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Violence and Awe: The Foundations of Government in Aphra Behn's New World Settings

1996; University of Toronto Press; Volume: 8; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/ecf.1996.0024

1911-0243

Richard Frohock,

Postcolonial and Cultural Literary Studies

Violence and Awe: The Foundations of Government in Aphra Behn's New World Settings.Richard Frohock In 1975 George Guffey called attention to the political topicality of Oroonoko, finding in it evidence of Behn's avid Toryism and parallels to the issues leading up to the Glorious Revolution.1 Recently, political readings of Behn's novel have become more frequent, though now a different kind of political reading, attending to the ideological issues of race, class, and gender.2 Oroonoko is resituated in its colonial context and attention is focused on colonial politics, slavery, trade, and gender. Such work makes clear that Behn's New World setting is more than a vehicle for commenting on post-Restoration domestic politics: it serves to theorize English colonial authority. 1 George Guffey, "Aphra Behn's Oroonoko: Occasion and Accomplishment," George Guffey and Andrew Wright, Two English Novelists: Aphra Behn and Anthony Trollope (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1975), pp. 1-41. Guffey argues that "Behn makes a strong argument for the absolute power of legitimate kings, and that, through a series of parallels between James and the mistreated royal slave Oroonoko, she attempts to gain the sympathy of her reader for James" (pp. 16-17). Maureen Duffy further explores this link, arguing that emotionally Oroonoko, lmoinda, and the unborn child are James n, Mary, and an unborn child. See The Passionate Shepherdess: Aphra Behn 1640-89 (London: Methuen, 1989), p. 275. 2 Calls for such political readings can be found in the introduction to The New Eighteenth Century : Theory, Politics, English Literature, ed. Laura Brown and Felicity Nussbaum (New York: Methuen, 1987), p. ii; introduction to Rereading Aphra Behn: History, Theory, and Criticism, ed. Heidi Hutner (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1993), pp. iü-iv, vi; and Laura Brown, Ends of Empire: Women and Ideology in Early Eighteenth-Century English Literature (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993, pp. 26-27. EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION, Volume 8, Number 4, July 1996 438 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION Behn writes her novel at the beginning of the first great age of English imperialism,3 and clearly she is enthusiastic about the possibilities ofNew World colonization. She describes the pleasantness and fruitfulness of the land in detail: it "affords all things both for Beauty and Use ... the Trees bearing at once all degrees of Leaves and Fruit, from blooming Buds to ripe Autumn: Groves of Oranges, Lemons, Citrons, Figs, Nutmegs, and noble Aromatics, continually bearing their Fragrancies."4 Convinced of the beauty and value of Surinam, Behn laments the loss of this English colony to the Dutch: "had his late Majesty, of sacred Memory, but seen and known what a vast and charming World he had been Master of in that Continent, he would never have parted so easily with it to the Dutch" (p. 48). Similarly, discussing the possibility of abundant gold in South America, Behn writes, "'tis to be bemoan'd what his Majesty lost by losing that part of America" (p. 59). The New World offers rich possibilities for the English nation if they can lay claim to it. Behn also provides a theoretical justification for English appropriation of the New World, recognizing that establishing and maintaining an English colony inevitably involves conflict, and not only with European nations such as the Netherlands. Surinam is occupied by Caribs and, under the colonial plantation system, the goods of the land are extracted through the labour of enslaved Africans. Any justification for the English colonialism in South America must therefore negotiate and legitimate the relationships between the English and the other racial and ethnic groups. As the principle of mere force might indicate the absence of a more just foundation for colonial order, Behn grounds colonialism in something other than the violence apparent in her novel. Locke formulates the general problem in his Second Treatise: a demonstration that government is more than the product of brute force requires showing the "Original of Political Power" and a way of "knowing the persons who have it."5 Behn's novel can be read as attempting to fulfil both these requirements. Behn, a royalist, grounds colonial power in what she identifies as the natural privilege of noble blood lines. This natural...