Like the mysteries surrounding the seven wonders of the world, so do the details that center Aphra Behn’s origins and ancestry. However, what is apparent is her brilliance and ingenuity in creating literary masterpieces that captured the zeitgeist of her time. Behn’s journey with authorship is linked to her experience with financial depravity and purported incarceration because she failed to settle her debts (Lotha, 2019). One could therefore say that her tribulations were the epitome of what is considered a necessary evil, because not only did she benefit financially but her literature also guaranteed her an immortalized existence. Behn remains a wonder not only for her mastery of writing but more so because of the conditions that pervaded the socio-cultural climate in which she lived. It therefore, becomes important to highlight that during the time of her writing  England was undergoing a period of Restoration, a time when King Charles II returned from France and was restored to the throne, it was an era marked by moral decadence as King Charles II sought to dissolve England’s strict Puritan value system and replace it with a more relaxed sense of morality, one which replicated that which he had experienced while he remained exiled in France; with the changes implemented by England’s newly restored monarch came an immense radical social transformation and an emergent preoccupation with science; However, although, all these changes were taking place what remained a socio-political fixture was the existence of a patriarchal system that forced women to live under a highly suppressive social regime. It is against this backdrop that Behn’s progress and achievement as a paid female Restoration writer leaves many in awe and propelled Virginia Woolf to pay homage to her in the fourth chapter of her work A Room of One’s Own when she penned the lines: “All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn which is, most scandalously but rather appropriately, in Westminster Abbey, for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds.”

As a writer Behn dabbled in many literary genres, including poetry and prose fiction which she used as a means of making commentary on both the social and political controversial issues that were rampant at the time. Among her most celebrated piece of prose fiction is Oroonoko, a novel set in the Dutch colony Suriname and details the life experiences of a “royal slave” named Oroonoko and his love Imoinda as they navigate through the experience of coerced induction into slavery. To bring the storyline to life, Behn writes from a first-person perspective and this allowed her to seamlessly infuse herself into the narrative as both the narrator and an active bystander to the atrocities of slavery and the role it played in both Oroonoko’s and Imoinda’s tragic end. Behn opens, “I do not pretend, in giving you the history of this Royal Slave, to entertain my reader with the Adventures of a feign’d Hero, whose Life and Fortunes Fancy may manage at the Poet’s Pleasure,” and went further to assert, “I was my self an Eye-Witness to a great part, of what you will find here set down,” forcing the reader to critically assess her writing style in order to ascertain her intended purpose (8). Through the application of critical lens, one can easily deduce that the author’s extensive use of the pronoun “I” was centered on appealing to the reader’s conviction, it was an attempt to reassure her reading audience that her narrative was true, it was an attempt to validate her written account of the slavery experience so that her audience could confidently enjoy the vicarious experience of the phenomenon.

It is essential that readers pay close attention to the use of literary devices in Behn’s narrative, as this will play a crucial role in one’s ability to effectively evaluate and comprehend the essence of the author’s arguments. In her literary artistry Behn employed the use of a multiplicity of literary devices such as metaphors, allusions, hyperbole, and simile to vividly capture Oroonoko’s life, all while addressing themes centered on Racism, slavery, the Transatlantic slave trade, colonialism and/or anti-colonialism, capitalism, and European dominance. Behn writes,

And these people represented to me an absolute idea of the first state of innocence, before man knew how to sin. And 'tis most evident and plain that simple Nature is the most harmless, inoffensive, and virtuous mistress. 'Tis she alone, if she were permitted, that better instructs the world than all the inventions of man. Religion would here but destroy that tranquility they possess by ignorance; and laws would but teach 'em to know offense, of which now they have no notion. (10)

Within the context of this passage, Behn employs allusion as a key literary device. By comparing the immaculate state of existence of Surinam’s indigenous people to the state of idyllic innocence that, according to Christian doctrine pervaded man’s reality before any knowledge was garnered about evil and malevolent intent, a biblical allusion was being made to the “Garden of Eden.” The place that Christians believed man first inhabited and lived in a state of bliss because they were ignorant to the ways of the world. It is to be assumed that this was Behn’s attempt to scaffold her audience into ascertaining the precipitous contrast that existed between the good nature of the natives and the corrupt intent of the Colonialists and/or slave traders.  Through this literary undertaking, Behn was able to provide evidence that paradox the claims made by Europeans that the forceful resocialization and Christianization of indigenous people was a necessity to cure them of their “savagery.” This, consequently, sheds light on the fact that colonization and slavery were both economic constructs designed around trade as a mechanism to increase the wealth of Europe while further marginalizing the indigenous people.

The notion of beauty is another theme that Behn explores in her narrative. However, if the reader critically approaches the passages in which the author speaks on or alludes to beauty while placing it in juxtaposition to the literary devices that were employed to carrying her perspective on the matter to the fore, it will become evident that any notion of the concept held by the author is deeply rooted in the bias of Eurocentric idealism.  Let us examine the following passage from the novel:

This old dead hero had one only daughter left of his race, a beauty, that to describe her truly, one need say only, she was female to the noble male; the beautiful black Venus to our young Mars; as charming in her person as he, and of delicate virtues. I have seen a hundred white men sighing after her, and making a thousand vows at her feet, all in vain, and unsuccessful. And she was indeed too great for any but a prince of her own nation to adore. (Behn, 14)

This passage contains a potent infusion of allusion, hyperbole, and simile as literary devices/ elements. When the allusion is made that creates a parallel between Imoinda’s beautiful black countenance and that of the countenance of a white Goddess entrenched in Greek mythology, it becomes apparent that Behn was attempting to scaffold her audience into developing a mental image that effectively captured the magnitude of this Black woman’s beauty. Quintessentially, if she can be likened to the ideals of European standards of beauty then the magnitude of her physical aesthetic appeal cannot be denied. Further, when simile is used to liken Imoinda’s charm to that of Oroonoko it becomes apparent that Behn was trying to subliminally suggest that only two people whose beauty can surpass the “stain” of their blackness are truly worthy and deserving of each other. Also, within this context, extreme care is to be taken to avoid ignoring the importance of hyperbole use, because by exaggerating the magnitude of the effect that Imoinda’s beauty had in attracting the white male Behn was able to subliminally suggest that Imoinda was what Europe deemed to be the epitome of aesthetic appeal.

As Behn’s narrative is read it has the thought-provoking proclivity to lead the reader to question whether the author’s work challenged or offered a rebuke of the institution of slavery. Consequently, when Behn writes “’tis fit I tell you the manner of bringing them to these colonies; for those they make use of there, are not Natives of the place; for those we live with in perfect Amity, without daring to command ’em… trading with em for their fish” (8). In this assertion it is apparent that Behn is addressing the phenomenon of colonialism, but keen attention is to be paid to her descriptive effort. Behn romanticizes and downplays the rabid nature of the exchange that occurred between both Natives and Colonists. Instead of rebuking the injustice that prevailed in the theft of their resources and “the rape of their paradise.” Further, the author asserts:

We were no sooner arrived but we went up to the plantation to see Caesar; whom we found in a very miserable and unexpressable condition; and I have a thousand times admired how he lived in so much tormenting pain. We said all things to him that trouble, pity, and good-nature could suggest, protesting our innocency of the fact, and our abhorrence of such cruelties; making a thousand professions and services to him, and begging as many pardons for the offenders, till we said so much that he believed we had no hand in his ill treatment (58).

If keen attention is given to the way Behn reacted to Oroonoko’s plight it will become apparent that what she abhorred was not the institution of slavery itself, but rather she was in dire disagreement with how Oroonoko, the Royal Slave was being treated. In essence, Behn’s work contributed significantly to sensitizing readers on the institution of slavery, but her discourse was not one that was focused on condemning or rebuking the phenomenon because from Behn’s perspective slavery was a vital economic tool from which England and the rest of Europe benefitted handsomely.