Shaping and Misshaping Blacks in Aphra Behn's Oroonoko

Abstract

The above article excerpted from a recent issue of The New York Times captures the essentials of the never-ending process of the colonialization of the Third World. The dream of a materially enriched land of gold has inspired many imperialistic countries to venture out in unknown worlds, such as that surrounding the river, Orinoco. This is intriguing to us partly because the name of the river resembles the hero of Aphra Behn's early novel, Oroonoko. Later on, however, this simply eye-catching geographical name brings to mind the disturbing current state of suffering of the Third World. The article further goes on to describe a strip-mining existing operation since 1991 which, ironically, has been partly owned by the Venezuelan explorer and naturalist Charles Brewer, a highly respected research associate at the University of California and the New York Botanical Gardens. A Venezuelan congressional commission accused Mr. Brewer of having used scientific expeditions as a cover for the illegal mining of gold. Mr. Brewer's alleged expedition bears striking similarity to that of Sir Walter Raleigh four hundred years ago: The myth of gold has never been forgotten, and instead the search for it has been going on with more refined, and thus far more skillful, expeditions in its subtle subterfuge ever since Sir Walter Raleigh's search for El Dorado.