note -- because today's reading is also an essay due date, you can feel free to do this reading response after class, anytime before our Thursday (March 10) class. But the March 10 RR must be done on time.
1) The comic
plot is entirely Southerne’s invention. What do you make of the opening action,
with Charlotte and Lucy Welldon and with Widow Lackitt? Feel free to comment on
it either as a comic plot or as a side-plot in a tragedy.
or
2) The opening
action gives us several glimpses of Oroonoko, whose position is tragic when the
plot begins: he’s already a king who has been thrown down by fortune to the
position of slave. Comment on some of his kingly language in the early action.
E.g., “Tear off this pomp, and let me know myself” (1.2.270).
or
3) Southerne’s
Oroonoko includes a major adjustment
to Behn’s story, in the figure of Imoinda. Her whiteness in Southerne’s play
creates not a few parallels to Othello
(and other stories of love across racial or other divides). Take a look at 2.2
and other scenes in which this relationship is emphasized. What do you make of
it? Is it meant to be a kind of fairy tale? Or a more realistic representation?
Or
4) comment on some other aspect of the day’s
reading that strikes your fancy.
Considering the period in which this play was written, Oroonoko is such a surprising character. Although he starts the play as a slave, he has an air of nobility that sets him above the white colonists. I was surprised to see him depicted so royally, especially when compared to the backstabbing Captain and Lieutenant Governor. Actually, pretty much everyone in this play is plotting something, whether it's a marriage or a slave uprising. Still, Oronooko and Imoinda come across as more honest in their plot, and hey have the excuses of liberty for themselves and their unborn child. Oroonoko shines in comparison to the whites in every aspect: they kidnapped him, they scheme to take the wife he remained faithful to, and they break the honorable conditions of surrender he made with them. As surprised as I was to see an African placed so high above Englishmen in a Restoration piece, I was even more surprised to see Oroonoko repeatedly bashing Christianity. If our sympathies are supposed to lie with him, how can Southerne get away with taking shots (through Oroono) at the Church?
ReplyDeleteI find the fact that Oroonoko is the first character to speak in iambic pentametre fascinating. It’s as if the play isn’t serious or worthy of higher poetic conventions until he arrives on the scene (presumably because their plot is comedic; although some comedies are written in blank verse). And other characters only speak in the same metre when talking about or to him.
ReplyDeleteAt this point in time, I haven’t read the second half of the play yet, so I’m rather confused as to how the comedic parallel plot fits in with the Oroonoko-centered main plot. I actually don’t even understand why it’s necessary. We’ve established that the novella was very popular on its own, and Oroonoko’s story makes for a good-quality tragedy events-wise, and Southerne does good work when it comes to the poetry of it. I don’t know how excusable the change of Imoinda’s race is, but it’s not as insane, grand, or out-of-place a change as the addition of another cast of characters who seem to have little to no interaction with the title character. And the play is labelled as a tragedy--comedy is not only an addition to the novel, but unwanted and almost unwarranted according to the labeling of this adaptation (unless the Welldons’ have a tragic arc later on? I doubt it). If scenes needed to be added, Southerne could have invented some other hardship or the other for Oroonoko (poor guy), and left the Welldon plot out (or have even kept it as its own, separate play).
The comic plot at the beginning seems kind of unnecessary as I continue to read on. Will this become some sort of tangled subplot? Unlike other plays we have read, where there are many love stories tying into one, this love story (indicative of the title) is very central, and very unique. A romance between a black slave and a white slave was an extremely unusual plot for a play. One thing that struck me very strongly was that I half expected Oronooko to talk differently, as he is a slave and not English, yet the author gives him very refined speech. I think that was done on purpose, as the character needs to be likeable and relatable to the audience. I am really curious to read a review or hear some sort of reaction from audience members at the time to see if they were offended in any way, or shocked at the prospect of a black man marrying a white woman.
ReplyDelete