Surinam and the

enslaved people of West Africa from Behn’s point of view only perpetuates Eurocentric ways of seeing,

which innately intensifies the commodification of Black people for the pleasure of white readers. Thus, it

could be said that Behn’s engaged and personable first-person narration is fundamental in Oroonoko’s failed

attempt at challenging colonial ideology.

The text opens with a claim to authenticity in which Behn, the assumed narrator, testifies to her “eye-

witness” account of the “gallant slave” (Behn, 75) in Surinam. In her attempts to claim literary authority,

Behn sets up a ‘gaze’ that allows her to exercise control over the narrative and consequently over Oroonoko’s

life. Whilst Behn is somewhat biased towards Oroonoko, exalting his military accomplishments, repeatedly

emphasising his “absolute generosity” and even describing his appearance as bearing “the standard of true

beauty” (Behn, 80-81), the power imbalance created through Behn’s race, relegates Oroonoko to an object of

9
Rivero, “Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko and the ‘Blank Spaces’ of Colonial Fictions” 445-447.
10
Ibid.
11
Mary Anne O’Donnell, Aphra Behn: An annotated Bibliography of Primary and Secondary Sources (New York: Garland,
1986), 380-392.
12
Moira Ferguson, “Oroonoko: Birth of a Paradigm” New Literary History, vol. 23, no. 2 (1992): 339-59.
4

curiosity and even at times fetishization, which in turn preserves colonial hierarchies. This idea of

fetishization becomes more apparent if we examine how Behn continuously illustrates Oroonoko’s appearance

in comparison to white, European standards. He is deemed intelligent because he has a rich knowledge of the

Romans as well as the civil wars and monarchs of England (Behn, 80); His dominance of European languages

such as French and English also elevates him in Behn’s eyes, not to mention that his “well-bred” nature

(Behn, 80) and lack of barbarity is repeatedly mentioned, paralleling him to a tamed animal or, in the context

of the Jacobean era, a civil white-European. Thus, it becomes clear to see that Oroonoko is enslaved by Aphra

Behn’s slender worldview, which situates European standards of beauty and intelligence as the ideal model

for human beings. Moreover, in retelling Oroonoko’s story, it is Behn’s inner world that the reader is

connected with rather than Oroonoko who is, like many slaves, robbed of the opportunity for self-definition

and a sense of interiority. One could even go as far to say, that in Behn’s objectification of Oroonoko’s

“ebony” or “polished jet” skin (Behn, 81) the only real exploration of his humanity is when he is paralleled to

Europeans, as in any other descriptions ‘other’ him for his skin colour and heritage. Therefore, as readers we

cannot rely on Behn to deliver a narrative that subverts colonial ideology, because the theories of racial and

cultural supremacy utilised to mobilize imperialist desires dictated how English authors observed and

recorded their world.13

Whilst Aphra Behn’s titular character is deprived of a sense of interiority and true identity, Toni

Morrison’s Beloved explicitly seeks to assume control over the self and of African American existence which

had been consciously neglected during the slave trade. 14 She ponders in particular what freedom would look

like for Black women, stating in her foreword that the exploration of such a thing was like a blank canvas:

“riveting” but also inevitably overwhelming (Morrison, xi). It meant coming to terms with a past of

oppression and disempowerment that “hurt” at “every mention” (Morrison, 69), and recognising the cathartic

value of articulating what was deemed as “unspeakable” (Morrison, 69). This concept of giving voice to the

silent and silenced was the understated mission of all Black women authors according to literary critic Claudia

Tate and played a crucial role in the dismantling of deep-rooted colonial ideologies within the literary sphere

13
Boehmer, Colonial & Postcolonial Literature, 36.
14
Valerie Smith, “Chapter 10: Neo-Slave Narratives” in The Slave Narrative and the African American Literary Tradition, ed.
Audrey Fisch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 168-184.
5

and everyday life.15 Toni Morrison carries out this task through Sethe and her family’s ‘rediscovery’ and

rekindling of old, traumatic memories, which reveal themselves through a deeply layered, non-linear narrative

that shifts seamlessly between time and space. The use of flashbacks arguably imitates how humans live their

own lives, with constant interjectory thoughts and memories fluctuating back and forth through our minds,

deliberately destabilizing the reader as they piece together Sethe’s fragmented reality. Whilst challenging, the

disjointed narrative aligns the reader, regardless of their background, with victims and descendants of the

slave trade, as they attempt to negotiate the trauma inflicted by their past. Moreover, it subverts colonial

notions of black womanhood as static and singular, emphasising instead their multidimensional and complex

reality. In doing so, Morrison transforms time and history into something palpable; an all-consuming force

that can only be reconciled with through careful dissection, but as Morrison highlights through the

supernatural force of Beloved, can never be fully exiled. The baby ghost who plagues the domestic realm is

not only a fleshly existence, but a manifestation of guilt, and also a supernatural embodiment of the painful

memories that come with being a victim of slavery; She is intrinsically bound to Sethe not through the body

but in a mystical way, “I am not separate from her, there is no place where I stop.” (Morrison, 248). This

echoes the writings of early slave narratives which through multiple discourses cultivated complex identities;

writing of not only physical enslavement but of spiritual captivity. 16 This idea of the self as an intricate entity

is reinforced through the pronoun filled pages, constantly shifting from “I” to “her”, which serve to remind the

reader of our subjective experiences, but the inevitable influence on one another. Critic Trudier Harris situates

this conflict at the centre of important discussions, positing the idea that the novel “is a continuous site of

contestation…porous categories lead to more fruitful lines of inquiry about those items treated within a

discipline.”. In other words, following Trudier’s theory, the constant overlapping and blurring of different ideas in

Beloved, whether those be genre tropes, settings, or voices, are fundamental in highlighting the ‘un-narratability’ of

the harsh and complex lived reality of those who descended from or experienced first-hand, the brutality of being

enslaved. 17 Epitomised through the unsettling, opening line “124 was spiteful. Full of baby’s venom” (Morrison, 4)

which combines the ambiguity of Postmodern novels with the ‘evil’, supernatural hauntings of the and the

15
Claudia Tate, Black Women Writers at Work (London: Oldcastle Books, 1985).
16
Philip Gould, “Chapter 1: The Rise, Development and Circulation of the Slave Narrative” in The Slave Narrative and the
African American Literary Tradition, ed. Audrey Fisch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 12-14.
17
Trudier Harris, “Genre” The Journal of American Folklore, vol. 108, no. 430 (1995): 509-527
Smith, “Chapter 10: Neo-Slave Narratives” 179.
6

‘superstition and magic’ of the Black oral tradition.18 By recuperating these oral and mythic traditions, testifying to

the pre-colonial, richness of metaphysical systems and ways of thinking, Toni Morrison subverts the pervasive

colonial ideology that previously invalidated Black authors.

To conclude, these works written almost 300 years apart demonstrate the evolution of colonial discourses

in the Anglo-speaking literary sphere, from Oroonoko to Beloved and beyond. Fuelled by non-white authors’ search

for self-definition and the much-needed push for roots, origins, ancestors, or to put it simply a restorative history. 19

From a time when authors such as Joseph Conrad ideologically justified the racial and cultural superiority of

western nations; to the discovery of a redemptive moment in colonialism “for the celebration of our [African]

world, for the singing of the song of ourselves in the din of an insistent world and song of others” (Achebe, 3)

postcolonial ideas have propelled authors to dismantle the colonial ideologies present in literature through the

careful subversion of symbolic vocabulary, themes and ideas. Something which, Toni Morrison triumphs in.

Whereas Aphra Behn struggles to achieve in her neglection of the troubling questions about the greater institutional

forces playing a role in the colonial occupation and her own views of Oroonoko.

Bibliography

Behn, Aphra, Oroonoko, The Rover & Other Works. London: Penguin Classics, 1992.

Boehmer, Elleke. Colonial & Postcolonial Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.

Emezi, Akwaeke. Freshwater. London: Faber and Faber, 2018.

18
Toni Morrison, “Interview: Black Women Writers”, ed. M. Evans. (London: Pluto, 1985): 345-7.
19
Boehmer, Colonial & Postcolonial Literature, 180-187.
7

Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. Translated by Constance Farrington. London: Penguin Books,
2001.

Ferguson, Moira. “Oroonoko: Birth of a Paradigm” New Literary History, vol. 23, no. 2 (1992): 339-59.

Harris, Trudier. “Genre” The Journal of American Folklore 108, no. 430 (1995): 509-527.

Moretti, Franco. “History of the Novel, Theory of the Novel” Novel: A Forum on Fiction 43 (2010): 1-10.

Morrison, Toni. Beloved (London: Random House Vintage, 2007).

Morrison, Toni “Interview” In Black Women Writers, edited by M. Evan, 345-437. London: Pluto, 1985.

O’Donnell, Mary Anne. Aphra Behn: An annotated Bibliography of Primary and Secondary Sources. New
York: Garland, 1986.

Philip Gould, “Chapter 1: The Rise, Development and Circulation of the Slave Narrative” in The Slave
Narrative and the African American Literary Tradition, ed. Audrey Fisch (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2007), 12-14.

Rivero, Albert. J. “Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko and the ‘Blank Spaces’ of Colonial Fictions” Studies in English
Literature, 1500-1900 39, no. 3 (Summer, 1999).

Smith, Valerie. “Chapter 10: Neo-Slave Narratives”. In The Slave Narrative and the African American
Literary Tradition, edited by Audrey Fisch, 168-184. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

Tate, Claudia. Black Women Writers at Work. London: Oldcastle Books, 1985.