Aphra Behn Essay

credibility. Looking specifically at Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko and Daniel Defoe’s Moll Flanders, Shaw’s definition becomes especially difficult to apply to Moll and Oroonoko’s narrator. While the novels should not be declared unsuccessful in their entireties, perhaps the sincerity claimed in both introductions only lessens their overall believability. In the opening lines of his preface, Defoe tells us, “the Author is here suppos’d to be writing her own History” (1). Behn makes a similar claim in his novel:

This question is addressed in both Oroonoko by Aphra Behn and The Vampyre: A Tale by John William Polidori, where the theme of Betrayal is the inevitable soul of each story. The main focal point of Oroonoko follows the lies, deceit, and betrayal that the honorable Prince Oroonoko faces. The narrator describes him as someone whose “honour was such as he never had violated a word in his life himself, much less a solemn asseveration,” (Behn, 123). Aphra Behn focuses on the theme of betrayal on account

Elin Diamond takes an insightful look at a time when the identity of females was being displayed in a false way in restoration theatre. What breaks down is the themes that chained females to their place in society while also uncovering why a female playwright, given her awareness of these problems that surrounded her and females around her, blatantly used and exploited these methods in her writing throughout her life. The apparatus, or enabler of this happening is pulled apart first. She goes into

Anti-colonization and dehumanization in Oroonoko In Oroonoko, Aphra Behn sheds light on the horrors of slavery and expansionism that Britain was conducting while assembling its overseas empire. Behn paints the majority of the white colonists as unmitigated illustrations of greed, dishonesty, and brutality. Through these depraved individuals, Behn regularly articulates the barbarism innate in British nature as opposed to the African prince Oroonoko, whom is conveyed as the quintisential model of

The intensity of his arousal seems to be his weakness as he pursues Cloris more into the story. However, his male power is shown through the imagery when the author says, “His burning, trembling hand he pressed/ Upon her swelling snowy breast.” (Behn, line 36-37) This imagery of fire versus ice at first glance shows the power between the male gender role and the female gender role. Yet although Lysander is portrayed as ‘trembling’ he still has power over Cloris. This could be a way of showing that

Formal Reading Response for Equiano and Behn In Olaudah Equiano’s piece called the The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, he describes a trip with many enslaved black people on a ship where the conditions were not sustainable for their lives. The majority of this passage describes the horrible actions done to the enslaved. However, Equiano also uses the word “magic” to describe the situation. I believe he does this to show the reader how he was not use to white men and their lifestyle

Upon reading Aphra Behn's, "The Widow Ranter", it is impossible not to notice the similarities and parallels between the events and characters of the play and those of the English Civil War. These similarities may at first appear to be mere coincidences, it is true that may civil wars are innately comparable to each other; however it is not the case of The Widow Ranter. In The Widow Ranter, Behn artfully constructs and construes a story which carries a message. In order to clarify and justify Behn's

in dialogue. Aphra Behn uses her poem, "The Disappointment," as an opportunity to respond to common tropes found in male-authored writing. In lines 111-140, Behn dismantles Lysander's masculinity in "The Disappointment" through comparisons to figures from Greek mythology, thus creating situational irony around his character's ego. In stripping Lysander of "all his awful fires" (ll. 113) in this selection, Behn reveals Lysander's true feelings of impotence and, by extension, women. Behn immediately

examined the issues of gender and/or female sexuality in their texts by mainly focusing on the female body. By exploring the sexuality of females, authors were able to contemplate complex issues of morality and identity. Authors such as John Wilmot, Aphra Behn, and Eliza Haywood used their works to suggest the double standards aids our understanding of power relations between the sexes in the household, and political and religious affairs. Each of these authors portrays feminine sexuality and the female

Jordan Thomas English Novel I 2 October 2017 Michael Gavin   Slavery and Racism in Behn’s “Oroonoko” and 17th Century Surinam   Oroonoko: or, the Royal Slave, a novel by Aphra Behn, is widely known as either the first or one of the earliest ever novels written in English. It is also particularly notable for being written by a professional female writer, containing a mostly abolitionist narrative, and featuring a white female narrator and a black hero- namely, a royal black hero. The novel, originally