Aphra Behn is a complicated figure within English theatrical history. As the first woman in England to classify herself as a professional writer and playwright, she wrote to support herself and to prove a point during a time when women were deemed subordinate to men. She was a commoner among royals, revolting against the societal norms of her time with her vulgar, yet ingeniously crafty works. Behn's influence extends far beyond being just a writer of her time period; rather, she left a mark as a pillar of English literature. She was an adventurist, an abolitionist, feminist, and civil rights advocate who used pen and paper to reiterate her ideology, which is demonstrated through her novels, Oroonoko: or the Royal Slave and The Rover. Her works and the influences they cast prove Aphra Behn to be a dramatist worthy of the ranks of other famous British writers of this time period. .
Aphra Behn's life is marked by much uncertainty. There is little known about her early years and "neither as a man, nor an aristocrat, nor a conformist, she proves peculiarly resistant to biographical recovery" [ CITATION Wil l 1033 ]. Since Behn was a single female commoner, there are very few historical records of her and her past. Historians have pieced together that she was born in Kent in 1640, and she was the second daughter of a barber, Bartholomew Johnson, and a wet nurse, Elizabeth Denham [ CITATION Bio15 l 1033 ]. It is believed that Denham's job as a caretaker for an upper class family allowed Behn the opportunity to receive some sort of second hand education [ CITATION Bio15 l 1033 ]. Through her works of prose and poetry, this author presents herself as "a woman of learning" who clearly obtained some means of schooling in her past [ CITATION Gel12 l 1033 ]. In her teenage years, Behn and her family allegedly journeyed from England to the British colony of Surinam because of her father's transferal there due to a military appointment [ CITATION Bio15 l 1033 ].
Then I came across a woman named Aphra Behn. Behn was a pioneer of women's literature. ... Unlike most women in the 1600's, Aphra Behn had few responsibilities, and a great deal of freedom. In Behn's era women generally did numerous chores around the house. ... Aphra Behn strictly wrote for money and public acclaim. ...
Amazingly this tumultuous and repressive period would spark a new generation of dramatic and comedy writers including William Wycherley, George Farquhar, William Congreve, and Aphra Behn. (Barton,3) Given a period with such socio-historical background and male dominated constraint, an era where women publishing their writings tantamount prostitution, Aphra Behn remains the first professional woman who boldly and openly entered the masculine area of play writing. Even Virgina Wolf praises her by saying All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn... for it was she ...
"Oroonoko" is a work of fiction by Aphra Behn, published in 1688. ... Upon arriving at the plantation, Oroonoko was immediately seen by the slaves as a king and they soon began to worship him (Behn, p. 941). ... " (Behn, p. 1129) Behn's depiction of Surinam as a good and holy place, reinforces the ideology that Oroonoko's tale was a reconstruction of Christian scripture. ... [paying] him even divine homage" (Behn, p. 1126) from the other slaves. ... Deception and betrayal leads to destruction as shown in the novel when the slaves left Oroonoko to revolt all by himself (Behn...
James II, the successor, was on the throne when Aphra Behn's book Oroonoko was published. ... Aphra Behn condemns what she sees as a corruption of noble values in the Christian world through Oroonoko's honorable character; slavery is merely an institution that makes the corruption clear. ... The corruption of noble values are visible in Behn's book. ... Behn indirectly condemns the captain's act: "Some have commended this Act, as brave, in the captain; but I will spare my sense of it [ ]" (Behn 31). ... Behn condemns this corruption but not the institution. ...
Aphra Behn's genre-blending tale "Oroonoko" melds travel narrative with fictional biography to tell the story of Prince Oroonoko, "the royal slave. ... Indeed, Behn measures and praises Oroonoko's masculinity only in terms of these parallels. ... Furthermore, this paper will analyze the texts of Oroonoko and Addison and Steele's The Spectator to demonstrate how certain writers of the time dealt with "the other " via subjective cultural standards. ... Behn partially attributes Oroonoko's "humanity " to this tutelage. ... From these details it becomes apparent that Behn...
Then, a female writer, Aphra Behn, tells the story of an enslaved African prince. Aphra Behn, herself, grew up in troubled times. ... Aphra Behn was a visionary who liked to see herself as independent. ... However, the story is told through the eyes of the narrator, who one believes to be Aphra Behn. ... Aphra Behn and her story brought attention to the plight of the slave. ...
Oroonoko, "The Royal Slave", was written by Aphra Behn to counter some of the negative images that people have of blacks. Aphra Behn is a female writer from 1688, which is a good period of time after the slave trade begun. ... Aphra Gehn captures the market of literate women and gives them a different experience of literature. ... Aphra Behn takes the harsh extreeme treatment of the slaves and portrayes them in another extreme as a non-working, good-looking, and well-dressed slave. ...
Due to this, it could be assumed that Alpha Behn is against slavery. ... Behn described him more like a dark roman than an African. ... I believe that Behn is attempting to show that these slaves are not so different than the Europeans, though in skin pigmentation. ... I think that Behn is showing these similarities to show that there is no large difference between the Europeans and the Africans and thus it is wrong to enslave them. ...
