Oroonoko: slaves vs women

Oroonoko: slaves vs women

Slavery, Inequality

With the aim of annotations, the inequality in men and women during the 17th and 18th century was explained with reference to characters in Oroonoko, Pamela and Shemla. Slavery in that era was also touched upon, with some of it serving the purpose for making further investigation into understanding the social status of women of that time.

Junchen Lu

Behn, Aphra. Oroonoko : Or, The Royal Slave, The Floating Press, 2009. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/gatech/detail.action?docID=445923.
Created from gatech on 2020-01-28 17:10:54.

2020/2/12

Junchen Lu

Oroonoko, Pamela, Shamela, A Treatise of Human Nature, Second Treatise of Government 1688

English

“they suffered not like men who might find a glory and fortitude in oppression; but like dogs, that loved the whip and bell, and fawned the more they were beaten: that they had lost the divine quality of men, and were become insensible asses, fit only to bear[…]”

“if there were a woman among them so degenerate from love and virtue, to choose slavery before the pursuit of her husband, and with the hazard of her life to share with him in his fortunes that such a one ought to be abandoned, and left as a prey to the common enemy.”[…]

“for wives have a respect for their husbands equal to what any other people pay a deity; and when a man finds any occasion to quit his wife, if he loves her, she dies by his hand; if not, he sells her, or suffers some other to kill her.”[…]