Metaphors In Oroonoko And Robinson Crusoe

Encounters with the Exotic: Metaphors in Oroonoko and Robinson Crusoe

Works of literature like Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko and Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe both serve as leading examples of the exotic-travel adventure novel, featuring intriguing tales of discovery. These discoveries are not just limited to first contact with foreign customs and cultures, as they also prove to be revelatory in terms of European values and attitudes on race and perhaps primarily, class and economics. Similarly to other eighteenth century fiction stories like Pamela by Samuel Richardson, these novels can even be interpreted as instructional and didactic for their European audience. The average European citizen, while possibly well-educated and versed in the subject of world culture, would have little knowledge of the vast cultural (and ethnic) differences found in the exotic foreigner; books similar to Oroonoko, especially with their journalistic, authentic style could serve as the primary source of information for these people.

In studying the development of a culture, particularly with its regards to world views and politics, it is imperative to consider the major influences that surround it. The mindsets of the Great British public can likely be diagnosed and studied with these sorts of significant novels in mind as objects of persuasion. Robinson Crusoe in particular speaks to issues that the public at the time would find naturally interesting: the arrival of the middle class into British society, and England’s colonial expansion over the rest of the world. Oroonoko is equally complicit in going along with the fantastical descriptions of the exotic that would satisfy curious European audiences, who are hungry for a sense of excitement in these new ...

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...tings, but as with Robinson Crusoe, the choice to establish a metaphor in the exotic, or specifically, an African slave proves valuable.

Because those monarchs who Behn supports – James II and his defeated predecessors – have spectacularly fallen so far from grace, there is no method more emphatic and tragic than portraying them in the shoes of a literal slave. Like Oroonoko, the trajectory that a dethroned monarch goes through is quite amazing: from absolute, respected ruler to one with a death warrant and a bloodthirsty public. There is no escape, just as the once royal Oroonoko finds himself completely hopeless despite his previously untouchable status. By way of embedding their politics, feelings, and ideals into figures of the exotic and the foreign, both Aphra Behn and Daniel Defoe in creatively redefine what it means to create a metaphor in the British novel.