The Interaction of Violence, Race and
the Erotic in Oroonoko

Throughout Oronoko, Behn consistently presents love and violence as being interlinked.
Specifically, this is seen through the characters of Imoinda and Ooronoko. Through this,
Behn eroticises violence. This raises an interesting conflict within Behn’s work; the
non-european characters are consistently presented as fulfilling a euro-centric
contemporary beauty and moral standard. Perhaps this is done to provide a cultural
reference point for Behn’s predominantly white, European audience. However
simultaneously, Behn uses eroticised violence against the non-european characters, thus
upholding preconceived notions of white supremacy. This essay will explore the
implications of this conflict, specifically its bearing on the critical view of Behn’s work as
liberatory and progressive.

A key moment in understanding Behn’s use of eroticised violence, is in the latter half of
the story where Oroonoko kills Imoinda. Behn portrays this death as being an
honourable, necessary sacrifice despite its violence. Behn refers to Imoinda as

‘the heroic wife pleading for death faster than he [Oroonoko] was to propose it’.

This places the non-european characters of Imoinda and Oroonoko squarely within the moral honour
system of the 1600s, perhaps humanising them to Behn’s contemporary and likely
predominantly white European audience. There is also an underlying erotic element, with
a clear mix of love and violence, Oroonoko being characterised as:

‘So greatly born [...]so beautiful, so young and so fond’ for his ostensibly violent and tragic actions.

serves to eroticise the violence in this scene, with Behn presenting Oroonoko violently
slitting Imoinda’s throat, as a loving, almost erotic outcome of their love. Simultaneously
Behn roots this in the moral value system of the 1600s, Imoinda seemingly robbed of
any autonomy. Behn tells her audience that wives in Oroonoko and Imoinda’s culture
supposedly have ‘a respect for their husbands equal to what any other people pay a
deity’.

Again, this deification of male violence, to Behn’s contemporary audience, could
perhaps be read as a sign of outstanding moral virtue and devotion from Imoinda. Yet it
is clear to a modern readership that Behn’s interlinking of violence and the erotic is