Allusion and Rebellion in Oroonoko

20 Pages·2004·0.58 MB·English

Caesar's Toils:
Allusion and Rebellion
in Oroonoko David E. Hoegberg
But those who came prepared for the business enclosed him on every
side, with their naked daggers in their hands. Which way soever he
turned he met with blows, and saw their swords levelled at his face
and eyes, and was encompassed, like a wild beast in the toils, on every
side.'
Plutarch's "Life of Caesar"
I
ncluded in the new sixth edition of the Norton Anthology of English
Literature, Aphra Behn's Omonoko has passed a literary milestone,
raising anew the question of how it fits into and plays against the literary
"canon" it is more and more coming to inhabit. While Omonoko's literary
indebtedness has often been noticed, critics have seldom examined how
specific literary allusions contribute to the novel's structure and meaning.'
Citing English heroic drama and French romance as immediate precursors
of Behn's work, they view her either as slavishly derivative or as holding
1 Plutarch. Lives of the Noble Crecionr ond Roms trans. John Dryden, revised by Anhur Hugh
Clough (New York: Modem Library, 1932), p. 892.
2 Exceptions include Adelaide P. Amore on the parallels between Oraanoko and Christ in her
introduction to Aphra Behn. Onmnoko, or, The Royol Slave: A Criticol Edition, ed. Adelaide P.
Amore (Lanham, New York. and London: University Press of America. 1987). pp. xxrii-xxxiii;
Laura Brown on the links to literature memorializing Charles I in "The Romance of Empire:
Omonob and the Trade in Slaves." Thc New Eighteenth Century, ed. Felicity Nussbaum and
Laura Brown (New York and London: Methuen. 19871, pp. 57-59; and Margaret Ferguson on
the parallels with Shakespeare's Othello in "luggling the Categories of Race. Class and Gender:
Aphra Behn's Omonoko," Women'.? Studies 19 (1991). 169-73.
EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION. Volume 7. Number 3. April 1995
240 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION
a politically conservative ide~logyO.~n e view produces a picture of Behn
as a marginally competent artist following older models, while the other
ignores the possibility that Behn's use of convention might be in part
subversive. Its subversion does not lie, however, in portraying successful
rebellions against those in power-Oroonoko and Imoinda are defeated
both at home and abroad-but in revealing the mechanisms by which
power operates, including both physical force and subtle forms of mental
or psychological control.'
Robert Chibka has already done extensive work on the role of deceit
by whites in manipulating Oro~nokob,~ut consciously crafted deceit is
only one form of mental control. I would liet o extend Chibka's work to
consider the role of plot in the novel's structures of domination, not only
the plot of Oroonoko itself, but the way it alludes to and incorporates pre-
existing classical narrative models, especially those of Achilles and Julius
Caesar. At every stage of his life, Oroonoko is dominated by texts that
shape his career in ways he cannot controL6 While his authority to act
as an independent being is wrested from him, the authorship of his life
story is complicated by literary allusions so that questions of constraint
and freedom become wrapped up with questions of literary indebtedness
and originality. In Oroonoko, the allusions form a supplement to Behn's
text that deepens the analysis of power and its problems. If the main plot
tells the story of Oroonoko's struggles against the old king, the English
captain, and Byam, the allusions-and the processes of mental control
they suggest-tell a story of Oroonoko's struggle against less tangible
forces of ideology and belief.
To read Behn's allusions as more than literary homage or political nos-
talgia we must look beyond the standard heroic qualities associated with
each character. When considered in a static or synchronic mode, war-
rior heroes such as Achilles and Caesar, by virtue of their fighting skill
3 See Mattine Watson Bmwnley, 'The Narrator in Oroonoko," &says in Literature: Western
Illinois Universiry 4 (1977). 174-81; Katherine M. Rogers. "Fact and Fiction in Aphra Behn's
Omonoko." Studies in the Novel 20 (Spring 1988). 1-15; William C. Spengemann, "The Earliest
American Novel: Aphra Behn's Oroonoko." Nineteenth-Century Fiction 38 (1984). 384414:
Rose A. Zimbardo, "Aphra Behn in Search of the Novel," Studier in Eighteenth-Century Culture
19 (1989). 277-87.
4 My d~st~ncl~hoerne 1s rtmilar lu one between 'direct conuol" and "hegemony" made by Antonlo
Gramm. 'The Inlellectuds." Plcrnonr from ,he Pnmn Notebwk, zd and tram Quanun Hoare
and Geoffrey Nowell Smlth (New York lnlema~onalh bllrhen. 1971), p I?
5 Robert L. Chibka, "'Oh! Do Not Fear a Woman's Invention': Truth, Falsehood, and Fiction in
Aphra BeWs Oroonoko." Tcxw Studies in Literature andhguage 30 (Winter 1988). 5IS37.
6 Sandra M. Gilhen and Susan Gubar discuss the idea that authors are ownen and masters of the
characters in their texts in Thc Modworn in the Attic: The WornW riter nnd the Nincteenth-
Cenlury Literary / ~ g i ~ t i(oNnew Haven and London: Yale University Press. 1979), p. 7.
CAESAR'S TOILS: ALLUSION AND REBELLION IN OROONOKO 241
and devotion to honour, often become symbols of aristocratic male virtue.
The synchronic view, however, may ignore the narratives or plots that
place the hero in relation to other characters and in cultural, geographical,
and historical contexts that add complexity to the messages or implied
ideologies of the story. (In the Iliad, for example, Achilles comes to ques-
tion some aspects of the aristocratic system he represents. Should he not,
therefore, be seen as a symbol of radicalism as well as a warrior hero?)
The diachronic view acknowledges contextual elements-webs of rela-
tions and changes over time-that make characters more than "stock"
figures. The potential for complexity is compounded when heroic nar-
ratives become the models or scripts for another character's behaviour,
since the weaving of one narrative into another increases the number of
contextual variables affecting the "meaning" of the allusion.' The allu-
sions can thus be seen as sites of ideological struggle and not only as
examples of the dominant ideology against which struggle is m~unted.~
Before I discuss the first heroic allusion in Oroonoko, let me illustrate
the more general process of mental control that forms one of the novel's
central concerns. Oroonoko's native culture in Coramantien instils in him
several important values that function like scripts to limit and shape his
actions. We learn that Oroonoko and Imoinda are required by custom to
inform the king of their intent to marry: "There is a certain Ceremony
in these cases to be obsew'd ... 'twas concluded on both sides, that in
obedience to him, the Grandfather was to be first made acquainted with
the Design: For they pay a most absolute Resignation to the Monarch,
7 My use of the terms "synchronic" and "diachronic" as well as the idea of well-known myths
as "scripts" that can shape social interanion is influenced by the work of Victor Turner, Dro-
m, Fields md Merophors: Symbolic Action in Human Society (Ithaca and London: Comell
University Press. 1974), especially pp. 35-36 and p. 123.
8 1 am here taking issue with Laura Brown where she argues that "In Behn's text 'reductive
normalizing' is ched out Uvough literary convention, and specifically through that very can-
vention most effectively able to fix and codify the experience of radical alterity, the arbitrary
love and honor codes of heroic romance" (0. 49). Marv Louise PraU's essay. from which the
phrace "nducttvc narmdtnng" is taken, m;lkei a &rnctiun beween "mfom~onala"n d '.expe.
nentlal" d~srourscsth at e s~mlatro the synchrantcld~achronlcd nst~ncnonl employ The typleal
way uf normaliring the culonial natne rs to reduce hb&r to 3 slatlc IN of "mannen and uui-
tom." Experiential nanatives may be equally reductive, h na rgues, but have a greater potential
for parody, dialogism, and critique because they portray "situated human subjects" (p. 150). See
Prau, "Scratches on the Face of the Country; or, What Mr. Barrow Saw in the Land of the Bush-
men," in "Race," Writing, Md Difference, ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press. 1986). pp. 138-62.
242 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION
especially when he is a Parent also."9 The respect they are obliged to pay
is accompanied by, or encoded in, a "Ceremony" or model for action,
while the king's power arises in part from his ability to manipulate such
scripts for his own ends. Influenced by his "Court-Flatterers," he decides
he wants Imoinda for himself and turns to another cultural custom, the
"Royal Veil" or "Ceremony of Invitation," by which any woman he
chooses is "secur'd for the King's Use; and 'tis Death to disobey; besides,
held a most impious Disobedience" (p. 140).
In these scenes Behn describes the actions of both parties as tied to
ritualized narrative or diachronic patterns known within the culture. Fur-
thermore, these patterns have a certain power over the participants that
can override their resistance to specific rulers and events."' Oroonoko
and Imoinda fall automatically into the "ceremony" of obedience to the
king, with no thought that this may be against their interests ultimately.
The king takes a more consciously manipulative approach, assessing his
interests first and then choosing an appropriate "ceremony." A com-
bination of custom and the king's desire-internal belief and external
political power-forms the text that ensures Oroonoko's romantic mis-
ery. The intangible bonds hold him more securely than physical bonds,
as he recognizes when he cries:
were she in wall'd Cities, or confin'd from me in Fortifications of the greatest
Strength; did Inchantments or Monsters detain her from me; I would venture
thro* any Hazard to free. her; But here, in the Arms of a feeble old Man, my
Youth, my violent Love, my Trade in Arms, and all my vast Desire of Glory,
avail me nothing. (p. 142)
The old man's strength lies in his political power, which is linked to
his symbolic place within the cultural belief system, and against this
. Oroonoko is restrained by his own virtuous will, which shuns "impious
Disobedience." Even the king's death would not free him from the bonds
of custom:
If I would wait tedious Years; till Fate should bow the old King to his Grave,
even that would not leave me Imoinda free; but still that Custom that makes
it so vile a Crime for a Son to marry his Father's Wives or Mistresses, would
9 Aphn Behn, Oroonob, The Worh of Aphra Behn, vol. 5, ed. Montague Summers (New York:
Benjamin Blorn, 1915). p. 139. References are to this edition.
10 See Turner: "Religious myths-md their episodic companents[canl constifute dramatic or
narrative process models which so influence social behavior that it acquires a strange pmfessual
inevitability overriding questions of intenst, expediency, or even morality" (p. 122).
CAESAR'S TOILS: ALLUSION AND REBELLION IN OROONOKO 243
hinder my Happiness; unless I would either ignobly set an ill Precedent to my
Successors, or abandon my Country, and fly with her to some unknown World
who never heard our Story. (pp. 142-43)
Oroonoko sees that he can gain Imoinda only by escaping custom through
criminal acts, thus becoming a social outsider, or by fleeing to another
"World," something he will do, though not by choice.
Despite his inclination towards obedience, Oroonoko rebels against
the king by planning to see Imoinda in secret, but his arrangements are
neither well designed nor effective. He is caught making love to Imoinda
when he might have been wiser to use the time to escape and, although he
has the opportunity to bring her aivay with him when the king's guards
retreat, he leaves her to be punished for his crime.
Oroonoko's motives are hard to fathom here. Even when he chooses
rebellion, there is something that steers him towards acquiescence to
the king's power, and when he breaks laws, he does not go far enough
to secure Imoinda for himself. The outcome of his ill-planned rebellion,
therefore, is that Imoinda is more than ever lost to him. Could he not have
anticipated this result? Why did he not mount a military coup or escape
with her when he had the chance? Such questions can be answered by
arguing that it is Behn not Oroonoko who is inept: Oroonoko's reasoning
is inscrutable because the narrative here is poorly constructed, and it is
poorly constructed because the author cares more about setting up the
reunion in Surinam than she does about psychological realism.
I prefer to assume that Behn used the long African section of her
novel to make some serious points about the nature of political power.
Oroonoko's actions become more plausible if we see here the work of a
kind of hegemony that keeps his beliefs and choices within the prevailing
discourse of power. According to Antonio Gramsci, hegemony is "the
'spontaneous' consent given by the great masses of the population to the
general direction imposed on social life by the dominant fundamental
group."" The word "spontaneous" is in quotation marks because the
consent of the masses is not without cause: it is caused by the prestige of
the dominant group, that is, by a pervasive belief in the dominant group's
superiority and in the superiority of the laws that protect it. Throughout
this section of the novel, custom and law work to fulfil the king's desires
and to frustrate Oroonoko's, yet Oroonoko acts like one who believes he
can achieve no more than an inconsequential and symbolic resistance.
I I Gramsci. p. 12.
244 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION
Although he may question specific acts of the king, he neither questions
nor flees from the system that gives rise to the king's prestige (and his
own).
Behn places her allusion to Achilles in the context of Oroonoko's
repeated attempts to circumvent the king's authority without assaulting
the underlying belief system. The king sells Imoinda into slavery but
tells Oroonoko that he has killed her. Oroonoko's response to the news
of Imoinda's "death" is to withdraw from warfare and refuse to fight the
king's enemies. This departure from the king's script follows a script
of its own drawn not from African culture but from European tradition.
In a virtual summary of the Iliad, the narrator describes how Oroonoko
withdraws from battle after his favourite woman is taken by the king.
The chiefs of the army beg him to return to the battlefield, "But he made
no other Reply to all their Supplications than this, That he had now no
more Business for Glory; and for the World, it was a Trifle not worth
his Care" (p. 157). Without him, Oroonoko's troops are routed by the
enemy, "who pursued 'em to the very tents" (p. 158). At last Oroonoko
enters the battle and turns defeat into victory by fighting, lie Achilles,
"as if he came on Purpose to die" (p. 159).
Oroonoko cannot escape from one script without entering another. Fol-
lowing Achilles' script, he returns to battle, is reconciled with the king,
makes a triumphant return from the wars, and is "belov'd like a Deity" (p.
160). but he has lost the person dearest to him. The allusion to Achilles
functions on several levels at once. By further defining Oroonoko's char-
acter it both ennobles and confines him. Behn increases our appreciation
of Oroonoko's military prowess, and at the same time condemns him to
live Achilles' painful life. Did she intend to compliment Oroonoko with-
out understanding the full implications of her allusion? Does her use of
a tragic pattern indicate a form of racism that will not allow a black
hero to succeed? The context of the allusion I have described suggests
that Behn, while she may be racist in other ways, is here concerned to
show the difficulties inherent in any attempt to resist state power. Harm-
ing one's enemies may harm one's friends as well, so that both action
and inaction are loaded choices. Achilles and Oroonoko, although from
different eras, places, and racial backgrounds, face similar obstacles.
They also share a rather ambiguous political position. Achilles is dis-
satisfied with his treatment by Agamemnon but has the power to question
and retaliate only because he is a strong and respected leader who has
benefited in the past from the established system of conquests and re-
wards. Similarly, Oroonoko's ability to court and claim Imoinda arises
CAESAR'S TOILS: ALLUSION AND REBELLION IN OROONOKO 245
from his status as prince, general, and member of the courtly inner cir-
cle. Both Oroonoko and Achilles, as men, have privileges that effectively
limit the scope of any rebellion they might mount. Disputing over women,
they are unlikely to challenge the custom that gives them the right to en-
gage in such disputes in the first place, that is, the commodification of
women. While part of the heroism of these figures is their questioning
of authority, neither story allows for full-scale revolution or social reor-
ganization. One effect of Behn's allusion, therefore, is to deepen rather
than simplify our sense of the complexities involved in political struggle,
for rebellions take place in cultural contexts.
There is also the level of Oroonoko's consciousness to be considered.
He has been educated in European ways, can converse in French, English,
and Spanish, and "knew almost as much as if he had read much" (p.
135). Imitating Achilles may, therefore, be a conscious choice. If so, it
is interesting that he chooses a European hero to imitate, as if, having
exhausted the options offered by his own culture, he were searching for a
new, more effective script. Achilles' script brings him glory. Immersing
himself in the male wodd of camps and battles, he begins to overcome
his grief, but he does not gain political or romantic power. Although he
tries to act independently, Oroonoko is not in control of his own destiny,
but is subjugated by alien texts.
Oroonoko's return and reconciliation with the king coincide with the
amval of the English ship and the beginning of a new phase in his career.
Now a colonial power replaces the domestic state power in Oroonoko's
life, functioning in a similar way but with more horrifying results. Like
the king, the captain uses deceit to maintain power over Oroonoko, and
Behn shows that colonial power also has a subtle literary or narrative
dimension. At the moment of Oroonoko's capture by the captain, the
narrator adds another text to the list of those confining Oroonoko. She
writes: "It may be easily guess'd, in what Manner the Prince resented
this Indignity, who may be best resembled to a Lion taken in a Toil;
so he raged, so he struggled for Liberty, but all in vain" (p. 162). The
figure of a lion in toils has a complex literary history that must have been
familiar to Behn. It is an allusion to Plutarch's "Life of Julius Caesar,"
which appeared in a new translation between 1683 and 1686. Describing
Caesar's assassination by the senators, Plutarch says that Caesar "was
encompassed, like a wild beast in the toils, on every side" (p. 892).
246 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION
Although Oroonoko will not be dubbed "Caesar" by his white owner
until he arrives in Surinam, Behn suggests that, from the moment of his
capture, he is already caught up in Caesar's script. Plutarch's image of a
beast in toils occurs at Caesar's death, but Behn uses the allusion early
in her story, thereby suggesting that Oroonoko's end is already written
at the time of his capture. For Oroonoko, to be renamed "Caesar" is to
have his life symbolically rewritten. Thereafter, try as he might to rebel,
he plays the part in a white colonial drama of one who is too strong
and dangerous a leader to be trusted, whose popularity with the masses
threatens those in power. Like Julius Caesar, Oroonoko will be undone,
not only by enemies, but also by those who appear to be his friends
and, like Caesar, he will be remembered as a martyr defeated not by
honourable battle but by treachery.
This allusion has another source, which provides a colonial parallel to
Oroonoko's predicament. In act one, scene two of Dryden's The Indian
Emperour, Montezuma, King of the Aztecs, observes that he is sur-
rounded by romantic enemies, the result of involvements that he, his two
sons, and his daughter have with relatives of his old antagonists in The In-
dian Queen, ~em~oalalnad Traxalla: "My Lyon-heart is with Loves toyls
beset, I Strugling I fall still deeper in the net."12 No sooner has he spo-
ken than he learns that he is surrounded by military enemies as well. A
guard enters and announces that the Spaniards, led by Cortez, have sur-
rounded them. Montezuma and his group are "compast round (line 196)
and "inclos'd (line 204) by "swarming bands I Of ambush'd men" (lines
193-94). Although Montezuma had used the "toyl" metaphor in the con-
text of love, events on stage show that it is also an accurate description
of colonialism, as he is caught simultaneously in the net of love and in
the net of Cortez's conquest.
Although Dryden may have had Plutarch in mind when he used this
image,') there is no other evidence in the play suggesting a parallel
between Montezuma and Caesar. It fell to Behn to link these two heroes
to Oroonoko by means of an image that could be traced back to both
texts. Her explicit use of the name "Caesar" suggests that Plutarch is
the more important of the two predecessors, yet Dryden's play may
have given Behn ideas about depicting a colonial struggle in literature.
12 The Wwkv ,f John Dryden, ed. Edward Niles Hooker and H.T. Swedenberg, Jr. (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1956). vol. 9 (1966). I.ii.182-83. Funher references in the text
are to line numbers of this scene.
13 See James Winn, John Dryden and His World (New Haven and London: Yak University Press,
19871, p. 388, for Dryden's contribution to the translation of Plutarch's Lives.
CAESAR'S TOILS: ALLUSION AND REBELLION IN OROONOKO 247
Like Oroonoko, Montezuma is a strong leader who resists enslavement
and, although he scoffs at the Spaniards' religious rhetoric, always acts
honourably towards his enemies. Dryden interweaves gender and colonial
conflicts in his play in a way Behn might also have found useful. Finally,
Dryden contrives to have the lion-in-toils simile enacted onstage when
Montezuma is tied up and tortured by the priest; as we shall see, Behn
uses a similar technique at the end of her work.
As if this were not enough, Behn herself had used a similar image in
1677 in a play entitled Abdelazer; or, The Moor's Revenge. Its titular hero
is prince of the north African kingdom of Fez, which has been conquered
by Spain, its king having been killed and Abdelazer taken captive to
Spain. Although he is treated well by the Spanish king and becomes a
general, he nevertheless refers to his captivity as "Sla~ery"'a~n d tries
to avenge himself by claiming not only the throne of Fez but also that
of Spain. Through a combination of martial prowess and court intrigue
he almost succeeds but is captured by the Spaniards and executed. Just
before he is stabbed to death, Abdelazer says:
As humble Huntsmen do the generous Lion;
Now thou darst see me lash my Sides, and roar,
And bite my Snare in vain; ...
And like that noble Beast, though thus betray'd,
I've yet an awful Fierceness in my Looks,
Which makes thee fear t'approach; and 'tis at distance
That thou dar'st kill me; for come but in my reach,
And with one Grasp I wou'd confound thy Hopes. (p. 96)
The similarity to the threats Oroonoko hurls at his hunters before being
taken in the woods and to the stabbing of Caesar is obvious.
To say that Behn associates this image with the exercise of colonial
power is not to say that she always sympathizes with the colonized: Ab-
delazer is guilty of several moral outrages that mitigate his claim to
justice, and the narrator's ambivalence towards Oroonoko has been well
documented." Yet in both these images, and especially in Omonoko,
14 Aphra Behn. Abdelaer; or. The Moor's Revenge, val. 2 of Workr, p. 14. As lines are not
numbered in this edition, references are to page numbers. Ct Mqaret Ferguson's article above.
which first directed me to this play (p. 179~31).
15 In addition to Brown, Chibka, and Margaret Ferguson, see far example Moira Ferguson, Subjecr
to Others: British Women Writerr ond Colonial Slavery, 1670-1834 (New York: Routledge, 1992),
chao. 2: Wv,l ie Sv',o her. Guinea's Cootivc Kinss: British Anti-Slouem Literature of the XVlllrh
('mrun ~ChnpelH dl Ilnt\erw) ol Nonh (:unlln3 h:r,. 19321, pp 110-13. M~chaelE iheruu.
7he C,,ndc,~~~tedlnury~no/~r,,r,m,,tS hirhpnrrr I,, CmnJ (Ncu York Holmec md Llmr, 197x1,
248 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION
Behn is searching for a way to express not only the rage of the colo-
nial victim but also the pervasive nature of the encompassing power,
which is represented by the snare or net. By moving the image to the be-
ginning of Oroonoko's captivity, as in Dryden, rather than placing it at
the end, as in Plutarch and Abdelazer, she emphasizes the scripted na-
ture of Oroonoko's slavery, its tendency to follow an existing pattern to
a preordained conclusion.
Instead of the word "snare," she employs the less common "toil," used
also by Plutarch and Dryden. A look at the etymology of this word may
help to explain her choice. The English word "toil" for a hunter's net
comes from the Old French toile and the Latin tela, both meaning a
web or net. Other words that come from the same Indo-European root-
syllable are "text," from the Latin texere, to weave, and "technology,"
from the Greek tekhne, art, craft, or skill.lTtymology shows the con-
ceptual links between linguistic or narrative skill (textuality), physical
skill (technology), and military aggression (hunting), thereby deepen-
ing Behn's allusion. When used as a hunter's tool, the toil ensnares the
unsuspecting victim, symbolizing the hunter's power over his prey and
his disguise, since toils are always hidden. By analogy, the toil sug-
gests the colonialists' ability to hide their selfish and acquisitive motives
behind language that appears benign and selfless, as seen in the cap-
tain's actions. It represents also the power of texts or narratives to shape
proceedings in a colonial situation-the web of words used to ensnare
Oroonoko includes not just the deceit practised by the captain and Byam
but also the name "Caesar" and the biography that goes with it. All three
aspects of the word may be seen in the captain's capture of Oroonoko.
Caesar's political position, like that of Achilles, is complex. His ambi-
tion to become dictator rested upon successful foreign conquests, which
gave him the wealth necessary to buy influence and popular support and
to make his army intensely loyal. Similarly, Oroonoko's threat to colonial
power in Surinam is possible because he has won the loyalty and admi-
ration of the other slaves, who constitute a majority of the population."
His symbolic status stems from the power he used to conquer and sell
them into slavery in the first place. The ideological contradictions that
16 See the OED, s.v. "toiP' and The American Heritage Dictionary, Appendix of Indo-European
Roots, sv. 'tteks-."
17 The concern of white calonists over the Dower of a multitude oarallels that of Caesar's adversaries