Aphra Behns Life, Canon - Term Paper Example

Aphra Behn Introduction Throughout history certain individuals have had the courage to stand up to the ideologies of the time and set the stage for future changes. They were visionaries viewed by their times as rebels without a cause. One of those unique individuals was Aphra Behn. Due to the slow changes towards women’s rights, she was only discovered and accepted by a more modern audience. Her work in literature is outstanding, yet not necessarily the best by today’s standards. She is, however, the creator of a new style of writing. By today’s standards her language is tame, but by the standards of her time, she was scandalous and out of place in a man’s world. She stood up and demanded to be heard and accepted; she never looked back and always stood her ground. She is certainly not to be forgotten. This essay functions as a general retrospective of the life and writings of Aphra Behn. Section I considers her background and career as a writer, including her time spent working as a spy for England; section II is an in-depth analysis of one of Behn’s most renowned works, the novel Oroonoko; finally, section III considers the extent to which Aphra Behn should assume her rightful place among the Western literary canon, ultimately arguing for her inclusion. I. Life Aphra Behn, also known as Afra, Aphara, or Ayfara, was baptized at Waye, Kent, in 1640. Behn’s father was a barber named John Johnson. During the restoration period in which her father was raised record keeping wasn’t as well structured as contemporary standards; as a result, Behn’s father’s status is not entirely known and parts of Behn’s early childhood are shrouded in history. As a result, historians turn to her works for insight into these early childhood years. During these years she went to Surinam, and then in 1658 she returned to England. Behn’s time in Surinam was a pivotal development period in her life, as it was during this period that she acquired significant historical knowledge of the area, as well as personal knowledge of the African prince Oroonoko. Later in life this experience would be explored in her seminal novel Oroonoko (Hobby 1990). After returning to England from Surinam she married a London merchant with a Dutch extraction. Her intelligence and extraordinary wit made her a favorite at the royal court. After her husband’s death Charles II appointed her to a position as a spy within Netherlands for the Dutch war. She proved to be an effective spy for England; her code name was “Astrea”, and she was also known as Agent one hundred and sixty. She eventually grew tired of her spy role and returned home. She lived the rest of her live in England and supported herself through her writing. Aphra Behn was a great women but “…she was considered by scandal mongers a Venus of easy virtue…” (Link, p.23). ” Despite what has been written about her in the nearly three hundred years since her death, the character given her by the author of the “Memoirs” portrays her as an astute and highly talented individual. Ms. Behn was the first woman to depend on her talents and industry for her bread. Her first two plays, The Forced Marriage and The Amorous Prince did well, but her third play, The Dutch Lover was accepted with great reviews. Ms. Behn felt the critics were unfair because she was a woman. She went on saying that the critics "...had objected only because of her sex. Her defense had to be made again and again in her career; the Grub Street hacks apparently resented a womans presence in their world, and never ceased criticizing her works and her morals...Women were not supposed to write bawdy on equal terms with men." (Link, p. 22). Aphra Behn was a woman who made her own rules. She was good enough to be a spy for the king but she wasnt good enough to write. She didnt sit back to let her dreams go to waste; she made choices and pressed on. She is a good example that if one is willing to face the challenges, dreams will come true. II. Analysis Literature often deals with the notion of a perfect world. This too is present in Aphra Behn’s novel Oroonoko. This perfect portrayal of the world seemed to be a bit evident in the beginning of the story but it is soon shattered. There are many “illusions to a pure world but the characters are too problematic,” as stated in a critical review of the story (Woodcock, 137). Even in the main character Oroonoko there are problems. First of all, he is a man of color but he is treated with some equality among the whites. This seems like an early notion of equality but one must keep in mind that Oroonoko did not look like a man of color. “His face was not of brown rusty Black which most of that Nation are, but a perfect Ebony, or polished Jet. His Eyes were the most aweful that could be seen, and very piercing; the White of ‘em being like Snow, as were his Teeth. His nose was rising and Roman, instead of African and flat,” as stated in the story (Behn, 136). This seems to deconstruct the notion of equality because he looks like a white man. Behn realistically crafts her hero by not only giving him common protagonist traits but negative attributes as well, making Oroonoko flawed and not perfect. He is shown as intelligent, passionate and a role model to the other slaves and characters in the book. Although he is compared to Mars, the Roman God of war, he is still given very human characteristics such as being temperamental, selfish, and wishy-washy in his actions. In an attempt to link European readers with Oroonoko and take a negative stance on slavery, Behn not only compares Oroonoko to European men in appearance, education and royal bearing, but also suggests that Oroonoko is better. This juxtaposition, however, leads Behn to realistically have her hero fail at the end of the story. Despite being compared to Europeans, he is a slave, not a European man and being both did not work. There is another status contradiction in the book that leads to Oroonoko’s failure as well, because although he is an African royal and has a natural nobility about him, it still does not cancel out slavery. Thus, Behn ruthlessly and rationally has him die in the end, because Oroonoko would never be able to overcome his class boundary in the eighteenth century while remaining regal and god-like. The second thing that must be analyzed is the notion of power over love. This is strongly present in the text. Oroonoko and Imoinda seem to share a genuine love, a pure love. They want to be together forever and they take the proper steps to do this. The only step that they have not taken is to have relations with each other. They exchange vows but never consummate the relationship. They also exchange their vows in secret. This proves to be a problem. Oroonoko’s grandfather, who is the king, wants Imoinda because she is the most beautiful woman in the land. In that society, the king is supposed to have the best of all things. Imoinda was the best woman. Despite the love that Oroonoko and Imoinda share, the king still gets her. He does not get her heart but he does get her body. Lucky for Imoinda he is impotent thus unable to make their commitment “true.” So what is this saying about the role of sex, power, and love? “The author’s most explicit statement of a major theme: the conflict between sex and society. In the Edenic world of the poem, in which ‘Right and Property were words since made,’ lovers are restrained only by the vows to each other,” as stated in the book (Link, 110). So were the vows taken by Imoinda and Oroonoko enough to appease the king? We will never know because the king had no knowledge of their vows. Despite these instances of realism there are many suspensions of disbelief in the novel that undermine the reality. For instance, Oroonoko and his love Imoinda both happen to be sent to Suriname and not sold to different parts of North America. Oroonoko also makes some very non-hero-like choices that negate his good guy status, such as killing his wife, Imoinda, and his unborn child in a claimed attempt to save them from becoming slaves and being killed by his enemies. He tells her of his “design to first of Killing her, and this Enemies, and next himself” (61). However, after “sacrificing” his wife he does not in turn kill himself like he said he would or avenge his wife’s death or kill his enemies; but instead he sulks for a few days. Also, his motives can be questioned in his reasoning to kill his wife when he tells her of the “impossibility of escaping, and therefore he told her the necessity of dying” (61). Yet, she probably would not have been killed, because she was very pretty and Behn writes that many white men liked her and tried to gain her favor; also it was taboo to kill a pregnant woman. Most likely Imoinda would have been considered a high commodity and would not have been killed, especially with the possibility of having an equally beautiful child on the way. Thus, he may have been acting selfish and egocentric, and in seeing his wife as a liability, did not want her to survive without him or be with anyone else. The text also states that Imoinda was able to survive on her own when Oroonoko was absent and still remain with her "virtue" intact. Given the fact that she was a slave and very beautiful it is hard to believe that they would not have taken advantage of her. Imoinda is almost like a female version of Oroonoko, virtuous and beautiful, but she is too extreme and too much of a martyr that she becomes an unrealistic archetype of ideal femininity. Despite the fact that she was described as Venus and god-like as well, she more than willingly allows Oroonoko to kill her and her unborn child. Aphra Behns Oroonoko is very revolutionary in the eighteenth century for its use of realism. Despite Behns efforts to be more true to life, there are still many unrealistic elements that cause suspension and disbelief in the narrative. III. Canon When considering whether Aphra Behn should be included in the contemporary Western Canon of literature there are a number of issues that individuals must consider. Perhaps most prominently among these issues is the complete dearth of recognized 17th century female authors. While retrospectively, literary historians have attempted to place these individuals in their rightful context the challenge of determining what writers are truly ‘worthy’ of inclusion in the canon of literature. Through an examination of the pertinent issues of her literary career and life, this section considers the extent that Aphra Behn should be placed within the Western Canon of literature, ultimately arguing that her unique talent was suppressed during her lifetime and is worthy of this honor. The absence of female authors and significant women characters in the literature of the Restoration period is almost unthinkable. It is during the eighteenth century that Aphra Behn appeared. She “was a professional spy for England, code-named ‘Astrea’ or Agent 160. She was the first professional female writer in England, and for the first twenty years of her career, she was the only female playwright” (“Aphra Behn”). Behn’s role as a female author in the eighteenth century became so crucial that, later, Virginia Woolf states that “all women together ought let flowers fall upon the grave of Aphra Behn, [. . .] for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds” (qtd. in Abrams, 1C: 2166). Behn even goes as far as to publicly yearn to be recognized in the same manner as the men of the era: “Had the Plays I have writ come forth under any Man’s Name, and never known to have been mine; I appeal to all unbyast Judges of Sense, if they had not said that Person has maid as many good Comedies, as any one Man that has writ in our Age; but a Devil on’t the Woman damns the poet” (Lewis 2). Her works were considered scandalous for a long time, both during and after her life, for their use of female characters in the exploration of women’s sexuality. In “The Disappointment,” Cloris, the female virgin of a couple about to attempt to make love, for the male is ironically described as the impotent one who cannot enjoy the act, is described as being in a “trance, / which love and soft desire had bred,” a trance so potent that it makes her appear as though “half dead and breathless” (101-2, 55). During a time period when women are not allowed to enjoy sex and are to keep themselves from it except for procreation purposes, Behn challenges the patriarchal society in which she resides through the female characters she creates, characters that, like Cloris, enjoy sex and practice it willingly for reasons other than reproduction. In her poem “The Golden Age,” Behn attacks society’s view of female sexual desire as sin by stating the following: “Oh cursed Honor! thou who first didst damn / A woman to the sin of shame; / Honor! that robbst us of our gust” (qtd. in Lewis 3). In her play Sir Patient Fancy, she seems to state one of her key complaints against the sexist society of Restoration society: “[male-dominated] Custom is unkind to our Sex, not to allow us free choice” (qtd. in Lewis 3). Ultimately, if previous women writers paved the way for female writers to come, through Behn’s work women are introduced to their own involvement and role in typically taboo themes, such as sexuality, opening the minds of future readers to what females should write about: anything men can write about. For these reasons it’s clear that Aphra Behn was not only a talented writer, but an individual of considerable foresight and resilience; as such her inclusion in the Western Canon of literature is well warranted. Conclusion In conclusion, it’s clear that Aphra Behn was a seminal writer of her era. As she was a female her accomplishments went under appreciated by the cultured elite of her time. In retrospect it’s clear that Behn was a seminal writer of her era. She explored a number of taboo topics, including race and slavery, within her works, pushing the bounds of writers both male and female. In addition, Behn lived an extraordinary life, even working as a spy for Charles II during the Dutch War. In all Aphra Behn is one of the great female writers who went tragically underappreciated during her lifetime. References "Aphra Behn.” Imagi-nation.com. Moonstruck Drama Bookstore. November 2003. Abrams, M.H., ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 7th ed. 1A-C vols. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2000. Behn, Aphra. “Oroonoko.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Ed. A.H. Abrams. New York. W.W Norton and Company, Inc 2000. Hobby, Elaine. (1990) Women, Writing, History: 1640-1740. Ed. Isobel Grundy and Susan Wiseman. Lewis, Nikky. “A Name that More Approaches Truth.” Working paper, 2003. 27 November 2003 . Link, Frederick M. Aphra Behn, New York: Twayne Publishers, Inc.,1968. 17-28.London: B.T. Batsford Ltd, 1992. Woodcock, Nestvold. Aphra Behn and the Beginnings of a Female Narrative Voice. 22 Mar. 2004. Read More