Oroonoko

When they believe that Imoinda is dead the king’s subjects admit that Oroonoko loved her all along. The king, having no other heir and relying on Oroonoko to lead his army, begins to worry about the effect news of Imoinda’s death will have on his grandson. He begins to regret his actions and acknowledges that he should have put Imoinda “nobly” (36) to death, not sold her “like a common slave” (36). He sends a messenger to inform Oroonoko of Imoinda’s death. 

Oroonoko is about to go into battle but receives the king’s messenger with joy, believing that he is going to be pardoned by the king. Seeing the messenger’s sad face, however, he guesses the truth and lies down, overcome with grief. The messenger asks the king’s pardon and whether or not Oroonoko intends to exact revenge on his grandfather. Oroonoko has no thoughts of revenge, but is so overwhelmed by grief that he cannot move from the ground—not even to lead his troops into battle. 

Aboan takes charge, but the army is in disarray and faces certain defeat. As their enemy approaches the camp, the men scatter and Oroonoko is roused from his grief, preferring to die in battle than to be taken as a slave by Jamoan, the enemy. Dressed for battle, he looks “like some Divine Power” and he leads his men to victory, defeating Jamoan and taking him as a slave. 

After the battle, Oroonoko Is reluctant to return to court and it takes many invitations from the king before he agrees to return. There, he is a changed man, with no interest in love. Instead he turns his attention to the captain of an English slave ship, a man Oroonoko has met before and whom he finds well-spoken and courteous. Oroonoko sold most of the slaves he had captured in the recent battle to the captain and gave him many gifts. They became friends and to repay Oroonoko’s kindness, the captain invites him aboard his ship for dinner. 

Oroonoko accepts the captain’s invitation and along with Aboan, his French tutor, and Jamoan, whom he had grown to love like a brother, as well as a group of young men from the King’s Court, they board the ship. There, they are entertained and given much to drink while they explore the vessel. Suddenly, on the captain’s orders, Oroonoko and his friends are seized and chained up, as the ship leaves port. 

The narrator informs us that “Some have Commended this Act, as brave in the Captain” (46) but she leave it up to her reader to judge whether or not this is so. Try as he might, Oroonoko cannot get free from his chains; he cannot even free his hand to kill himself. Instead, he resolves to starve himself to death and his friends all follow suit. The captain, foreseeing the financial loss their deaths will mean to him, is furious and tells Oroonoko that if he will call off the hunger strike, he will set them free at the next port. Oroonoko, no longer trusting the captain’s word, refuses and will only call the hunger strike off if he himself is set free. Despite his fear that Oroonoko will seek vengeance if he is untied, the captain eventually agrees and Oroonoko convinces his people to eat again. 

Oroonoko thinks that his enslavement is a punishment for having left Imoinda at the Otan while he fled to the war camp.

The ship eventually reaches Surinam, where they were to deliver some of the slaves on board. Among those purchasing slaves is the overseer of the plantation where the narrator lived. At the last minute, the captain breaks his word to Oroonoko and includes his people among the slaves being sold, though he is careful not to sell two of them together, in case they should try and escape or plan a rebellion.

Oroonoko himself is among those slaves taken to the narrator’s plantation and understands that it would be useless to resist. Instead, he glares at the captain and tells him that his word is as meaningless as the gods he swears by. The overseer, Trefry, is a “Man of great Wit, and fine Learning” (50) who had been brought to Surinam by the Lord Governor to manage his affairs. He overhears Oroonoko’s words to the captain and suspects that he is no ordinary slave. On their journey to the plantation, Parham-House, the two come to respect and admire each other and on learning Oroonoko’s true identity, Trefry promises to help him return home.

Oroonoko’s fame has preceded him down the river and everywhere they stop they are greeted by crowds who have gathered to see him. Even those who didn’t know he was a prince couldn’t help treating him differently than an ordinary slave. 

As is the custom for a new slave, Trefry gives Oroonoko a new name: Caesar. This is the name the narrator uses for the rest of the novella. She laments the fact that his story had to be written by a “Female Pen” (53) but explains that when the Dutch took over Surinam they killed many of the people who remembered Caesar.

At Parham-House, Caesar receives a reception fit for the king, rather than a slave. While he is assigned a house in the slave quarter and given a particular role on the plantation, the narrator tells us that “he endured no more of the slave but the name” (54). When he meets the other slaves, he discovers that they are mostly those people he sold into slavery himself. They greet him like a god and confirm his story. Caesar is distressed by the slaves’ reaction and tells them to treat him like a slave. They refuse and instead “prepared their barbarous Musick” (55) and a feast for him. 

At the feast, Trefry tells Caesar of a beautiful female slave who has been at the plantation for six months. Every slave, and some white men too, are in love with her, but she is very shy and rejects any man’s attention. Caesar cannot understand why her masters don’t force her to satisfy their desires and Trefry admits that he has been tempted but has been disarmed by her modesty and her weeping. While the other men laugh at the kindness he shows to the slave, Caesar applauds his honor and nobility.

The next day, Trefry offers to introduce Caesar to this woman slave, Clemene, though he warns Caesar not to get too close, in case he falls in love with her too. Caesar assures Trefry that he is immune to love. When she sees the two men, Clemene attempts to return to her cottage but Trefry grabs her hand and won’t let her. She refuses to look at them but even then, Caesar knows that Clemene is actually Imoinda. He is frozen with shock until Imoinda falls and then he leaps to catch her. The lovers are reunited.