Prince oroonoko6/22/2023 ![]() ![]() Southerne's Oroonoko, however, depicts a third slave of almost equal importance to the prince and his wife: Oroonoko's attendant, Aboan, second only to the title character in the original productions printed cast list. Lesser-born slaves, the play appears to conclude, deserve their condition, if not its associated cruelties. (3) Like his prototype in the play's source, Aphra Behn's novella Oroonoko Or The Royal Slave (1688), Oroonoko, is, in fact, an extraordinary case: an idealized member of the nobility whose English owners condemn his bondage and exempt him and his wife, Imoinda, from the harsh labor and punishments that slaves typically experience. (1) By concentrating on Oroonoko, an African prince, many scholars argue that Southerne (1660-1746) objects, not to slavery, but to either the enslavement of aristocrats (2) or the institution's excessive brutality. ![]() Critics generally base their analyses of ambivalent representations of slavery in Oroonoko, Thomas Southernes popular 1695 play, on its hero. ![]()
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