One of the major themes found in Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko is the curse of beauty. Imoinda’s problems are linked directly to her physical appearance. It left me to wonder if Behn had make Imoinda less beautiful would she have suffered the same fate? There is an underlying anxiety surrounding the character of Imoinda because she possesses such great beauty. The narrator is unable to fully describe the depths of her splendor because “to describe her truly, one need only say, she was female to the noble male; the black Venus…of delicate virtues.” (Behn, 206) The idea of a “black Venus” was popularized during the European colonization of Africa. In Europe people were obsessed with the image of an over-sexualized African woman. Imoinda is described to be “[the] fair Queen of the Night.” (Behn, 207) The narrator makes a point to note that she is not only appealing to Oroonoko, but she has also captured the attention of white men who the narrator has seen “making a thousand vows at her feet, all in vain…[because she was] too great for any but a prince of her own nation to adore.” (Behn, 207) Behn plays into the obsession surrounding exotic beauty by leaving the reader longing to know more about Imoinda. The silence of the narrator towards describing Imoinda leaves room for the audience to fill in their personal expectations of foreign beauty, encapsulating the fear and fascination of the unknown.
Imoinda’s physical appearance is a curse in the story. The moral of the story seems to be that if a woman is too beautiful, she has relinquished any power that she could have had. It is because she is too lovely that the king becomes obsessed with owning her. Her beauty is seen as something to possess; she is not more than a trophy to any who have her, even Oroonoko. The narrator puts forth the idea that king cannot help but take Imoinda as his wife because she is overwhelmingly beautiful. The king sees her “as the most charming he had ever possessed in all the long race of his numerous years.” (Behn, 207) This puts the blame not on the king, but in Imoinda whom we should feel sorry for because her life is chosen for her. There is no condemnation towards the nasty old king who is obsessed with possessing Imoinda, but it is seen as perfectly normal because she is too beautiful and boys will be boys. Imoinda is given no power in the story; she is at the whim of her male counterparts and it is her appearance that makes this so.
A major topic in this course has been the discussions surrounding physical appearance and the perceptions of beauty in the texts that we have read. I think we must critically analyze this story. I do not think that it is a beautiful story about love conquering all; rather, I think it is a British woman’s fantasy of an exotic love story. Imoinda’s plight is her beauty, but it is made clear that she far exceeds any white woman in beauty because it is the mystery behind her exotic beauty that makes her so desirable. Her unfathomable loveliness is used as a plot device to draw us into a tragic foreign love story. What is not seen in this story is a confrontation with the horrors of slavery and the way in which the European colonists decimated and degraded any culture or group of people they believed to be different. This is not Romeo and Juliet; rather it is a story that further highlights the way in which European colonialists enslaved their captives by forcing their own ideals about beauty and love on anything that they viewed as alien.
Behn, Aphra. Oroonoko in The Broadview Anthology of British Literature: The Restoration and The Eighteenth Century. Toronto: Broadview Press. 2012.
Women Writers, 1660-1800 
Emily Jane: Thanks for the first post on Oroonoko! I found this text a very intense and moving read and I definitely agree with some of the observations you’ve made regarding the function of beauty in this work. In addition to your discussion regarding the “black Venus” and the “over-sexualized African woman”, I would also add that Behn does something many of our studied “Women’s Rights” poets do: they compare the highly sought, beautiful woman, from the suitor’s eyes, to natural imagery and/or deities to achieve a specific effect. The effect is that, upon reading such a comparison, the reader can mould into his/her image whatever he/she fancies the deified character might look like; one’s imagination is not limited to more precise descriptors, and thus the reader is able to interpret this beauty however he/she wishes.
While I can definitely see your point about a too beautiful woman’s often lack of agency in literature, I’m not sure if I agree that we can fully extend this to Imoinda. The king certainly treats her like an object, but does Oroonoko? He seems to make beautifully gentlemanly advances when he courts her – Behn writes that Oroonoko “knew no vice, his flame aimed at nothing but honour” (207). Also noteworthy is his commitment to stay loyal to one woman, an act all the more laudatory given that he has been raised among altogether different societal mores: “in [his] country … men take to themselves as many [women] as they can maintain” (207). Further, at the end of the text, Oroonoko relays to his wife first his design to kill her before actually committing the act. Although certainly perverse in nature, and a heart-wrenching testimony to the depravity to which the human soul can sink under the oppression of slavery, one must not forget the hero’s intentions. In speaking to his wife, he gains her permission, thus placing her desires before his own. Again, the result is not an act of love, but the reader can nevertheless see Oroonoko trying, under the circumstances, to do what he deems best for his wife and child, which, in my opinion, places him above the “trophy-seeker” husband.